Jump to content
Join the Unexplained Mysteries community today! It's free and setting up an account only takes a moment.
- Sign In or Create Account -

Göbekli Tepe-10 000 BC


Big Bad Voodoo

Recommended Posts

"...However, its real significance went unnoticed until we went there. Not only did we stumble upon fragments of large sculptures but we also realized that the mound is artificial; it was quite obvious that this couldn’t be a natural hill. The whole place was also covered in flint chunks and chips, stone tools and traces of human activity.Some small mounds of rock and debris show tool marks. One large piece of limestone looked very familiar -- it resembled the T-shaped head of pillars I knew from Nevali Çori, an Early Neolithic place some kilometers to the north, where I worked in an excavation project before.

arrow3.gifRead more...

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice article the L.

I was curious about the picture in this article. I noticed a comment on the bottom of the page that suggests the pic isn't from Gobekli.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice article the L.

I was curious about the picture in this article. I noticed a comment on the bottom of the page that suggests the pic isn't from Gobekli.

I don't think it is, this is the sites... er... website.

I'm not seeing anything that's similar in structure, but I'm not familiar with the site.

It certainly looks later.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think it is, this is the sites... er... website.

I'm not seeing anything that's similar in structure, but I'm not familiar with the site.

It certainly looks later.

I was thinking the same thing. It does loosely exhibit the same type of design, like a totem pole of sorts.

The reliefs on the pillars include foxes, lions, cattle, wild boars, wild asses, herons, ducks, scorpions, ants, spiders, many snakes, and a very few anthropomorphic figures. Some of the reliefs have been deliberately erased, maybe in preparation for new designs. There are freestanding sculptures as well that may represent wild boars or foxes. As they are heavily encrusted with lime, it is sometimes difficult to tell. Comparable statues have been discovered at Nevalı Çori and Nahal Hemar.
Source
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Always love this one. Cheers The L..

What we Know About Gobekli Tepe

a. Gobekli Tepe is located in the northern end of the fertile crescent. During the time the structures were built, the climate was very mild and wildlife was abundant.

b. The site is huge. There are around 20 groups of pillars, each group ranging from 30 to 90 feet across. The largest of the stone pillars are 16 feet tall, weighing nearly 10 tons. The site was constructed over several hundred, perhaps several thousand years.

c. Radiocarbon dating places the age of these buildings at around 12,000 years old, which is several thousand years older than any previously discovered complex structures (the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge are around 5,000 years old).

d. The symbols on the pillars “are decorated with carved reliefs of animals and of abstract pictograms … very carefully carved reliefs depict lions, bulls, boars, foxes, gazelles, asses, snakes and other reptiles, insects, arachnids, and birds, particularly vultures and water fowl.” [source]

e. It was buried under 15,000 cubic feet of soil, which is the area displaced by the Big Ben clock tower. Clearly, the burial of these structures was as much of a ‘team effort’ as their construction.

Gobekli Tepe was buried under around 15,000 cubic feet of soil, which would require a level of coordination and effort on par with creating the site in the first place.

There are two likely reasons for the burial:

a. They may have been buried in order to protect them, as most other motives could be satisfied by a combination of toppling, smashing and burial.

b. Burying the stones may have been a religious practice, as part of a death or burial ritual.

Arguing in favor of protecting the site is possible conflict with a nearby agricultural settlement at Cayonu, which is believed to be the place where pigs were domesticated and several early grain crops were first planted.

Darker events were also afoot at Caynou: “Archaeologists … unearthed a hoard of human skulls. They were found under an altar-like slab, stained with human blood.[T]his may be the earliest evidence for human sacrifice: one of the most inexplicable of human behaviours and one that could have evolved only in the face of terrible societal stress … victims were killed in huge death pits, children were buried alive in jars, others roasted in vast bronze bowls.” [source]

It is possible that Gobekli Tepe was considered sacred, or was threatened in some way by the rise of agricultural civilization.

http://www.erikorganic.com/green/9-steps-to-understanding-gobekli-tepe/

The article does get a bit more speculative but heh... Something crazy was going down in this place and it doesn't fit with any recognized timeline to my knowledge.

The article argues that conflict between hunter-gatherers and farmers was occuring at this time. Surprisingly they say farming was a much harder way of life to that of the idyllic life of the hunter-gatherer. Good article imo.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Slim did you think that I would post something that isnt good? :devil:

well that happend too. :blush:

It is interesting site. Still lot to read about it. Still lot to discover there imo.

Thanks guys.

Edited by the L
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Shadowsot it looks later I agree but I didnt find anywhere that is written that "T" is from another date. Or I miss something.

I realy wonder who built that?

I will read it again maybe I skip something.

This is interesting:

"Those T-shaped pillars are 3 to 6 meters high in size, and weigh anything between 40 to 60 tonnes each. Even with today’s technology one would need very specialized equipment to move that stuff. In human terms it is roughly estimated that a minimum of 500 bodies might pull it off. But in a world of chaos and self-preservation how were these people organised, and by whom? Then again, it seems somehow they knew, and were coached to achieve this monumental task of transporting and sequencing these megaliths in specific order. There had to be quarrying experts, transport specialists, planners, ritual overseers etc. According to archeologists this kind of organization could have only existed in a society which already had established a solid system and a sound hierarchy."

From shadowsots link.

How can this be 12000-10000 BC ?picture

image5.jpg

Nice article the L.

I was curious about the picture in this article. I noticed a comment on the bottom of the page that suggests the pic isn't from Gobekli.

"It is certainly not from Göbekli, not from southeastern Anatolia and not from the Neolithics - but a Hittite monument from central Anatolia. I forgot the name, unfortunately."

I guess picture from article isnt from Göbekli, But chesk Shadowsot sites gallery. :tu:

Edited by the L
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The symbols on the pillars “are decorated with carved reliefs of animals and of abstract pictograms … very carefully carved reliefs depict lions, bulls, boars, foxes, gazelles, asses, snakes and other reptiles, insects, arachnids, and birds, particularly vultures and water fowl.”

Gobekli.jpg

Wow. Looks awesome.

Anyways, if informations what we find so far are true , it is realy interesting site.

Imagine in period 12 000 - 10 000 BC we find first traces of war in northen Sudan, it is a time when Mammoth and Sabretooth become extinted (?),it apears settlements in Argentina,Chile,Japan, Jericho was started to build, Bering bridge was no longer bridge, sea level rise...It is even before dog was domasticated.

Edited by the L
Link to comment
Share on other sites

How can this be 12000-10000 BC

Not that hard to carve, and we know that the early hunter gathers created a good bit of artwork.

Gobekli Tepe is simply the earliest evidence where we can see they pulled together and started to get organized.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not that hard to carve, and we know that the early hunter gathers created a good bit of artwork.

Gobekli Tepe is simply the earliest evidence where we can see they pulled together and started to get organized.

Yes. It must be organization there. But it is impresive.Anyways I read recently that first traces of agriculture we can find 9500 BC in todays Syria. So is there traces of agriculture when they talk about conflict between farmers and hunters?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes. It must be organization there. But it is impresive.Anyways I read recently that first traces of agriculture we can find 9500 BC in todays Syria. So is there traces of agriculture when they talk about conflict between farmers and hunters?

Hi the L;

One thing has always bugged me about the so called builders of Gobekli Tepe being called hunter gathers. Wouldnt hunting and gathering take up most of their time and just where did pick up the stone mason/carving skills from. Its a big step from flint knapping.

Interesting site and thread thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

News like this makes me wonder, what do we really understand about our history? It seems as soon as archeologists state that 'x' happened during a certain age, they find out that 'x' happened before they thought.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First evidence of x. In this case x is:

1.first temple

2.maybe first religion

3.maybe first agriculture

4.maybe first megalithic structure

I mean it was 7000 years before Stonehenge.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is a great deal to make us think that this was the site from which the legends of Eden derived. First temple by a stretch but man at this time was advancing and had been doing so for 20,000 years. Personally I look at the Lionman statue from Germany dated to 30,000 BP and the Lascaux caves as the main evidence. Man had higher cognitive functions but Gobleki tepe is the first time we see man working together to produce such a site. It was no doubt ritual but it was not a habitat to my knowledge. This means that tribes would travel their at an appointed time but it was not used all year round.

Lots of other questions spring to mind about but keeping with Eden. Kain and Abel is a story of the hunter-gatherer and the farmer. Kain, the farmer killed his brother and so the world was populated by farmers. However, there was another son and that was Seth. I think this refers to a surviving class of shamans or priests who did retain the ethos of the hunter-gatherer to some degree. When I say hunter-gatherer this is not to say they were simpler but that they were more confortable living as part of nature rather than trying to dominate it. Andrew Collins has some excellent points on this.

What was the relationship between the centres of Göbekli Tepe, Nevali Çori and Çatal Huyuk?

The main relationship between key PPN sites such as Göbekli Tepe and Nevali Çori is the fact that their layout, design and art are the same. They were constructed by the same unique race of people. They connect with Çatal Hüyük because this was a latter development of the same high culture, and so this city - excavated first in the early 1960s by British archaeologist James Mellaart - can tell us much about the earlier cults at places such as Göbekli Tepe and Nevali Çori. Like, for example, the Neolithic cult of the dead. At Çatal Hüyük we find frescoes of vultures accompanying the soul of the deceased into the next world, and also of shamans taking the form of vultures for presumed shamanic practices, such as contacting or journeying into the other world. Since statues of birdmen, as well as those of vultures, have been found at both Göbekli Tepe and Nevali Çori, we can be pretty sure that the same cult existed here as far back as 11,500-10,000 BP.

Could you tell me about the stone Karibu that guards the tree of life? This reminds me a lot of the cherub that guards the Ark of the Covenant and a similar image found also among the Babylonians. Is Göbekli Tepe really the origin of those biblical symbols?

Karibu and Cherubim are the same - angelic beings, and ultimately their roots can be traced back to memories of the priestly or ruling elite at places such as Göbekli Tepe. Clearly, there is more to the story of the cherub that guards the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, for it might also relate to either archaeoastronomy or a global catastrophe around the end of the last Ice Age. Much more knowledge about this epoch is contained in the Book of Enoch and Book of Giants, both found among the Dead Sea Scrolls and probably first recorded down in the region of Southeast Turkey, where Abraham, the ancestor of the Hebrew race is said to have come from. A cave shrine marking his alleged place of birth can be visited in Sanliurfa (Urfa, the ancient city of ancient Edessa), where various PPN sites have been discovered. There is powerful evidence, supported by David Rohl, to demonstrate that Sanliurfa, ancient Urfa, was the original Ur of the Chaldees, where Abraham is said to have been born. It is very possible that the story of the Watchers, as found in the Book of Enoch, was carried out of Upper Mesopotamia, the true site of Chaldea, when Abraham and his family, the ancestors of the Israelites and Jews, set out from the city of Harran on their epic journey to Canaan, the future land of Israel.

http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/Gobekli_Tepe_interview.htm

Other interesting things are that apparently there are deeper and older sites beneath the temple. Someone went to a great deal of effort around 8000 bce to bury the temple. Was this to protect it from the profane or to preserve it for posterity. Also there is some suggestion that there are constellation maps carved in the stone. They may not be accurate but this guy makes a good case.

http://timothystephany.com/gobekli.html

Finally what do people thing on the reason for the 'T' shapes? Sky burials or sacrificial alters or a representation of a meeting between heaven and earth. Maybe it is a muchroom. :no:

Edited by SlimJim22
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is a great deal to make us think that this was the site from which the legends of Eden derived.

Not unless one totally disregards what the Bible has to say about Eden and its location, which would put it in or around the Shatt al-Arab.

cormac

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not unless one totally disregards what the Bible has to say about Eden and its location, which would put it in or around the Shatt al-Arab.

cormac

Fair enough. However, if we disregard Genesis as be true to the facts then it is possible that it was an assimiliation of tradition from multiple areas. The burying of the temple seems significant as does the conflict between hunter-gatherers and pastoralists. A third group of shamans or priests would also fit with what we would expect if we take the logical and not the literal interpretation of Genesis. What date was Atlit Yam inhabited? I think it was after Catal Huyuk but I could be wrong. Either way there were those who began building walled villages and farmed the land and those who wandered about following the stars conducting rituals. Obviously there would be overlap but that part does seem to match with Genesis imo.

In keeping with the theme of cosmic rays of other threads we should remeber the amount of cave dwellings in Turkey. If this was something that went back to as far as Gobleki Tepe then it may explain why man was inspired to create these great works. That is if you accept the theories of Andrew Collins on cosmic rays and the potnetial for higher thought attirubuted to them. If we consider they may have mapped the constellations here and in Lascaux then we should not the existence of Cygnus in both. Maybe it is irrelevant maybe not but it is a coincidence and probably more than that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you disregard Genesis then there is nothing on which to base any claim of knowledge concerning Eden on. As that's where the story originated. It's as meaningless as ignoring Plato's claims of the location of Atlantis, yet claiming that somewhere else is actually it. :rolleyes:

Atlit Yam is c.7600 BC - 6300 BC.

cormac

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you disregard Genesis then there is nothing on which to base any claim of knowledge concerning Eden on. As that's where the story originated. It's as meaningless as ignoring Plato's claims of the location of Atlantis, yet claiming that somewhere else is actually it. :rolleyes:

Atlit Yam is c.7600 BC - 6300 BC.

cormac

Sorry I didn't mean diregard it entirely but don't take it literally. The figures are metaphors but the events did happen just over a much greater period of time. Genesis some how manages to put them in microcosm. Thus by the Genesis definition there are multiple Edens. The first imo being Botswana where serpent worship originated and where man evolved.

The next when man began wearing clothes. Following that we probably have the conflict of hunter-gatherers and pastoralists and the surviving shamans that may have assisted in cultural development. Following that we probably get to Edin of Sumer where it meant something like fertile plains. The last part of Genesis being about the rejection of human sacrifice and the problems associated with polytheism. Hope that makes sense because it seems to fit my interpretation of the first book of the OT.

The other major symbol of Genesis is the snake and the tree. The coils could refer to DNA or to kundalani or to the life cycle of mushrooms. Maybe even the volution of man from the reptilian brain to what we now have. Ultimately what is baffling about this site is that we cannot easily place it with any know culture. Natufians maybe but were they organized enough to pull it off?

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd firstly like to make the point that Gobekli Tepe was not built at 10,000BC as per the title of this thread. The PPNA settlement has been dated only slightly prior to 9000 BC. There are remains of smaller houses from the PPNE and some few epipalaeolithic finds as well. There are a number of radio carbon dates: 8960 – 9559 – 9452 - 8430. While the settlement formally belongs to the earliest Neolithic (PPNA), up to now no traces of domesticated plants or animals have been found. The inhabitants were hunter gatherers.

I aslo have to take issue with Cormac's statement that there are no sources of "Eden" outside the Bible, for there are various accounts of the Garden of Eden outside the Bible, including the Koran. Eden itself comes from the Sumerian word "Edin" meaning "plain" or "steppe".

The Nippur Tablets, including the Barton Cylinder are most important source documents describing the location of the Garden of Eden, and it's inhabitants, the first Sumerian Pantheon (An, Ninkharsag, Enlil & Enki). These were dug up in the foundations of the temple and library at Nippur by John Henry Haynes in 1898 and translated by George Aaron Barton. These are the oldest religious/story texts in the world, pre-dating the pyramid texts by at least half a century.

Another is the Slavonic Book of Enoch 2 produced around the 2nd century BC from materials with a much older tradition, discovered by Canon Charles and translated by his friend Dr Morfill, the Professor of Slavonic Studies at Oxford. It is from Morfill's work that we have the clearest accounts of the Garden of Eden.

Also we have an Akkadian work, Atra-hasis, Tablet 1 which was copied by a scribe called Ku-aya, in the reign of Ammi-saduqa about 1635 B.C., from non-existant, earlier material. It is indicated that Ku-aya translated an earlier Sumerian tablet into Akkadian. Translations of the Akkadian text have been made by Lambert and Millard, two Oxford scholars following in the footsteps of Canon Charles.

Atra-hasis tells the story of a rebellion of the workers building the Great Watercourse in The Garden of Eden and of them surrounding Enlil's Great House in a mob with tools raised. It then tells the story of the Annunaki council creating "salaried man" and causing a massive rift in our development from utalitarian to capitalist objectives as a race.

From this we get various legends of "fallen angels".

The starting point of the agricultural revolution is thought by many to be 'Eden', which is currently best guessed at by Colin Renfrew's "Anatolian Hypothesis", which anyone knowledgeable on finds at Jericho, Tel Abu-Huera and around Mount Hermon may well speculate misses the facts by being a few hundred kilometres too North and a few hundred years too late.

Inescapable evidence that Anatolia being a bit too North include the the development of agriculture at Jericho before this, cultivated crops are also found starting at Tel Abu Huera, not very far to the North by 9,050BC. Cicer arietinum L. (chickpea) and Vicia faba L. (faba bean, broad bean or horse bean) were found in late 10th millennium b.p. levels at Tell el-Kerkh. Cultivated figs were also dug up on the other side of Mount Hermon at Ohalo II, dated to 9,500-9,300 by Kislev et al not far from Kharsag / Eden.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also have to take issue with Cormac's statement that there are no sources of "Eden" outside the Bible,

While I should have made myself clearer, I never said there were no sources outside of the Bible. Although the story, as it is most commonly known, originates with the Hebrews. The Koran, however, dates to well after the earliest attested textual examples of Genesis and is not the origin for the story itself. In any case, none of the above originates in Northern Mesopotamia/Anatolia.

cormac

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some superb points ther Paygan. What a way to make an entrance. Welcome to the board :tu: Great information in those links. I should be able to use some of it elsewhere. You seem like a very knowledeable guy on Sumer and many matters. Would love to pick your brains sometime on many issues but for now I'll keep it brief.

What do you know of claims about structures beneath Gobleki Tepe?

Do you see the Elohim and Watchers as spiritual beings or aliens or shamans and priests who may have tapped into some higher brain function maybe? I can't think of many other explanations to how we got the theologies behind ancient cultures but it sounds like you know more than me.

There are more things that mystify me about Gobleki Tepe but that is enough. If Enoch identifies Mt Hermon with Eden then Anatolia is on the doorstep in real terms compared to the other possibilities we have. It makes as much if not more sense than the alternatives.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What do you know of claims about structures beneath Gobleki Tepe?

Nothing I am afraid. But if there were any, it would be interesting to know if they were dated pre-Younger Dryas.

Do you see the Elohim and Watchers as spiritual beings or aliens or shamans and priests who may have tapped into some higher brain function maybe? I can't think of many other explanations to how we got the theologies behind ancient cultures but it sounds like you know more than me.

I think you are so correct with the "priests with higher brain function" here SlimJim that I feel I need to try and explain another mystery at you, but you might have to bear with some orignal research here if you want an explanation, so bear with my "Myrrh Theory", which assumes that the word "Myrrh" has changed it's meaning over time.

You've picked the right bit of my brain here. Specifically the pineal, which produces an unusual chemical called dimethyl-tryptamine, which in turn promotes higher brain function. There is an large % of this chemical in the reddish colour resin of the Acacia Tree, the wood of the Ark and Tabernacle of Moses and mentioned specifically in that context in relation to "Myrrh".

The word "Myrrh" in Hebrew simply means "bitter" and "red tree sap". If you burn dimethyl-tryptamine, it allegedly makes a bitter smell. Today's "Myrrh" from Commiphora Myrrha is used as an incense for it's sweet smell.

Assuming that these priests could concoct annointing oils containing resin from Acacia, possibly even spyrgic extracting the dimethyltryptamine "after the art of the apothecary - Exodus 30:25" is certainly not outside the realm of possibility. It would help make sense of it's use in the context of Eden below:

"Then the Lord said to Micha-el: ‘Take Enoch and trip him of his own clothes; anoint him with fine oil, and dress him like ourselves’, and Micha-el did as he was told. He stripped me of my clothes, and rubbed me over with a wonderful oil like dew – with the scent of myrrh – which shone like a sunbeam. And I looked at myself, and I was like one of the others; there was no difference, and all my fear and trembling left me.

Then the Lord called one of his Archangels named Uri-el, who was the most learned of them all, and said: ‘Bring out the books from my library, and give Enoch a pen for speedy writing, and tell him what the books are about.’ And Uri-el hurried and brought me the books, smelling myrrh, and handed me a pen." - Enoch 2 XX1:8-12

"Myrrh Theory" is not entirely original research, but I like to think develops that of Professor Benny Shannon of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who wrote a paper entitled Biblical Entheogens : A Speculative Hypothesis. Here he makes the Acacia connection but sadly merges it's use with that of modern South America - neglecting that it's use thousands of years and thousands of miles apart might have been vastly different.

There are more things that mystify me about Gobleki Tepe but that is enough. If Enoch identifies Mt Hermon with Eden then Anatolia is on the doorstep in real terms compared to the other possibilities we have. It makes as much if not more sense than the alternatives.

Agreed too, Agriculture likely tore through Anatolia leaving loads of archaeological things to find like Catal Huyuk from around c. 7,500 B.C. on it's way to Europe.

Why Gobekli Tepe here around c. 9,000 B.C. though is still a question. I wouldn't be suprised it was built on something or somewhere to commemorate/celebrate ancestors or something pre-younger dryas.

Edited by paygan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Specifically the pineal, which produces an unusual chemical called dimethyl-tryptamine, which in turn promotes higher brain function.

That's not in evidence as being true.

Most stated that the pineal could transform serotonin into 5-methoxy-N-methyltryptamine, and then make that into 5-methyoxy-N,N-dimethyltrptamine. Alas, no references were provided to support Most's description of pineal catabolism.

.....

From Dr. Rick Strassman, himself:

"I did my best in the DMT book to differentiate between what is known, and what I was conjecturing about (based upon what is known), regarding certain aspects of DMT dynamics. However, it's amazing how ineffective my efforts seem to have been. So many people write me, or write elsewhere, about DMT, and the pineal, assuming that the things I conjecture about are true. When I was writing the book, I thought I was clear enough, and repeating myself would have gotten tedious.

"We don't know whether DMT is made in the pineal. I muster a lot of circumstantial evidence supporting a reason to look long and hard at the pineal, but we do not yet know.

DMT and the Pineal: Fact or Fiction?

cormac

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.