[Merged] Gobekli Tepe

[docyabut2]

The so called T stones at Nevali Cori are no way similar to Gobekli.

Edited September 24, 2012 by docyabut2

[Abramelin]

Still don`t see how they can date Gobekli to 11,000 years ago, when there no other cultures around at that time. Even the others that are around were dated thousands of years later.To me to date a culture one had to relate it to another of that time. It just could `nt come out of the blue.

Read the whole thread, and not just the last post.

The other sites are of the same age.

They used carbon dating.

.

Edited September 24, 2012 by Abramelin

[Abramelin]

been poking around .. it sounds like "Natufian" is more of a time period than a culture?

and.. again i run into a claim that constructions at Nevali Cori are smaller and less impressive with smaller T pillars.. and around 500 years younger than the excavated ones at Gobekli tepe.

Yes, according to radiocarbon dating Nevali Çori is somewhat younger.

But there is always an error of a couple of centuries when radiocarbon-dating sites that old.

And then these two sites could have been of the same age.

[Sakari]

It has indeed been posted numerous times, discussed numerous times and it has got a name too Gobekli Tepe.

If you could have bothered to do a search, you would have found the latest threads on Gobekli Tepe.

How about this :

Yes, it has been posted. You can use the search function to try to find information on this, and here is a start :

Here's a list of topics about Göbekli Tepe:

(click the thumbnail)

Awesome reply...That is a nice way to welcome someone here...

Un like below.

It has indeed been posted numerous times, discussed numerous times and it has got a name too Gobekli Tepe.

If you could have bothered to do a search, you would have found the latest threads on Gobekli Tepe.

Why even reply ?

[Abramelin]

Well, Sakari, I think we're long past that stage already....

[Abramelin]

Yes, according to radiocarbon dating Nevali Çori is somewhat younger.

But there is always an error of a couple of centuries when radiocarbon-dating sites that old.

And then these two sites could have been of the same age.

Settlement Pattern in Southeast Anatolia:

An analysis of the structures at the site of Nevalı Çori.

Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the

requirements for the degree of

Master of Eastern Mediterranean

Archaeology

by Ercoskun Pakize

Leuven 2007

http://www.ethesis.net/anatolia/anatolia.pdf

[Harsh86_Patel]

Now Gobekli Tepe has opened a whole Pandora's box and the only way mainstream historians can digest the dates is by calling it a one-off temple made by hunter gathers and not really a sign of civilization.But if Gobekli Tepe is not the evidence for a decently advanced civilization with a culture and relegion then what in the world is considered a sign of civilization i do not know?.

Hunter gatherers toiling hard to built such a hugh megalithic structure as a replacement for their caves is one the most stupid answer i have got for this question.

[The_Spartan]

How about this :

Yes, it has been posted. You can use the search function to try to find information on this, and here is a start :

Awesome reply...That is a nice way to welcome someone here...

Un like below.

Why even reply ?

yes.I replied.

My mistake.

If you read, you would have noticed that i had apologized for being a terse, cad, somewhat boorish guy!.

Now, whats your issue?

[Abramelin]

Now Gobekli Tepe has opened a whole Pandora's box and the only way mainstream historians can digest the dates is by calling it a one-off temple made by hunter gathers and not really a sign of civilization.But if Gobekli Tepe is not the evidence for a decently advanced civilization with a culture and relegion then what in the world is considered a sign of civilization i do not know?.

Hunter gatherers toiling hard to built such a hugh megalithic structure as a replacement for their caves is one the most stupid answer i have got for this question.

I know you deliberately misunderstand things. Anyway, it is time you start reading this thread instead of spouting nonsense.

[Abramelin]

The mystery of Catal Huyuk's Shaman culture has further prompted the belief that the city is actually part of a much greater and older legacy in the Middle East, a shamanistic civilization that originated within the last Ice Age. James Mellart even concluded that the traditions and customs of Catal Huyuk, given the complete maturity and complexity that the culture seemed to exhibit right from the beginning, most likely descended from "an Upper Paleolithic culture, probably Anatolian, of which hardly anything is known." Mellart of course said that during the 1960's, before the discovery of more recent finds now coming to light, including a magnificent set of circular stone temples at Gobekli Tepe, dated to 10,000BC. Coincidentally, Gobekli Tepe's final occupational horizon ends around 7000BC, the same time that Catal Huyuk first arose near Konya not very far away.

Mellart is one of several prehistorians linking the religious symbolism present at Catal Huyuk to that of later Minoan Crete and the earliest forms of Greek religion and myth; although over three thousand years separate the two, Mellart believes that there are enough symbolic parallels to justify a common ancestor. Marija Gimbutas similarly argued in favor of Mellart’s ideas, positing that the Minoan Cretes inherited the traditions of the civilization of Old Europe, the Neolithic Greco-Balkan complex, with which Catal Huyuk played an important part.

Carbon-14 dates show that Knossos, the earliest settlement known on Crete, arose around 6100 BC, a date contemporary with early levels at Catal Huyuk. At base level, evidence of sheep, goat, cattle, and pig, as well as the most "advanced grains of the day", prompts archaeologists studying Knossos to conclude that the founders of Crete arrived by sea with animals and crops already well domesticated. Also, given that the same domesticates occur slightly earlier in western Anatolia, scholars conclude that a departure from west Anatolia to Crete is the most likely course of migration into the Aegean.

If the same unknown “Upper Paleolithic ancestor” even earlier sired the traditions of Catal Huyuk, and later Neolithic Old Europe and Minoan Crete, as Mellart contends, Plato’s vanished Athenians and other prehistoric Greeks mentioned in the philosopher’s Timaeus dialogues might appear to be possible candidates.

http://alternativearchaeology.jigsy.com/catal-huyuk

[Abramelin]

I have posted that I am of the opinion that several of the mentioned sites had some sort of a death cult. Either they buried their dead in a special way (maybe they actually slaughtered their dead to feed the vultures) in their temples (or whatever we should call those circular buildings), or they sacrficed people/captives to their vulture god (or they did it both).

Such a culture could have been abhorred by others, maybe enemies, and these other people may have decided to either destroy the temples or bury them in a mound of dirt.

But what did eventually happen to this culture? Did it die out or did it move elsewhere to continue some form of their practise?

Then I had to think of the Parsi, Zoroastrians, who still give their dead a socalled open air burial which means they put their dead on a high and artificial platform, a circular temple on some mound or mountain:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakhma

I think it was some 30+ years ago when I watched a black&white documentary about their burial practice. It was a gloomy, creepy, and dark movie, stuff nightmares are made of: a corpse was brought into a circular building, a guy butchering the corpse into smaller pieces, and then masses of vultures fighting with eachother to get the most juicy pieces.

But these Zoroastrians are of much more recent times, right?

Well, the ancients thought differently:

The Zoroastrian Faith: Tradition and Modern Research

By 0 Nigosian

page 15:

http://books.google....lutarch&f=false

==

Goddess from Anatolia; volume one - James Mellaart, Udo Hirsch and Belkis Balpinar

Questionable reconstruction “vulture shrine”

http://www.rugkazbah...879&refnum=1879

Edited October 1, 2012 by Abramelin

[Harte]

Now Gobekli Tepe has opened a whole Pandora's box and the only way mainstream historians can digest the dates is by calling it a one-off temple made by hunter gathers and not really a sign of civilization.But if Gobekli Tepe is not the evidence for a decently advanced civilization with a culture and relegion then what in the world is considered a sign of civilization i do not know?

That last part is obvious.

I mean, you obviously don't know the meaning of the term "civilization" in the Anthropological context.

So learn this. The term "civilization" is a scientific term to Anthropologists. Though there is not a single, set definition for it, there are certainly hallmarks associated with calling a culture a civilization. At least, in Anthropology.

The cultures that are associated with these ancient sites do not exhibit the hallmarks of what Anthropology calls a civilization.

So, you want them to call them a civilization anyway.

And it upsets you that they don't?

Hunter gatherers toiling hard to built such a hugh megalithic structure as a replacement for their caves is one the most stupid answer i have got for this question.

One thing I've learned here is that the more stupid people you talk to, the more stupid answers you'll get.

Harte

[Abramelin]

The cultures that are associated with these ancient sites do not exhibit the hallmarks of what Anthropology calls a civilization.

Harte

I did hope I posted more than enough for you and anyone else to understand this wasn't just some 'culture'.

To me it looks like a real civilization.

[Macroramphosis]

Abramelin, whether civilization or culture, wasn't Zoroaster a figure more associated with the eastern part of Iran (or even Afghanistan), as such ? What connection are you trying to make here (beside the possibility of sky burials being practised in disparate locations) ? Are you trying to say that these people were Zoroastrians ? If you are, there is an intriguing point that the Gathas (the sacred texts of Zoroastrians) described a bipartite society from this era composed of priests and pastoralists, living in small organised, structured tribes or groups. Not a warrior in sight, eh ? The only question remains, how far west from Iran did the culture spread ?

Edited October 1, 2012 by Macroramphosis

[Abramelin]

Abramelin, whether civilization or culture, wasn't Zoroaster a figure more associated with the eastern part of Iran (or even Afghanistan), as such ? What connection are you trying to make here (beside the possibility of sky burials being practised in disparate locations) ? Are you trying to say that these people were Zoroastrians ? If you are, there is an intriguing point that the Gathas (the sacred texts of Zoroastrians) described a bipartite society from this era composed of priests and pastoralists, living in small organised, structured tribes or groups. Not a warrior in sight, eh ? The only question remains, how far west from Iran did the culture spread ?

I was trying to say that these people from Anatolia may have fled to or moved to Iran and India.

There they developed a new culture, a culture (or religion) we now call "Zoroastrianism".

There they still practiced their 'death cult', but somewhat adapted.

[lightly]

Very interesting Abramelin. I'm glad you resurrected the thread. I read somewhere... Some professional type person proposed the idea that People from the eastern end of the mediterranean moved inland when the area we're talking about changed from cold and dry to warmer and wetter. Which would be near the time of Gobekli's initial construction?

It's not all deduced where these people came from or where they went?

As for vultures... I'd be more likely to believe in , instead of a death cult, some sort of Life after death cult? With vultures delivering the beloved to the heavens EYES first! I think vultures tend to take the eyes of the departed first.. followed by innards.. like the HEART.

Instead of priests "slaughtering people to feed vultures".. maybe it was more like venerating the vultures and helping them take the departed to the heavens by placing them on platforms?

I wonder if vultures may have played such a significant role in belief systems that images of their wings were still being used in Sumerian etc. Iconography? .. we see wings in later cultures too.. didn't the Egyptians still make a big deal about vulture wings?

[Macroramphosis]

I was trying to say that these people from Anatolia may have fled to or moved to Iran and India.

There they developed a new culture, a culture (or religion) we now call "Zoroastrianism".

There they still practiced their 'death cult', but somewhat adapted.

Isn't it more likely that it was the other way round, Abramelin ? That the migration route was east to west at this time, leading as you say to Crete and then the Aegean ? I just wonder how an Anatolian bipartite society (which seemed non-violent and without weapons) would cope if it wandered eastwards into Iran via Iraq, which was on the way to becoming "Ubaidinized", to coin a term. Interestingly, the Ubaidians, who came to the fore from 5,550BC or so, were also mainly agriculturists, though it is thought that they may have been the source of the Sumerian language, from what I have read. If this is so, or partly so, then can a link be made linguistically between the Anatolian cultures we have been discussing here and the Zoroastrians much further east, on the far side of this proto-Euphratian/Ubaidian development ? Just curious, and probably talking through my hat.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Macroramphosis

[Abramelin]

Isn't it more likely that it was the other way round, Abramelin ? That the migration route was east to west at this time, leading as you say to Crete and then the Aegean ? I just wonder how an Anatolian bipartite society (which seemed non-violent and without weapons) would cope if it wandered eastwards into Iran via Iraq, which was on the way to becoming "Ubaidinized", to coin a term. Interestingly, the Ubaidians, who came to the fore from 5,550BC or so, were also mainly agriculturists, though it is thought that they may have been the source of the Sumerian language, from what I have read. If this is so, or partly so, then can a link be made linguistically between the Anatolian cultures we have been discussing here and the Zoroastrians much further east, on the far side of this proto-Euphratian/Ubaidian development ? Just curious, and probably talking through my hat.

It's kind of hard to connect the Anatolians with the Zoroastrians based on linguistics alone.

Although - as I posted earlier in this thread - Anatolia is now seen as the point of origin for PIE, it doesn't mean we know what language they actually spoke. For that we need at least a lot of inscriptions in their language together with inscriptions in a known language (a 'Rosetta Stone').

Anyway, it would be great to see writing that old, 11-9000 years old....

The only connection we can discover right now is by means of genetics and cultural artifacts.

[Abramelin]

Very interesting Abramelin. I'm glad you resurrected the thread. I read somewhere... Some professional type person proposed the idea that People from the eastern end of the mediterranean moved inland when the area we're talking about changed from cold and dry to warmer and wetter. Which would be near the time of Gobekli's initial construction?

It's not all deduced where these people came from or where they went?

As for vultures... I'd be more likely to believe in , instead of a death cult, some sort of Life after death cult? With vultures delivering the beloved to the heavens EYES first! I think vultures tend to take the eyes of the departed first.. followed by innards.. like the HEART.

Instead of priests "slaughtering people to feed vultures".. maybe it was more like venerating the vultures and helping them take the departed to the heavens by placing them on platforms?

I wonder if vultures may have played such a significant role in belief systems that images of their wings were still being used in Sumerian etc. Iconography? .. we see wings in later cultures too.. didn't the Egyptians still make a big deal about vulture wings?

From what I read the area we are talking about was wet and green (but warm?) right after (and at the end of) the last ice age. Several thousands of years later the area starting looking as it does now: dry and arid. That may have caused - among other things - to set people on the move to the west and the east, north and south.

--

OK, I called it a 'death culture', but you can call it 'afterlife culture' or whatever. If the vultures and the decapitated heads and the ritual sacrifices and the burials of ancestors inside their houses tell us anything, then it is that these people were obsessed with death and dying, and yeah, the afterlife.

-

Are the Egyptian and Sumerian cultures distant echos of their culture? I think we all would like to know, but since excavations started only several decades ago, we will probably have to wait for another couple of decennia.

[lightly]

From what I read the area we are talking about was wet and green (but warm?) right after (and at the end of) the last ice age. Several thousands of years later the area starting looking as it does now: dry and arid. That may have caused - among other things - to set people on the move to the west and the east, north and south.

--

OK, I called it a 'death culture', but you can call it 'afterlife culture' or whatever. If the vultures and the decapitated heads and the ritual sacrifices and the burials of ancestors inside their houses tell us anything, then it is that these people were obsessed with death and dying, and yeah, the afterlife.

-

Are the Egyptian and Sumerian cultures distant echos of their culture? I think we all would like to know, but since excavations started only several decades ago, we will probably have to wait for another couple of decennia.

thanks Abramelin. didn't it turn from cold and dry to warmer and wetter about 12,000 years ago? ... Work calls .. so i might not see your answer for awhile.

Oh.. and remember, the decapitated heads were determined to be postmortem . So what could look like sacrificial Sacrifice to some .. might be a practice done out of great respect for the dead. I would guess, since there is only so much room Under a temple,, that the space there was reserved for, If found, highly important people, and the rest got also got a respectful sendoff ,, via Vultures? What they did to an enemy is anybody's guess?

Edited October 2, 2012 by lightly

[docyabut2]

They dated the site by the stones tools that were found near by. If the whole site was buried would`nt the tools of 9000 bc be in the fillings? No graves or tombs have been found yet to really date it.

The archaeologists did find evidence of tool use, including stone hammers and blades. And because those artifacts closely resemble others from nearby sites previously carbon-dated to about 9000 B.C., Schmidt and co-workers estimate that Gobekli Tepe's stone structures are the same age.

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/gobekli-tepe.html#ixzz288gzPygc

[Harte]

I did hope I posted more than enough for you and anyone else to understand this wasn't just some 'culture'.

To me it looks like a real civilization.

Personal opinions aside, the site has yet to yeild evidence for the hallmarks of what Anthropology would call a civilization.

Doesn't mean that it won't. Only that, so far, it has not.

Of course, they may have had all the hallmarks (or enough of them) but didn't leave evidence of it.

Harte

[Abramelin]

They dated the site by the stones tools that were found near by. If the whole site was buried would`nt the tools of 9000 bc be in the fillings? No graves or tombs have been found yet to really date it.

The archaeologists did find evidence of tool use, including stone hammers and blades. And because those artifacts closely resemble others from nearby sites previously carbon-dated to about 9000 B.C., Schmidt and co-workers estimate that Gobekli Tepe's stone structures are the same age.

Read more: http://www.smithsoni...l#ixzz288gzPygc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe#Dating

[Abramelin]

Personal opinions aside, the site has yet to yeild evidence for the hallmarks of what Anthropology would call a civilization.

Doesn't mean that it won't. Only that, so far, it has not.

Of course, they may have had all the hallmarks (or enough of them) but didn't leave evidence of it.

Harte

I know this thread was originally about Göbekli Tepe, but I added finds from other, similar aged places in Anatolia.

Several of these sites show signs of mutual contact, and because they are all of about the same age I started thinking about more than just a culture.

[Macroramphosis]

Harte - what sort of further "hallmarks" are needed, as a matter of interest ?

Abramelin - I see that Colin Renshaw hypothesises that PIE may have 7th century Anatolian origins, I was still thinking that the origins were further east. In which case, by just PIE relation we can hypothesise a lot.

As for "sky burials", I was always under the impression that many cultures worldwide practiced some form of this in Palaeolithic or neo-Palaeothic times. It might not have been with the same clinical overtones, and with the same religious fervour that some cultures practice it today, or even with specific structures upon which it was practiced, but it seemed common enough, even if in some instances wild animals were also the architects of the practice as well as vultures. I'd class "sky burials" as being in the same branch of synchronicity as pyramids and wheels, for example. Many of these early cultures were astrologically religious, and it must have been natural for them to assume that the spirit and soul needed to go "up". I don't think it necessarily meant an obsession with death, but perhaps more a significant event in the cycle of life that needed attending to in the correct manner according to custom ?

I have my hat close by if I need to eat it......