Tag: göbekli tepe

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World History

Welcome to Greece and Pakistan!

instrument tray on table

Welcome to Greece!

Welcome to 7000 B.C.!

Welcome to Pakistan!

Surprise!

Welcome to Greece and Pakistan!

It’s time to move on, both in location and history. But first, let’s recap what has been happening in Greece. It’s not much.

Welcome to Greece!

Greece was inhabited by hunter-gatherers like many other lands before the time of the flood. (A significant hiatus noted by archeologists in the geological layers probably relates to the flood.) Greece then was re-occupied.

Although there are several sites available, Franchthi Cave demonstrates occupation for all time periods prior to 3000 B.C. We’ll be using that site for our information.

The re-occupation continued until the first building of Göbekli Tepe. During this time, wild lentils, pistachios, and almonds were added to meat discoveries. The steppe ass continued to be the meat of choice. Land snails were popular on the menu.

At the very end of this period, red deer became the most popular meat. Bits of obsidian that have been traced to the island of Melos began to appear. Melos is 92 miles southeast. Apparently, these people possessed navigational skills.

After the appearance of the Egyptian Faiyum culture, the people of the Franchthi Cave learned to produce micro-flaked blades. Now, the diet is red deer supplemented with pig and small fish.

About the time the Swiderians moved on, the Greeks of the cave changed their diet from large animals to large fish, indicating more advanced seafaring. At this time the waters of the Mediterranean Sea had encroached upon the shoreline almost up to the cave.

The oldest burial is dated from the end of this period. A twenty-six year old man lays toward the entrance to the cave on a deposit of burned shell. Scattered bones indicate that this area was also used for cremation burials.

A five hundred year occupation hiatus occurs. Perhaps the cave was flooded and therefore unable to be occupied.

Then, for a considerable time, the cave indicates domestication of wheat, sheep, and goats. Obsidian is found more frequently. The few pots are small and could not be used for cooking.

Welcome to 7000 B.C.!

According to TGD (traditional geological dating), it’s 7000 B.C.: 1000 years since the Swiderians left Göbekli Tepe. The Faiyum culture is going strong.

Those living in the Franchthi Cave have progressed to Urfimis: pottery for serving, not cooking, decorated with geometric designs. (Where have we heard that before?) Small shell beads and amulets are common, as well as tools for making them.

For the first time, structures are built on the beach in front of the cave.

Within the cave, many more burials exist including numerous infant burials. One of them contained the grave goods of a small marble bowl and a broken ceramic vessel.

None of these Greek settlements have been dignified with the classification of a culture.

Welcome to Pakistan!

It’s much different in 7000 B.C. Pakistan.

A small farming village is settled at Mehrgarh. Surprisingly, it is not on a river.

However, it is located near Bolan Pass, one of the main routes connecting southern Afghanistan and the Indus Valley. Obviously, there is enough trade potential in this village and the Indus Valley to encourage treks through the treacherous mountains.

Mehrgarh was built as a base camp by semi-nomadic people. During this first period, which would last until 5500 B.C., the settlement was used to cultivate six-row barley, emmer wheat, jujubes, and dates. They domesticated sheep, goats, and cattle.

Mud-brick buildings contained four rooms. There was no pottery for cooking or serving. Tools were made of local copper. Grain was stored in granaries using large bitumen-lined baskets.

There is no evidence of government or religion. However many burials have been found complete with generous grave goods: baskets, stone and bone tools, and occasional animal sacrifices. Ornaments abound: beads, bangles, and pendants. These were made from sea shells, the precious stones of turquoise and lapis lazuli, limestone and sandstone, and polished copper. Simple figures of women and animals also appear. Male burials contain the majority of grave goods.

Surprise!

In this oldest area of Merhgarh, evidence was found of dentistry! A dozen molar crowns still in place have been found which were drilled while the person was alive.

With what? I don’t think copper tools would be strong enough to do that. No dental tools have been found. How did dentistry happen to develop here, in this remote place? Who was this first dentist?

Photo credit: Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Categories
World History

Elsewhere in the World….

globe

Between the Time of the Flood and Göbekli Tepe

During the Göbekli Tepe Era

After Göbekli Tepe

The First Merlins?

Elsewhere in the World….

Between the Time of the Flood and Göbekli Tepe

In the world prior to Göbekli Tepe, people spread out in small family communities for hunting, fishing, and gathering.

Europe

Remember those Reindeer People who migrated to France and Spain? They eventually migrated to Britain. The earliest tools were found on the Suffolk Coast. They shared Britain with mammoths, rhinos, and giant beavers.

It seems that humans disappeared during the last ice period. Britain was then recolonized.

Although southern Europe had a much better climate and sites of obsidian, there was no significant culture there.

The Americas

We have already talked about the Pre-Clovis Culture of the Eastern United States which was begun by the cultures that swept from northwestern Asia westward through Europe.

That same group of Reindeer People later swept eastward through Russia to enter Alaska by walking over the Bering Strait when it was frozen during the last ice period. They migrated throughout the western and southern United States.

As part of this migration, the Folsom Culture reigned in the Great Plains of the United States, as indicated by a unique leaf-shaped point. These people hunted an extinct form of bison as well as smaller animals. Later, these bison were killed more safely and efficiently by running entire herds over a cliff.

Later, the Clovis culture developed as defined by their invention of the Clovis point. Chipped from brittle stone such as jasper, chert, and obsidian, it was lance shaped and slicing sharp. It was four inches long, one-third of an inch thick, and fluted for attachment to a shaft. The chipping alternated on both faces. It has been found throughout the western United States and as far south as Venezuela.

The Clovis people were hunter-gatherers. They primarily hunted small mammals, but Clovis points have been found among mammoth ribs. It is thought that the Clovis people dared attack these dangerous animals because they were already dying and were easily found near water holes.

The Clovis point was the first invention made in America!

Asia and Africa

There were no significant cultures during this time period.

Summary

You can see that other than the invention of a tool here or a new weapon point there, no culture developed in the world between the time of the flood and Göbekli Tepe.

During the Göbekli Tepe Era

The Egyptian Faiyum Culture became the first culture to develop after the time of the flood. It inhabited the area of the Faiyum Oasis near Lake Qaroun, which is all that remains of an ancient inland sea. It is southwest of Giza. Communities grew from single tribes to several small tribes traveling together.

In the south central Mexican Valley of Tehuacán, people began to experiment with a grain called teosinte. This work eventually resulted in maize, or corn!

In Mesopotamia, wild cereals were now cultivated throughout this time period, but that did not mean a less mobile culture.

There were no significant advancements in Britain, China, India, or Greece.

After Göbekli Tepe

At the end of the Swiderian reign in Göbekli Tepe, kilns were once again built in Mesopotamia to fire pottery. Prehaps Swiderian magi were responsible for this.

The Faiyum people now depended on agriculture as well as hunting and gathering. Most of the settlements were permanent, not mobile. The people built reed huts with underground cellars for grain storage. Cattle, sheep, and goats were domesticated. Basket and pottery making developed.

Different tribes lived together permanently. During this time, tribal chieftains were endowed with the power to rule.

The First Merlins?

I often wonder if the Swiderians continued to absorb and teach knowledge. Were they the first magi, contributing to many cultures as itinerant wizards? Were they the first Merlins?

Is that why distant and disparate cultures often developed similar structures, cultural marks, and legends?

Photo credit: Arpit Rastogi on Unsplash

Categories
World History

Göbekli Tepe: What Have We Learned?

held upright fork

We’ve spent a lot of time on Göbekli Tepe. We’re done. It’s time to “put a fork in it” and examine what we have learned.

The facts are what we see at the site. The rest is speculation.

What is the strongest line of logic?

  1. The site must have been chosen for a purpose since there were so many negatives: scaling the highest mountain in the range and hauling supplies up to it, no fresh water, quarries some distance away, and ignorant locals. That purpose seems to have been an unobstructed view of the sky. It was the world’s first observatory.
  2. The site was probably engineered and supervised by the Swiderians, who seemed to have the habit of absorbing knowledge of various groups they encountered in their travels, synthesizing that knowledge, and using it to control the local population.
  3. The Swiderians had engineering knowledge we don’t have, at least regarding how to erect the structures with only tools of stone and wood. They probably had knowledge of sailing. What else did they know for which they left us no clues?
  4. The local population consisted of hunter-gatherers and, therefore, they moved from site to site. This disproves the theory that culture always arises from hunter-gatherers who subsequently adopted agriculture.
  5. Göbekli Tepe required a large work force, but no settlements have been found. Nor are there dwelling places within the site.
  6. With the observatory, and the catalog of animals carved into T pillars, it seems that Göbekli Tepe was the first university. People came to learn, then returned to their homelands.
  7. If you believe the Genesis account, learning would have been easy because everyone was already closely related by blood and spoke the same language.
  8. The Swiderian belief system was different from other cultures. Instead of man being an equal part of the world with animals, the enormous humanoid T Pillars that dwarf carvings of animals indicate that man was now considered of supreme importance.
  9. Ideograms were used. It also seems that at least some groups of carvings are positioned purposefully to give information.
  10. As tempting as it is to call this a temple, the logic seems to be very weak. One can’t say that later similar structures were temples and therefore this one is, because this site is the first and later structures could be corruptions…as we see within Göbekli Tepe itself. There is no altar. Feasts can be held without religion. There are no burials, as are often seen with later religious sites. We don’t know what the ideograms and carved groups mean.

     Let’s look at the vulture with the circle on its wing. It doesn’t have to be a vulture cult. First, the carved vultures are far from being large enough to be the religious center. If the circle does represent a human soul, the carving does not have to mean that the vulture, the bird of death, is responsible for transporting the soul to its final destination. It could be simply a statement of belief that after death the person lives on.

  1. If there is religion at the site, it would probably be centered on the most impressive structures: the seeing stone and the humanoid T pillars. If the pillars represent gods, that would indicate religion, but they could just as easily represent heroes or ancestors.
  2. The navigation they learned from Western Europe and the massive architectural structure imply an extensive use of mathematics. In navigation, the captain has to know how to plot his position and how to navigate to his destination.

In architecture, the Swiderians didn’t choose the circle, a shape easily made with a stake and a string. Instead, they preferred an oval.

Maybe they had someone who could freehand an oval the size of a structure, but that would be washed out by the next rain. Perhaps they knew advanced geometry using stakes, lines, and arcs to construct one. Or they knew the algebraic formula for the perimeter of an oval: π × (a + b) [1 + (3 × h/ (10 + √ (4 – 3h)))].

  1. The final mystery: why were the various structures filled in? The ones most carefully packed with skulls and tools and construction rubbish and dirt would have been constructed under Swiderians. The best guess is that they were already constructing the next enclosure because of a shift in the constellations they chose to observe. The first enclosure was packed carefully, almost reverently, as no longer useful.

     The second one was packed almost as carefully, but damage was done or it was completely emptied before being backfilled.

The Swiderians seem to have left during the construction of the third enclosure, leaving ignorant workers whose construction and later backfilling was sloppy.

Göbekli Tepe and the advances in knowledge that it represents are truly mysterious and awe inspiring!

Photo credit: Valiant Made on Unsplash

Categories
World History

Night Falls on Göbekli Tepe

Night Falls on Göbekli Tepe

Where Did the Swiderians Go?

Enclosure B

Enclosure A

Enclosures F-T

Night Falls

Night Falls on Göbekli Tepe

Where Did the Swiderians Go?

It is unlikely that the Swiderians stayed around after losing control. We know Swiderian culture continued for a while in Poland and western Russia so perhaps at least some Swiderians returned there. But there is another possibility.

Pillar 28 of Enclosure C has three ideograms on the edge facing (or supposed to face) the central pillars. The top figure is a C tipped over on its points. Below that is a horizontal hot dog. At the bottom is a C turned on its curve like a cup.

In the book Göbkli Tepe: Genesis of the Gods, there is a photograph of this set of ideograms on page 54. What gives me chills is the photograph beside it. A Central Australian aboriginal medicine man named Worgaia has the same group of symbols on his body from just above the nipple line to his belly button!

Deep breath. That is shocking enough to knock one right between the eyes! But now, we must think. How could this happen? There are four possibilities.

  1. The identical group of ideograms were developed independently by a survival culture in Australia and the highest culture of the time: the Swiderians.
  2. The Australians traveled to Göbekli Tepe.
  3. The Swiderians traveled to Australia.
  4. Extraterrestrials taught both cultures the ideograms.

Recalling the rule that the simplest answer is usually the correct one, I choose the travelling Swiderians.

They came from Western Europe where we have already learned that an earlier culture may have sailed to North America.

We can surmise that while making great strides in architecture, the Swiderians were advancing in other fields of knowledge as well. We just don’t have any records of it.

Do you remember that when we covered ancient Australian art carvings that the ones who made them told the original Australians about the Ancestors and related ceremonies? Do you remember that the Australians were told that they were responsible for the welfare of the earth, and that is why the ceremonies had to be done precisely? (https://lynnbrownwriter.com/blog/ September 12, 2022)

That sounds just like the Swiderians.

If the Swiderians traveled to Australia, where else might they have gone? And if they went multiple places, might they have survived and been responsible for further development of mammoth architecture?

I’m sorry to switch gears, but do you know what really irritates me about the photograph of the Australian shaman? There is no note that the photographer asked what the ideogram meant!

The medicine man may have been the human Rosetta Stone of Swiderian ideograms!

And the photographer didn’t even ask him.

Enclosure B

Enclosure B’s outer wall is a wobbly egg shape rather than oval. One end comes to a point. All pillars are erected in the inner ring, which is circular, and the workmanship is sloppy. Pillar 6 shows reliefs of a reptile and a snake.

The central pillars show leaping foxes. Had the fox/wolf cult gained dominance?

But there is one new component: the floor is terrazzo! Wow! Either this is the one flash of genius created by those now building Göbekli Tepe, or it is a parting gift from the Swiderians.

Perhaps the Swiderians were experimenting with terrazzo just before they left and this floor was their first successful project. Later, the enclosure might have been built around it.

Terrazzo, as used in archeology, was constructed from burnt lime and clay, colored with red ochre, and polished. Embedded limestone chips gave the floor a mottled appearance. The result was a floor that was durable and almost impenetrable to moisture.

The photograph at the beginning of this post shows an ancient terrazzo floor. It dates much more recently than Göbekli Tepe and contains not only limestone chips but also marble chips. However, it was made with the same process and shows the mottled appearance.

What a difference in style from smoothed bedrock!

But let’s not miss the real significance. To produce the lime needed, five times that much wood would be required to be burned. https://en.wikipedia.org/widi/Terrazzo 

That’s a massive undertaking.

And it would require the ability to make, maintain, and safely manage fire.

This is the earliest proof of the ability to use fire!

Enclosure A

This enclosure was only partially explored as of the latest data that I can find. It is more rectangular. The pillars that have been explored show mostly snakes.

Enclosures F-T

F and G are like A except they are much smaller. Enclosure Hhas five pillars in its ring. The one remaining central pillar shows a large jumping feline. Enclosure I is still being excavated. It is circular. Enclosures J-T have not been excavated at all. They become rectangular.

Night Falls

And thus, the great Göbekli Tepe subsides into history with a whimper.

Suggested Reading:

Andrew Collins. Göbekli Tepe: Genesis of the Gods, Bear & Company, Rochester, Vermont, 2014.

Photo credit: bin kontan @ unsplash.com

Categories
World History

Göbekli Tepe Enclosure C: Pinnacle of Swiderian Design

Göbekli Tepe Enclosure C: Pinnacle of Swiderian Design

Enclosure C: Pinnacle of Swiderian Design

Swiderians Disappear From Turkey!

Göbekli Tepe Without Swiderians

Göbekli Tepe Enclosure C: Pinnacle of Swiderian Design

We don’t know the order of all of the enclosures. This is, in part, because only ten per cent of the site has been excavated thus far. I could find specific dates for only four enclosures. We will look at them in order, then at the others.

Following Enclosure D, which we have already explored, is Enclosure E. Only the smooth bedrock floor and two pedestals remain. Were the enclosure and its contents removed before being filled in? Why? There are no answers here.

Enclosure C: Pinnacle of Swiderian Design

The next oldest is Enclosure C. This is the most complex structure, although it is not intact as was Enclosure D.

Enclosure C is more magnificent in that it has an approach to be walked before entering the main structure.

First, one must mount an eight step staircase: the oldest staircase in the world! More innovative engineering.

Second, one must enter the structure through the Lion’s Gate: a U shaped stone entrance. Atop each upright is a fierce quadruped, possibly a lion. They face away from each other. Once through the Lion’s Gate, one walks down a stone-enclosed path to the main structure.

Swiderians Disappear From Turkey!

With Swiderian efficiency and precision, the stairway, Lion’s Gate, walkway, and smooth bedrock floor could all have been constructed concurrently.

Then the prepared central pillars, one of which has a leaping fox on an inner side facing the participant, are erected onto the floor. It was necessary for this to happen before the walls were built because the pillars would not have had enough room to enter and maneuver afterward.

And then something momentous happened resulting in the departure of the Swiderians. Although their influence is seen a while longer, there is no evidence of their precision engineering.

What happened that caused the Swiderians to leave an enclosure unfinished? How odd!

I can think of only one explanation. If the Swiderians did, indeed, dominate others by using a “protection racket,” the worst thing that could happen would be for a meteorite to crash near Göbekli Tepe, proving the Swiderian claims to be fraudulent.

Göbekli Tepe Without Swiderians

Construction of Enclosure C continued without the Swiderians, but precision and innovative engineering have disappeared.

The outer wall was the older of the two. Only eight of its T pillars remain. It is not known how many originally existed. One interesting finding is Pillar 12, which has a bear carved on its “head.” Nothing like this has been seen before.

The pillar shows five birds with a backdrop of V shaped lines that could represent water ripples. On the shaft is a threatening boar above a leaping fox. No vultures in sight.

Pillar 59 is a Sighting Stone, although only the lower half survives. Was that from vandalism? Anyway, the Sighting Stone is not aligned with the central pillars! An intelligent person would begin the enclosure by setting the Seeing Stone and building from there.

The wall as a whole “wobbles” its way around the oval shape. The T pillars do not face the center of the enclosure, but are off to the right or left by different degrees each time.

Do you see why I think the Swiderians were no longer in control of construction? They would never have been so sloppy!

The walkway, as it is called, between the walls is mysterious in that there is no obvious way to enter it. Either the access point has not been recognized or the person had to scale the inner wall. Most likely, the space was not meant to be walked at all. The inner wall was meant to block off the Sighting Stone that failed them. There will be no more such stones.

The inner wall shows the same lack of skill as the outer wall, becoming more like a circle, which is easier to construct than an oval. Again, the T pillars are inconsistently set.

It’s clear that the people finishing Enclosure C have limited skills. They had been told even where to place the stones for the walls. Now, they are on their own.

Suggested Reading:

Andrew Collins. Göbekli Tepe: Genesis of the Gods, Bear & Company, Rochester, Vermont, 2014.

Photo Credit: Frank Samol on Unsplash.com

Categories
World History

Göbekli Tepe D: Mysteries Continue

Göbekli Tepe D: Mysteries Continue

Central Pillars

Stone Guardians

The Oldest Ideagrams?

Exploiting Catastrophobia?

The Final Clue?

Experiencing Enclosure D

Göbekli Tepe D: Mysteries Continue

Central Pillars

They stand side by side in the center of Enclosure D, these two T pillars, even more massive than the ones along the sides. Each is 18 feet tall and weighs 16.5 tons.

If we wondered how the smaller pillars were raised, the difficulty has now multiplied.

How did they stand? These pillars stand in rectangular pedestals carved into the bedrock: but at only 4-6 inches deep, the pillars are unstable.

At the site, they are supported by scaffolding.

That seems odd. It’s not at all what we have come to expect of these precise engineers. Maybe they were stabilized by the roof that they supported at its apex?

Another thing seems odd. The top stones slant downward slightly toward the enclosure entrance.

Stone Guardians

Oh, my goodness!

These pillars represent people! They have skinny arms slanting downward along the broad sides of the uprights. The fingers almost meet on the thin side, just above a belt’s buckle. From the belt hangs a fox (wolf?) pelt loin cloth, the animal’s tail hanging downward. And each “person” wears a neck ornament.

That makes the top stone the head of the statue. There are no features at all!

Now, we have more questions! Was facial identity unimportant? Did one statue represent a group of people instead of an individual? Are features left off as a kind of respect by not reproducing the face?

Who are these stone guardians? Heroes? Gods? Ancestors? All of the above? Is this the long memory of the Sethite line from Adam? Why only two? Why are both men? Is one a chief and the other a shaman?

For that matter, do the other pillars also represent people?

And why is the eastern central pillar more decorated than the western?

The western pillar has a featureless belt and buckle. It has a fox loin cloth. (Was the fox/wolf already the evil trickster it would become in world mythology?)

The head of a horned bull is the neck ornament, and one arm seems to carry a fox.

The eastern pillar’s belt is wide and highly decorated. There are flightless birds on the pedestal.

The Oldest Ideagrams?

Speaking of the decorations, they do not seem random. They are few in variety. The most frequently used are the C and the H…or maybe it’s two connected Ts. All of them are sometimes in these positions, but sometimes on their sides. Does position mean anything?

None of these are obvious carvings of natural things. Yet, they don’t seem to form words. It is thought that these and other less frequent symbols are ideagrams. They express an idea, such as love or war or courage. If so, we don’t know what ideas they represent.

On the neck of the eastern pillar is this: an H, beneath that a doughnut with a hole, and below that a C on its side so it looks like a cup.

The belt is completely decorated with Hs and (s in varied positions. The belt comes around to the front of the pillar where there is an oddly decorated buckle. It is a thick U shape with another inside it. Inside of both is a single thick upright. (See the photo above.)

Exploiting Catastrophobia?

The book interprets the belt buckle symbol as a three-tailed comet that caused massive destruction. It hypothesizes that the Swiderians obtained primacy by exploiting the catastrophobia of other cultures. They offered “protection” from a repeat of the event through knowledge and ceremony.

If that is a three-tailed comet on the buckle, and the Swiderians did act on those fears, it makes sense to give it important placement.

Remember, though, that we have already recognized serious questions about an event of worldwide destruction by a comet. However, comets could have been part of that destruction, perhaps even an early part of the event. In that case, they could be remembered as the heralds of worldwide destruction.

All of this is, of course, speculation.

The Final Clue?

You know, I keep returning to the heads of the central pillars.

It’s not just the featureless visages. It’s the heads themselves.

Why do they bother me? The overall art isn’t naturalistic, so why should I expect the heads to be accurate human heads? After all, there are no legs, and the arms are extremely thin, as if these parts are not important. Perhaps that’s also the message of the blank faces.

But the heads are so very alien! Look at the markedly thin faces. And the proportions of the heads are not even close to normal.

That’s what bothers me: the proportions! The anterior-posterior ratio of each head is significantly longer than the width. In fact, it seems to be accentuated to draw attention to the head.

Maybe that’s why the faces are featureless. It’s the heads that are important.

And the heads are definitely Swiderian!

Experiencing Enclosure D

You are in the time of Enclosure D.

You have never seen the night sky so clear and bright. But it’s normal here and now because this is pre-industrialization.

You enter the Enclosure.

The night sky behind you illuminates the interior darkness in a straight path to the Sighting Stone, the heart of this place. Your eyes are drawn to the hole in the stone, illuminated with its own sky light.

Looming between you and the Sighting Stone are the massive Stone Guardians: two statues of Swiderians whose heads soar into the shadows of the roof, but can be seen bent toward you, staring at you while you enter, as if demanding to know your purpose here.

Slipping sideways to a bench, you are deeply relieved that you will not be the one to walk between those pillars tonight.

Suggested reading:

Collins, Andrew. Göbekli Tepe: Genesis of the Gods, Bear & Company, Rochester, Vermont, 2014, p. 51-56, 120, plates 11-14 and 16.

Photo credit: ©tegmen from Unsplash.com

Categories
World History

Göbekli Tepe Begins

Göbekli Tepe

Enclosure D: the Earliest Structure

Wall, Benches, and Pillars

The Sighting Stone

The Vulture Stone

Connecting the Sighting Stone and the Vulture Stone

The Center

Göbekli Tepe Begins

Since we are looking at history chronologically, let’s look first at the oldest structure of Göbekli Tepe. Then we will track changes at the site through time.

Enclosure D: the Earliest Structure

We start at Enclosure D (which means it was the fourth to be uncovered). Curiously, it is the largest. Wouldn’t one expect it to be the smallest, with enlargement/development later?

It is also the best preserved: the most carefully packed. Interesting. This site was obviously not left in a hurry. We are looking at a deliberate burial. Why would they do this? Were people planning to return and resume use of this structure?

It is ovoid, rather like an egg, with a ratio of 5:4. Its dimensions are 60 x 45.7 feet. Why did they choose this shape and these dimensions?

The floor is artificially smoothed bedrock. We haven’t seen this before, but we have seen artificially smoothed walls for cave paintings. We now know that the builders were creative enough to repurpose knowledge.

Once all of the fill is removed, we notice that the floor is bare, as if a tidy housewife removed all errata and swept the room before it was filled.  This makes no sense!

Nowhere else in the world has this behavior been discovered.

Lessons Learned:

  1. The builders knew of art in the far west (Spain, France) and the engineering of the Zanzians. They adapted knowledge to their needs here.
  2. Everything in the building and filling is carefully and precisely done. These builders were precise, and the structure was the epitome of art and engineering up to that time—or at least since Noah’s time.

Wall, Benches, and Pillars

The perimeter wall is clearly like architecture we have already seen by the Zarzians. Therefore, the builders were either Zarzians or persons who learned architecture from them. That would be the Swiderians.

Around the walls are benches indicating that this structure was used for one or more kinds of meetings.

Twelve structures interrupt the benches and wall.

Eleven (there used to be twelve) are pillars in the shape of a T, made of an upright slab topped with another rectangular slab, narrow edges together. Other narrow edges of both stones face the center of the space. They are always called pillars, not stelae, indicating they were meant to hold something up, probably a roof.

How did they erect these slabs? And how did they erect the crosspiece on top?

And why are they in the form of a T? A simple upright would support a roof just as well.

The pillars are decorated with carved reliefs of a large variety of species: foxes, birds, snakes, boars, aurochs, gazelles, onagers, and large carnivores. Many of them are in action, even aggression.

Not all of them were native to Turkey at this time. Therefore, the builders were well-traveled, or were people who came here from distant lands, or both.

Were the animals merely décor? Or was this space used for education?

Man is missing. Unlike earlier art, humans are not shown as a part of nature.

Lessons learned:

  1. There is a change in man’s interaction with nature. Man is no longer considered “at one” with nature.
  2. The builders were probably the Swiderians.
    1. They came from west to east and therefore knew animals and art from Spain/France.
    1. Their contact with Zarzians taught them state of the art engineering.
    1. The attitude that man is separate from nature is unique.
    1. Engineering is a huge jump from the Zarzian wall.

The Sighting Stone

The twelfth structure is also rectangular, but with the wide side facing the center. At five feet tall, it is shorter than the T pillars. If the T pillars held up the roof, there is an open space between the top of the sighting stone and the roof.

A hole ten inches in diameter pierces the slab three feet above ground. Because of the hole, this slab is called the Sighting Stone, in reference to the hypotheses that the purpose was to look through the hole. After kneeling, the sky is seen through the hole. However, it’s just as likely that the hole was made for something to pass through as part of a ceremony.

How did they pierce the slab? Why is this stone different? Why was the hole made?

It is directly across from the entrance. Is that significant?

Is this the oldest celestial observatory? What does that say about their beliefs? Or is the interest purely scientific?

The Vulture Stone

The T pillar to the left of the pierced slab is called the Vulture Stone because there are vulture-like birds on it and they seem very important. Remember the birds we looked at earlier? Vultures fit that general description.

On the top half of the pillar’s crosspiece is what looks to be stylized vegetation, like the bushy top of a tree. Along the top above the “tree” are the rectangular shapes with loops looking like a row of handbags.

Below all of this, but still on the crosspiece, are two vultures facing right. Their scrawny necks, wing styles, and hooked beaks make the identity fairly certain. The larger one balances a sphere on its left wing. Is it the sun? A ball?

Above the smaller vulture on the right are two long-necked wader birds in the vegetation.

The carvings on the upright stone that can be clearly seen are a large scorpion and another large vulture with a headless human lying on its neck.

Wait! Is the sphere a human head? In other art of the time a severed human head clearly indicated the soul of a dead person. Is the vulture responsible for transporting the soul to its final destination?

Are we looking at evidence of a religious bird cult?

In that case, maybe this is a temple after all! Of course to determine that, we must find connections between meetings that were held here and the bird cult. We haven’t found any.

Connecting the Sighting Stone and the Vulture Stone

An interesting hypothesis is suggested in the book Göbekli Tepe: Genesis of the Gods. It is particularly interesting because traditional dating and biblical dating are now drawing close.

According to the hypothesis, the builders had a bird cult centered on the vulture. Cult worship may not have been the only kind of meetings in Enclosure D. After all, religion and education have co-existed throughout time. Perhaps feasts and funerals were also held there.

The shaman or perhaps any worshipper walked from the entrance to the Sighting Stone. There was interest and knowledge in astronomy, and maybe astrology as well.

At the time that Enclosure D was built, the hole in the stone would have directed sight to Cygnus, the Swan. When the star pattern of Cygnus is overlaid onto a vulture, it fits!

So, the builders knew the constellation Swan as the Vulture constellation. And it is to that constellation that the soul of the dead man is being carried.

Why is the large (and therefore important) scorpion below the vulture with the “head?” At that time, the Milky Way’s Great Rift stretched from Scorpio, which represented earth, to Cygnus, the heavenly destination. The vulture with the headless body is below the scorpion.

The hypothesis says that the sighting hole is also a “soul hole” through which the dead person’s soul could escape and be directed toward its destination.

The wavy lines around the hole are seen as a woman’s body, and the hole is then just where the vulva would be.

Remember, all of this is only hypothesis. There is no proof.

The Center

We’re not done yet! In the center of the enclosure are more structures and more mysteries! We’ll look at that next time.

Suggested Reading:

Collins, Andrew. Göbekli Tepe: Genesis of the Gods, Bear& Company, Rochester, Vermont, 2014, p. 45-46, 84-87, 98-106.

Photo credit: Thankful Photography at Unsplash.com

Categories
World History

Göbekli Tepe: Site of Megalithic Mystery

Göbekli Tepe: Site of Megalithic Mystery

The Discovery

Peculiar Site

Mysteries Already!

Beware of Bias!

Göbekli Tepe: Site of Megalithic Mystery

Long before the mighty stones of the pyramids and Stonehenge were erected, mammoth megaliths soared skyward on a mountain in Turkey. The oldest site with gargantuan architecture is known as Göbekli Tepe. And it was almost lost forever.

The Discovery

A 1963 archaeological team noted several knolls on a black limestone plateau of a mountain ridge 750 meters above sea level. It’s fifty miles from where we identified the site of the Garden of Eden. Today, the nearest city is Şanliurfa.

The man-made mound consists of earth and rock debris. To the west was a large collection of stone tools. Also present were cut and dressed slabs with some attempt at carved relief.

An expert decided that it was the remains of a Byzantine cemetery. The team lost interest.

In October 1994, Professor Klaus Schmidt decided to survey the area before it was given to limestone quarrying. Professor Schmidt immediately recognized the slab architecture as similar to other sites in the area.

Göbekli Tepe was saved! But not even Schmidt guessed the massive amount of discovery and mystery he was about to uncover.

Returning with a complete dig team, Schmidt and his team drove as close to the barren Germuş mountain rangeas possible. They hiked to the top of the highest mountain. They carried all of their food, clothes, and equipment with them.

Peculiar Site

Very difficult to access, but widely visible, Göbekli Tepe was far from the nearest springs. The quarry from which the stone slabs were cut was at the bottom of the mountain. Items still waiting to be discovered had sometimes traveled hundreds of miles to be used at this place.

The mound perched on the mountain peak, widely visible in every direction. It was one thousand feet in diameter, the length of 2 ¾ football fields.

Schmidt dug into the mound. The debris was a mixture of limestone rubble, flint artifacts, stone vessels and tools, and a large number of animal bones.

He hit stone. He used his tools to check the age of the dig site. He couldn’t believe the reading. He checked again.

The site, known as Göbekli Tepe, was far older than any other megalithic site in the world. It would change everything that historians had believed about ancient people!

Mysteries Already!

Schmidt’s team had barely begun. Mysteries already confronted them.

  1. Why was such a remote site chosen?
  2. How did they transport megaliths from the bottom of the mountain to the building site at the mountain top?
  3. Who built it?
  4. Why?
  5. Where did they get the large numbers of laborers?
  6. How did laborers maintain hydration?
  7. Surrounding villages were hunter-gatherer settlements. Did this construction change them to agrarian?
  8. And most of all, why was the architecture buried? For it became obvious while they dug deeper that the fill had been carefully packed in and around structures, possibly in an effort to preserve them, as if the builders intended to return.

Even today, decades later, we don’t know most of the answers. But digging continues.

Beware of Bias!

Nearly every reference to Göbekli Tepe calls it The First Temple. If you read Göbekli Tepe: Genesis of the Gods you will find most of the book filled with hypotheses. Now, I find hypotheses interesting, but most of these are based on later archeological finds.

It is illogical to base hypotheses about the first of anything on later similar finds. It’s possible that aspects of the early site were appropriated later for purposes different than was intended originally.

Any hypotheses we discuss will be related to facts and authorities already established. The basic difficulty is that we are still dealing with preliterate cultures. The builders can’t tell us the answers.

Suggested Reading:

Collins, Andrew. Göbekli Tepe: Genesis of the Gods, Beer & Company, Rochester Vermont, 2014, p. 18, 23, 28.