325 replies to this topic

[kmt_sesh]

 Harsh86_Patel, on 10 August 2012 - 02:28 PM, said:

The usual historian will tell you that civilizations develop over considerable periods of time,having successive levels of advancement stretched over large periods of time.This statement can be extrapolated to say that If we find a ancient civilization/ruins,it has to have evolved from a civilization/group which was less advance then the one that we found and had to exist before the advance civilization.So this brings a very nagging question to my head that why would hunter gatherers(as humans were supposed to be at the time of Gobekli Tepe creation) suddenly decide to quarry huge blocks of stone and arrange them in circles. Also how did they learn to carve reliefs on those pillars. And since there is no other site to predate Tepe (currently known to us) is it safe to assume that the Hunter gatherers decided almost overnight (talking in terms of advancement of human and human civilization) to build a awe inspiring Temple/?? site.

Was civilization (atleast architecture) gifted to us human in a terribly short period of time?

"Why" is indeed the relevant question. While Göbekli Tepe certainly isn't the oldest of sites to show human activity, I would agree it is the oldest to show monumental effort for the sake of religion—whatever "religion" may have meant to the people who erected the site. We simply don't know. Right now Göbekli Tepe presents more questions than answers.

But the stone structures we see there certainly didn't go up over night. I believe the monuments we see there today are dated to the tenth millennium BCE, but I recall recently reading where archaeological evidence suggests activity at the site occurred well before then. In other words, Göbekli Tepe was a site a long time in the making. Who knows what might have been there before the current monuments? What "on-the-job training" did its people experience, in the crafting of stone monuments over long periods of time?

As to how they figured out how to carve the monuments, I don't think that's terribly mysterious. The people of that region would've been well familiar with stone-working in their day-to-day Neolithic lives. Granted, it would've been in the form of tools and projectile points, but that would've been the start of it. The monuments themselves are only limestone, as I recall, and limestone is easy to work with simple tools—be they copper or stone.

The carving of the monuments is not remarkable in and of itself. They are fairly crudely carved. Much more impressive is how and why groups of hunter-gatherers banded together, marshaled their resources, and worked together well enough to achieve what we see there. Clearly it was a site of great ritual importance to them. Sadly they lacked any form of writing and could not leave us any tangible understanding of their belief system, so we will never be able to fill in all of the blanks.

Hm, perhaps Göbekli Tepe is all that remains of Atlantis. Oh my, I shouldn't say such things. Now all of the Atlantis nuts are going to creep in.

[Harsh86_Patel]

 kmt_sesh, on 11 August 2012 - 03:26 AM, said:

"Why" is indeed the relevant question. While Göbekli Tepe certainly isn't the oldest of sites to show human activity, I would agree it is the oldest to show monumental effort for the sake of religion—whatever "religion" may have meant to the people who erected the site. We simply don't know. Right now Göbekli Tepe presents more questions than answers.

But the stone structures we see there certainly didn't go up over night. I believe the monuments we see there today are dated to the tenth millennium BCE, but I recall recently reading where archaeological evidence suggests activity at the site occurred well before then. In other words, Göbekli Tepe was a site a long time in the making. Who knows what might have been there before the current monuments? What "on-the-job training" did its people experience, in the crafting of stone monuments over long periods of time?

As to how they figured out how to carve the monuments, I don't think that's terribly mysterious. The people of that region would've been well familiar with stone-working in their day-to-day Neolithic lives. Granted, it would've been in the form of tools and projectile points, but that would've been the start of it. The monuments themselves are only limestone, as I recall, and limestone is easy to work with simple tools—be they copper or stone.

The carving of the monuments is not remarkable in and of itself. They are fairly crudely carved. Much more impressive is how and why groups of hunter-gatherers banded together, marshaled their resources, and worked together well enough to achieve what we see there. Clearly it was a site of great ritual importance to them. Sadly they lacked any form of writing and could not leave us any tangible understanding of their belief system, so we will never be able to fill in all of the blanks.

Hm, perhaps Göbekli Tepe is all that remains of Atlantis. Oh my, I shouldn't say such things. Now all of the Atlantis nuts are going to creep in.

I find some huge gaps in the temple theory along with few other mysteries:
1.Basic assumption is that they had a religion which would require them to build temples.
2.At a time when finding food and shelter being a primary concern and a fight in itself why would people spend so much time building this complex,if not mainly for staying or shelter.
3.The carvings and and architecture is not remarkable only if you compare it with modern times.
4.We have to keep in our mind that we are talking about a time and people for whom the simplest things required to build anything was supposed to be a mystery or a monumental achievement.
5.Neatly arranged geometric designs are very difficult to compare to crude caves.The surprise about the complex reliefs being carved out of stone by a people who were only supposed to know how to carve crude spearpoints etc.
6.At the time of hunter gatherers what i would feel is that need would govern effort rather then wan't.
7.When i said overnight i was speaking in terms of progress of architecture in a relatively  short span as people were not supposed to be building stone structures at that point of time.They were supposed to have started with wood huts or something not stone megaliths.
8.Then again why would the entire temple(if it was a temple) be back filled?

[Harsh86_Patel]

 Wearer of Hats, on 11 August 2012 - 01:28 AM, said:

No.
Lets look at Stonehenge - although younger then Gobekli Tepe but more well known - it's not a spontaneous building, although it's got no existent predecessors there is enough evidence of "woodhenges" as well as previous stone constructions akin to the stones in Avebury.

Yes exactly,the evidence you provide makes me wonder more,the natural way for architecture to have evolved would have been from wood to stone and not the other way round.So if we have a stone complex at Gobekli Tepe which predates 10000 BC then we can safely assume that people were building wooden structures much before that for quite sometime. And if people were building structures and shelters before 10000 BC then we can safely assume that quite a lot of the 'hunter-gatherer' population would have already given up their nomadic ways.Also this complex being a temple is a claim which adds more to the mystery as for evolution of any relegion which could lead to this ancient people to put a momentous effort to build such a complex suggests that civilization started quite some time before.
I believe saying that this is a site where the first hunter gatherers probably settled down for the first time and learned agriculture,is probably just trying to tenderize the find for main stream archaelogy.

[questionmark]

 lightly, on 11 August 2012 - 12:39 AM, said:

... you don't build a temple ,   until there is a religion ?

There are many reasons to build something. We suppose that it started out as temple, but it also could have been a hunter-gatherer university first.

[questionmark]

 Harsh86_Patel, on 11 August 2012 - 06:17 AM, said:

8.Then again why would the entire temple(if it was a temple) be back filled?

You always have to consider that no religion we know of has lasted as long as the one practiced in Gobeliki. When Gobeliki went obsolete (most probably because there was no future in hunting and gathering as a lifestyle, as the timeline would match) they did not abandon it but did what they did with their dead: bury it.

[The Puzzler]

I have the National Geographic mag that this picture is from, so I knew it existed, so here it is on the internet...
Pillars at the temple of Göbekli Tepe—11,600 years old and up to 18 feet tall—may represent priestly dancers at a gathering. Note the hands above the loincloth-draped belt on the figure in the foreground.


http://www.bing.com/...904&FORM=IDFRIR

It shows a man on one of the stones, which imo belies that is is some kind of temple. Normally you just see the T shapes with animals.

He has an animal skin draped over his belt and you can see his hands and there is actually 2 of these statues next to each other.

Almost like they hold up the beam, or the sky.

Edited by The Puzzler, 11 August 2012 - 10:06 AM.

[Harsh86_Patel]

 The Puzzler, on 11 August 2012 - 10:05 AM, said:

I have the National Geographic mag that this picture is from, so I knew it existed, so here it is on the internet...
Pillars at the temple of Göbekli Tepe—11,600 years old and up to 18 feet tall—may represent priestly dancers at a gathering. Note the hands above the loincloth-draped belt on the figure in the foreground.


http://www.bing.com/...904&FORM=IDFRIR

It shows a man on one of the stones, which imo belies that is is some kind of temple. Normally you just see the T shapes with animals.

He has an animal skin draped over his belt and you can see his hands and there is actually 2 of these statues next to each other.

Almost like they hold up the beam, or the sky.

Or it could be a guy grabbing a girl from behind doing you know what.................i don't see how this tells us that is was a temple.

[docyabut2]

I`d have to agree with this author, they are not dating the site right.


http://lexiline.blog...laya-dates.html

[lightly]

Lending more weight to the idea of the site being ritualistic ? ....this was also found at Gobekli    gobekli_tepe*jpg.jpg   64.23K   26 downloads


food for thought? >    holdit.jpg   153.16K   30 downloads





nahhhhhhhhhh!  lol

[The Puzzler]

 lightly, on 11 August 2012 - 11:46 AM, said:

Lending more weight to the idea of the site being ritualistic ? ....this was also found at Gobekli   gobekli_tepe*jpg.jpg


food for thought? >   holdit.jpg





nahhhhhhhhhh!  lol

Easter Island statues:

[The Puzzler]

 lightly, on 11 August 2012 - 11:46 AM, said:

Lending more weight to the idea of the site being ritualistic ? ....this was also found at Gobekli   gobekli_tepe*jpg.jpg

This statue looks like he has a rugby jumper on, hardly hunter gatherer clothing, that large V neckline is very pronounced. Nothing really, just an observation.

[The Puzzler]

 Harsh86_Patel, on 11 August 2012 - 10:30 AM, said:

Or it could be a guy grabbing a girl from behind doing you know what.................i don't see how this tells us that is was a temple.

The size of them, that their is a pair and that they are men indicates they could be priests or Gods, again, imo - I have read the National Geographic article that accompanies the picture and other things such as an altar type area below them also are indications they were some kind of God statues.

Edited by The Puzzler, 11 August 2012 - 01:12 PM.

[Abramelin]

 docyabut2, on 11 August 2012 - 11:37 AM, said:

I`d have to agree with this author, they are not dating the site right.


http://lexiline.blog...laya-dates.html

Very interesting post, Docyabut2.

[The Puzzler]

 Abramelin, on 11 August 2012 - 02:21 PM, said:

Very interesting post, Docyabut2.

Yes, I just read it too.

However, their stone technology did not develop out of thin air and the vector of development should be traceable - and, indeed, properly interpreted - is in fact traceable in the archaeological evidence.

But you do not have thousands of years of gap in the appearance of the same technology.

The Gobekli Tepe and Nabta Playa stone technology dates out of the period 4000-3000 BC, just as the Malta Temples, so in my opinion.
http://lexiline.blog...laya-dates.html

[lightly]

 The Puzzler, on 11 August 2012 - 01:07 PM, said:

Easter Island statues:

   ya,   what's with the pouchy looking thing at the fingertips of both?  (easter island & gobekli) (i know what some would say)     I also know that most everyone would say that an 'out of Africa  'religion' is a ridiculous idea.   But i think there is something very significant about hands on tummies.    I wonder if that depiction could be representative of the core belief, in a soul,  of my hypothetical belief system?    I wonder if hands on torsos is representative of the dwelling place of the soul   and  human RE creation.  A belief that our 'guts'  are the means not only of our birth... but our  rebirth  in an afterlife.      Where do people , who believe in souls today, believe that the soul resides? .. mhm, under those inward turned hands.    [cue the laughter machine]