Gobekli Tepe, Pillar 43,
www.look4ward.co.uk,
Public Domain.
The
remarkable recent discoveries at Gobekli Tepe, in Turkey, have given us very
early architecture decorated with sophisticated stone carvings, but they have
also given us (as all such discoveries seem to) new controversies concerning
archaeoastronomy and the supposed comet strike that caused the Younger Dryas.
"The Younger Dryas
(c. 12.900 to c. 11,700 BP) was a return to glacial conditions which
temporarily reversed the gradual climatic warming after the Last Glacial
Maximum started receding around 20,000 BP. It is named after an indicator
genus, the alpine-tundra wildflower Dryas octopetala, as its leaves are
occasionally abundant in the Late Glacial, often minerogenic-rich, like lake
sediments of Scandinavian lakes." (Wikipedia)
Gobekli Tepe,
Turkish for "Potbelly Hill", is an archaeological site in the
Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, approximately 12 km (7 mi) northeast of
the city of Sanliurfa. The tell has a height of 15 m (49 ft) and is about 300 m
(980 ft) in diameter. It is approximately 760 m (2,490 ft) above sea level.
The tell includes two
phases of use believed to be of a social or ritual nature dating back to the
10th - 8th millennium BCE. During the first phase, belonging to the Pre-Pottery
Neolithic A (PPNA), circles of massive T-shaped stone pillars were erected -
the world's oldest known megaliths. More than 200 pillars in about 20 circles
are currently known through geophysical surveys. Each pillar has a height of up
to 6 m (20 ft) and weighs up to 10 tons. They are fitted into sockets that were
hewn out of the bedrock." (Wikipedia) It is these pillars which we are concerned with here.
They are remarkably carved with low relief images and symbols, some have
3-dimensional animals, and human appendages making them stylized standing human
figures.
Martin
Sweatman and Dimitrios Tsikritsis, of the School of Engineering, University of
Edinburgh, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, Scotland, have analyzed carvings on
some of these pillars and deciphered them to tell an amazing tale. Sweatman and
Tsikritsis claim they are a record of the huge comet strike that caused the
Younger Dryas by reversing the climate warming, putting earth back into ice age
conditions for 1,000 years. This comet strike has been amazingly difficult to
locate, no remaining physical has been found so far. This has led to theories
that state that the comet may have hit the earth on the ice sheet covering
Canada during the late glacial age, leaving no crater in the ground.
Gobeckli Tepe, carved pillar,
the lower image is a fox.
LaStampa.it, Public Domain.
"As they are
central to this work we will describe in detail a few of the key pillars of
interest and their corresponding carvings. The key to unlocking our
interpretation of GT is pillar 43, Enclosure D, also known as the ‘Vulture
Stone’ (see Figure 1). Enclosure D is formed of a rough circular wall with
eleven large upright megaliths embedded into its inner surface (once there were
perhaps twelve), protruding upwards and inwards. Near the centre of the
enclosure stand a pair of massive hammer-shaped megaliths, each weighing around
15 tonnes with some anthropomorphic features. We will come back to them. Pillar
43 is embedded into the north-west of the enclosure. Striking images of this
pillar can be found in the academic literature and across the internet. Indeed,
pillar 43 is one of the defining images of Göbekli Tepe, and has been called
‘the world’s first pictogram’." (Sweatmen and Tsikritsis, 2017)
Sweatman
and Tsikritsis proceed through a very complex analysis of the imagery on pillar
43 to the conclusion that it records a dated astronomical occurrence in 10950
BC ± 250 yrs, roughly coinciding with the end of the Younger Dryas - why not
the date of the event that they say began the Younger Dryas I am not able to
understand. As I understand them, they say that pillar 43 sets the date and
implies a catastrophe occurred, and pillar 18 indicates that it was a comet.
How did the inhabitants of Gobekli Tepe, who produced this record, know of
something that happened 2,000 years earlier?
"We have
interpreted much of the symbolism of Göbekli Tepe in terms of astronomical
events. By matching low-relief carvings on some of the pillars at Göbekli Tepe
to star asterisms we find compelling evidence that the famous ‘Vulture Stone’
is a date stamp for 10950 BC ± 250 yrs, which corresponds closely to the
proposed Younger Dryas event, estimated at 10890 BC. We also find evidence that
a key function of Göbekli Tepe was to observe meteor showers and record
cometary encounters. Indeed, the people of Göbekli Tepe appear to have had a
special interest in the Taurid meteor stream, the same meteor stream that is
proposed as responsible for the Younger-Dryas event. Is Göbekli Tepe the
‘smoking gun’ for the Younger-Dryas cometary encounter, and hence for coherent
catastrophism?" (Sweatman and Tsikritsis)
The
date designated has been arrived at by assuming the circle seen in what is
roughly the center of pillar 43 (the Vulture Stone) as the sun, and the other
images on the face are identified as constellations. Apparently running the
(assumed) identified constellations back in a computer to the positions they
occupy on pillar 43 gives the date 10950 BCE ± 250. The other pillar involved
in this interpretation is pillar 18 of Enclosure D. Its imagery identifies the
causal event of the Younger Dryas, a comet strike on earth. The comet is proven
by the image of a fox with the foxes' tail representing the comet. (Sweatman
and Tsikritsis)
I
have read their paper and I must say I am not convinced. They state, in many
instances, that some carved symbol carries a certain meaning, but present no
evidence to back that up. We have the same criticisms here that I have found pertinent in other claimed prehistoric star charts, and a star chart is exactly what they are claiming pillar 43 is. However, a picture of a scorpion provides absolutely no proof whatsoever that the ancient inhabitants identified the same Scorpio constellation as we do, or any Scorpio constellation at all, for that matter. They might have seen those stars as representing anything at all. They might have looked up at the constellation of the rabbit's genitals for all we know. A picture of a scorpion proves nothing. I will look more deeply into these constellations and star charts in my next column.
It is, perhaps, inevitable that catastrophe theorists
would find ways to involve something as remarkable as Gobekli Tepe in their
crazy ideas. The press has loved this story by Sweatman and Tsikritsis, but I have
not found much in the way of assent from the scientific community. It is a
shame that some people cannot just admire it for what it is, amazingly early
examples of temple architecture and remarkable artwork combined in one place,
produced thousands of years earlier than most other known examples, a miracle
of human creativity. Not everything encodes secret messages! I do, however,
urge you to read their paper for yourself and make up your own mind.
NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet
with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not
intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture
credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on
these reports you should read the original listed below.
REFERENCES:
Sweatman,
Martin B., and Dimitrios Tsikritsis
2017 Decoding
Gobekli Tepe With Archaeoastronomy: What Does The Fox Say?, p. 233-50,
Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry (open access), Vol. 17, No. 1.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Göbekli_Tepe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas
LaStampt.it
www.look4ward.co.uk
www.suggestkeywords
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