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NEWS October 2024
OCTOBER 2024 The recent cyber attack on the Internet Archive is deplorable and can be reasonably compared with the repeated burning of the Great Library of Alexandria. I have used the Wayback Machine extensively, but, until the full extent of the permanent damage is clear, I am unable to assess its effect on Atlantipedia. At […]Read More »
Joining The Dots
I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
Abraham
Abraham
Abraham is generally accepted as the Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, possibly living in the 2nd millennium BC. The name Abraham and its variants has been identified(a) in many cultures, although the existence of Abraham as a real historical person has been disputed.
Nevertheless, there have been a number of efforts to connect Abraham with the religion of ancient India(b) . The most publicised proponent of this view is Gene Matlock who offered his evidence in a paper titled Who was Abraham?(c)
He begins this document with three citations from ancient sources;
“In his History of the Jews, the Jewish scholar and theologian Flavius Josephus (37-100 A.D.), wrote that the Greek philosopher Aristotle had said: “…These Jews are derived from the Indian philosophers; they are named by the Indians Calani.” (Book I:22.)
Clearchus of Soli wrote, “The Jews descend from the philosophers of India. The philosophers are called in India Calanians and in Syria Jews. The name of their capital is very difficult to pronounce. It is called ‘Jerusalem.'”
“Megasthenes, who was sent to India by Seleucus Nicator, about three hundred years before Christ, and whose accounts from new inquiries are every day acquiring additional credit, says that the Jews ‘were an Indian tribe or sect called Kalani…'” (Anacalypsis, by Godfrey Higgins, Vol. I; p. 400.)”
Matlock believes that India ruled our prehistoric world including parts of America and furthermore. that Atlantis was located in South-East Mexico at San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan [0472]. In an attempt to link his Mexican location with Plato’s description of Atlantis, Matlock contends that the ‘elephants’ mentioned by him were the long-snouted tapirs of Meso-America!(e) Furthermore, he claims that there was a connection between India, the Phoenicians, Atlantis and Mexico.
However, Matlock by way of clarification added “My readers should know that the ‘Atlantis’ described in this book may not be the same as Plato’s ‘Atlantis’. I’m just proving that there was once a part of the world called ‘Atlantis’ – that a part of Mexico once had the Sanskrit name Atlán, Tlan or Toltán, whose citizens were known as Atlantecas and Atlantl.” He then continues with “if my ‘Atlantis’ is not the real ‘Atlantis’ no one will ever find the one Plato mentioned.”
Matlock’s widely quoted internet article(c) begins with the identification of Abraham and his wife Sarai with the Hindu god Brahma and his wife Saraisvati.
In 2000, Matlock published Jesus and Moses Are Buried in India, Birthplace of Abraham and the Hebrews[0473], in which he develops this theme further.
A book supporting Matlock by the controversial Sri G. Ananda (Gregory Alexander) entitled Brahma: The God of Abraham [1187] was published in 2014. However, the idea is hotly debated on the internet by all interested parties, Christian, Muslim and Hindu.
Roger M. Pearlman tackled the subject of Atlantis in Plato’s Atlantis Legend Resolution: Abraham is the Real Atlas [1596]. Apart from the unexpected identification of Abraham, he also equates Hercules with the biblical Samson and places the Pillars of Hercules at Gaza. Disturbingly, he suggests that Sodom can be identified as Atlantis. Then, for good measure, he maintains that Göbekli Tepe was founded by Noah‘s family!
Jason Colavito had a critical view(d) of the recent (2017) Turkish documentary, supported by the government, which claims that Göbekli Tepe was built by Telah, Abraham’s father, and destroyed by Abraham.
(a) So Many Abrahams by Hiberia (archive.org)
(b) WELCOME TO AUM-SHALOM.COM (archive.org)
Sodom & Gomorrah
Sodom & Gomorrah along with Zoar, Admah and Zeboim constituted the Cities of the Plain referred to in the Bible and believed to have been situated in the Jordan Valley before their obliteration (apart from Zoar) in a catastrophic episode during the 2nd millennium BC. Explanations, religious and rational have been offered to explain the event. My preferred explanation is that an encounter with an extraterrestrial body such as a comet or asteroid caused the devastation(d).
In 2008, a Sumerian clay tablet, known as the ‘Planisphere’ in the British Museum, was, after 150 years, translated and claimed to record an encounter with an asteroid ‘suspected of being behind the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah(e). The late Bernhard Beier has written an interesting article on the Atlantisforschung website about this asteroid.
“Interdisciplinary findings by scientists at the University of Bristol in 2008 suggest that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah described in the Old Testament may have been the result of a serious impact event.
The British researchers had studied an Assyrian clay planisphere that has puzzled science for some 150 years and has now been 
identified as the transcript of an eyewitness account of an asteroid impact that is believed to have also destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. This clay tablet had already been discovered by Austen Henry Layard in the ruins of the library of the royal palace at Nineveh in the mid-19th century. It is generally assumed that this specimen dates to around 700 B.C. It is a copy of a much older tablet on which a Sumerian astronomer wrote down his extraordinary observations of the sky. An ‘approaching, white stone ball’ is described there, which is said to have ‘rushed past violently.'”(l)
For most Christians, Sodom in the Bible has been associated with homosexuality, however, this idea does not stand up to any careful scrutiny as explained in a detailed paper by Roger Farnworth, a retired Church of England minister(q).
In October 2015, there were reports that the sites of Sodom and Gomorrah had been finally located(a). November 2018 saw a further claim(b) that Sodom and possibly other the ‘cities of the plain’ had been destroyed by a meteoric airburst, similar to the Tunguska or the more recent Chelyabinsk events. This catastrophe took place north of the Red Sea in what is now Jordan, according to archaeologist Phillip Silvia of Trinity Southwest University in Albuquerque(g).
Silvia’s conclusions have been confirmed by Dr Steven Collins, dean of the College of Archaeology at Trinity Southwest University, who has excavated at the Tell el-Hammam site over sixteen seasons(n). He describes his findings in his book co-authored with Dr Latayne C. Scott, Discovering the City of Sodom [1625]. Collins offered the following interesting observation(c), “the Tall el-Hammam site has twenty-five geographical indicators that align it with the description in Genesis. Compare this with something well-known—like Jerusalem—that has only sixteen. Most other sites have only five or six, or less. So, the site has many more geographical ‘signs’ than any other Old Testament city. That’s truly amazing.”
A September 2021 paper(h)(r)* outlines interesting new evidence that the destruction of the Tell el-Hammam site was probably caused by a Tunguska-type airburst and further suggests that “about a minute later, 14 miles (22 km) to the west of Tall el-Hammam, winds from the blast hit the biblical city of Jericho. Jericho’s walls came tumbling down and the city burned to the ground.”
Jason Colavito added some further comments on the authors and background to this paper and concluded that “In short: The claim Tell El-Hammam was destroyed by an airburst is disputable. Its identification with Sodom is unproved and dubious, and no one has provided any evidence that an event supposedly transpiring in 1600 BCE was preserved accurately down to the composition of the first written account of Sodom in the surviving Genesis narrative, typically ascribed to the period around 500 BCE or later. If we can’t agree whether the Greeks preserved any real history from the Mycenaeans after only five centuries, we should be very careful in imagining the preservation of stories for two or three times that long with no evidence of intermediary versions.”(j)
The original report appeared on the Nature website and so far over a quarter of a million people have accessed it. This lengthy document can also be read on the cosmictusk.com website(k).
Sean Bambrough, who is better known in these pages for promoting Tiwanaku as Atlantis has also argued against the Tell el-Hammam site as the site of Sodom, preferring to opt for a Mesopotamian location instead(s).
Andis Kaulins has suggested that the destruction of the cities of the plain was a consequence of the eruption of Thera(p). David Rohl in The Lost Testament [231.180] has dated the destruction of Sodom to circa 1830 BC following a period of unheeded seismic warnings that eventually led to the rupturing of the earth and the violent ejection of deadly sulphur.>Rohl also proposed that Sodom is located “a little over 100 metres beneath the surface of the Dead Sea,” a few kilometers south-by-southeast from En-Gedi.<
More imaginative commentators, such as Dan Sewell Ward (1940-2019) have proposed(f) that the destruction of S & G was the result of atomic warfare!
In Atlantis and Other Lost Worlds [1535], Frank Joseph claims that Comet Encke in 1198 BC “scores a number of meteoric hits along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and possibly on Atlantis itself, which perishes ‘in a single day and night’, according to Plato. The catastrophe is global, encompassing the destruction of the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah” Joseph bases this on the studies of two Swedish geologists, Thomas B. Larsson and Lars Franzén.
This linkage of Sodom with Atlantis is not new. In the 18th century, Carl Friedrich Baër (1719-1797) who was pastor at the Lutheran chapel in the Swedish Embassy in Paris, was possibly the first to propose a connection between the demise of Atlantis and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
A similar theory was proposed by Roger M. Pearlman in a 2018 booklet [1596]. In this small, difficult-to-read, book the author also suggests, a linkage between the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah and Atlantis, placing Atlantis in the Jordan Valley and equating Abraham with Atlas – “If Atlas, as described in Plato’s work, was based on a historic figure, Abraham alone meets key criteria.”
On a lighter note, in 1948, William Comyns Beaumont published an extraordinary book, Britain – The Key to World History [0088], in which he claimed among other things, that Edinburgh was the original Jerusalem, London was Damascus and rather worryingly, that Bristol was Sodom.
However, more recently, some demented soul has suggested that “Atlantis comprised three centers of civilization. The main center of civilization was a very large island stretching through what is now the area of the Azores near the mid-Atlantic, down almost to off-shore Brazil in South America. The present-day Islands of the Azores are mountain tops of the original. The second was along the foot of the Himalayans, now occupied by Nepal and Northern Punjab. The third was the plains, now called North America.” Then for good measure, they claimed that Sodom had been located in Washington State in the United States and Gomorrah could be found offshore Miami!(i)
In 2021, Mauro Biglino & Cinzia Mele published two books [1907][1908] that link a number of biblical episodes with locations in the Baltic region. One was the identification of two places in Finland as Sodom and Gomorrah, which was followed by dozens of similar geographical ‘coincidences’(m)!
It was recently (April 2022) written(o) that “What everyone agrees on is that something unusual happened at Tall el-Hammam, an ancient settlement near the Dead Sea.” Unfortunately, that is as far as any agreement has gone. Even the date for the disaster is hotly disputed.
“What was unlike destruction caused by earthquakes or warfare were pottery shards with their outer surfaces melted into glass, some bubbled as if boiled, “bubbled” and melted building brick and plaster, suggesting some unknown high-temperature event. Objects of daily life, carbonized pieces of wooden beams, charred grain, bones and limestone cobbles were burned to a chalklike consistency.”
“But last month Steven Jaret, a postdoctoral fellow at the American Museum of Natural History, and R. Scott Harris, a space scientist at Atlanta’s Fernbank Science Center, challenged these conclusions of the 21 scholars, also in Nature, basically hinting that Collins’ group confused run-of-the-mill smelting and pottery processes with heat from an airburst.”
I think the mystery of S & G will have a longer run than The Mousetrap in London!
See: Köfels Impact
(c) More Evidence Confirms Tall el-Hammam as Sodom – Assist News (archive.org)
(d) https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/12/28/sodom-and-gomorrah/
(e) https://phys.org/news/2008-03-cuneiform-clay-tablet.html
(f) http://www.halexandria.org/dward194.htm
(g) <Sodom annihilated by meteoritic blast> (q-mag.org)
(i) Atlantis | Island of Atlantis | Sodom and Gomorrah | Black Masters of Altlantis (archive.org)
(j) Researchers Offer New Evidence in Ongoing Effort to Prove Bible’s Sodom Story Real – JASON COLAVITO
(k) Tall el-Hammam paper gains intense global attention – The Cosmic Tusk
(n) https://www.scribd.com/document/549801749/Beyond-Today-Magazine-January-February-2022
(o) https://religionnews.com/2022/04/20/after-scientists-debate-meltdown-of-biblical-sodom/
(p) https://web.archive.org/web/20210411010543/http:/www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi58.htm
(q) https://rogerfarnworth.com/2023/02/19/sodom/
(s) https://iwillnotbeassimilated.blogspot.com/2021/09/sodom-found-in-mesopotamian-records.html *
Pearlman, Roger, M
Roger M. Pearlman is a Torah scholar, who has written extensively on the reconciliation of the Torah with science. A number of his papers can be found on the academia.edu website.
He has also tackled the subject of Atlantis in Plato’s Atlantis Legend Resolution: Abraham is the Real Atlas (1596). Apart from the unexpected identification of Abraham, he also equates Hercules with the biblical Samson and places the Pillars of Hercules at Gaza! Disturbingly, he suggests that Sodom can be identified as Atlantis. Then, for good measure, he maintains that Gobekli Tape was founded by Noah’s family!
>On the subject of Abraham, I note that Gene Matlock claimed that “there are certain striking similarities between the Hindu god Brahma and his consort Saraisvati and the Jewish Abraham and Sarai that are more than mere coincidences.”(b)<
Perhaps I should mention that the superficial resemblance of Samson to Heracles was noted as far back as the time of Eusebius (Circa 300 AD)(a).
(a) https://www.maverickscience.com/wp-content/uploads/samson.pdf
(b) http://www.viewzone.com/abraham.html *
Acholonu-Olumba, Catherine
Catherine Acholonu-Olumba (1951-2014 ) was from Orlu in Nigeria and well 
known as a writer(d), researcher and former lecturer on African Cultural and Gender Studies. She was a frequent contributor to the migration-diffusion website(b). In a recent paper(a) she proposed “that ancient West Africans nurtured a high civilization that was an off-shoot of the fall of Atlantis and the migrations of its peoples in search of new lands.” She also maintained that the West African Igbo language was, in earlier times, a global lingus franca.
Some of her ideas seemed like a melange from Blavatsky/Cayce/Daniken as the following excerpt from a video clip(c) demonstrates,
“By 208,000 BC human evolution was interrupted and Adam, a hybrid, was created through the process of genetic engineering. However, our findings reveal that the creation of Adam was a downward climb on the evolutionary ladder, because he lost his divine essence, he became divided, no longer whole, or wholesome. All over Africa and in ancient Egyptian reports, oral and written traditions maintain that homo erectus people were heavenly beings, and possessed mystical powers such as telepathy, levitation, bi-location, that their words could move rocks and mountains and change the course of rivers. Adam lost all that when his right brain was shut down by those who made him.”
Another paper by Acholonu once again endeavours to link the Igbo language with that of the ancient Egyptians(e).
Even more intriguing is the claim of an association between Ogham and the Igbo language. Erich Fred Legner noted that “All the words that (Edo)Nyland and (Barry)Fell transcribed were Igbo words, which Dr Catherine Acholonu could easily read and translate. She told Edo Nyland that she had translated the words he transcribed from Ogam stones, but he didn’t believe her at first. When Hugo Kennes found Dr Acholonu’s work on the Internet and started telling all the Ogam researchers he knew including Nyland, Nyland then asked him to get an Igbo dictionary from her. It was only after her meeting with (Christine)Pellech in Belgium when she “read “all Acholonu’s books and convinced her to write for her site, that it was decided to do the “Igbo Ogam VCV Dictionary”(g)
Acholonu was one of the authors of They Lived Before Adam: Pre-Historic Origins of the Igbo[1134] which includes some rather wild Igbo-centric claims.
A few years later, she published Eden in Sumer On The Niger [1833], which continued in a similar vein. According to an abstract on ResearchGate,(f) “It provides multidisciplinary evidence of the actual geographical location in West Africa of the Garden of Eden, Atlantis and the original homeland of the Sumerian people before their migration to the “Middle East”. By translating hitherto unknown pre-cuneiform inscriptions of the Sumerians, Catherine Acholonu and Sidney Davis have uncovered thousands of years of Africa’s lost pre-history and evidences of the West African origins of the earliest Pharaohs and Kings of Egypt and Sumer such as Menes and Sargon the Great.”
>In 2017, Michelle Lopez Wellansky presented a paper in which she investigated the Igbo people, the majority of whom “today are practicing Christians. Though they identify as Christian, many consider themselves to be “cultural” or “ethnic” Jews.”(h)
John Boze has contributed a series of unconventional posts on Facebook promoting the idea of a West African Genesis including the claim that “Noah, Abraham and Moses were all born, lived and died in West Africa! Not unexpectedly, Boze also claims that Atlantis was situated in Mauritania. For good measure he further claims that the ten Hebrew nations lived in West Africa 4000BC-3000BC! I think comment is unnecessary.<
(a) https://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?id=218
(b) https://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?authorid=98
(c) https://igboacienthistory.weebly.com/igbo-language-a-former-global-lingua-franca.html
(d) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Obianuju_Acholonu
(f) (PDF) Eden In Sumer On The Niger (researchgate.net)
(g) <Ogam (Ogham) Writing System & Ogam Alphabet (ucr.edu)
(h) https://kulanu.org/wp-content/uploads/nigeria/Igbo-Jews-Senior-Project.pdf *
Diffusion *
Diffusion is the anthropological term used to describe how similar customs, beliefs and artefact designs are spread between cultures through migration, invasion or trade. Diffusion is not just a ‘one-way street’ as history has shown that ideas have travelled in all directions, while in fact most ancient civilisations can be demonstrated to have absorbed cultural elements from a multiplicity of foreign societies. Today, globalisation has increased exponentially the variety of influences that all societies now experience. Not only is the number of these influences greater but the rate of increase is apparently accelerating. The ubiquity of Coca-Cola, T-shirts, Irish pubs, Japanese cameras, German cars, English language, Guinness, Chinese toys, ABBA, AK-47s etc., etc., etc., are indicative of the global reach of commercial ‘empires’ today. In older civilisations trade was more concerned with commodities such as metals, olive oil, wine, amber, obsidian, or timber, so the technologies involved in their production or exploitation were also exchanged.
The development of agriculture also saw techniques spread, which had to be modified to suit different climates, although recent studies indicate that agriculture started around the same time in a number of centres(I).
In the Fertile Crescent as far north as the Zagros Mountains and further north, on the steppes of Russia, horses were domesticated and apparently there also the use of chariots originated. A book by David W. Anthony also attributes the region as being the source of what is known as the Proto-Indo-European family of languages[1356].
Societal concepts, religious or legal were no different as their geographical spread can also be tracked over time. Consider the different strands of the Abrahamic faiths, beginning with Judaism, which spawned Christianity and later was joined by Islam through Muhammad, who claimed to be a descendant of Abraham. Similarly, democracy has slowly evolved and spread over time and still has a long way to go.
Since early man left Africa, he has had ample time to settle all over our planet and exploit its resources, moving from being a hunter-gatherer to becoming a settled farmer, developing urban centres (city-states), then empires and the inevitable wars. Wars, then like today, led to the development of new technologies, chariots, longbows, and armour, to be copied and if possible improved upon, by each side.
My view is that initially, technology and techniques were freely exchanged between peoples, until gradually the idea of monopoly entered the human psyche, eventually leading to the paranoia and greed associated with the ownership of ‘intellectual property’ today. I would speculate that a freer and possibly gentler diffusion of ideas lasted until, at the earliest, the first millennium BC.
In 2014, the University of Connecticut published the result of studies that demonstrated that human technological innovation occurred intermittently throughout the Old World, rather than spreading from a single point of origin, as previously thought(j).
Egerton Sykes, a leading 20th-century Atlantologist, was a committed diffusionist, describing it as “the lifeblood of civilisation”(h). Atlantisforschung has published a 1967 paper by Sykes supporting diffusionism with particular reference to pyramid building on both sides of the Atlantic(ad).
Andrew Cutler published a paper on cultural diffusion in August 2023 that should be studied by anyone interested in the subject. He discusses themes such as the Pleiades, Snakes, Finger Removal and Linguistics among others. He expresses the opinion that while many assume that such common features can be traced back to before the 100,000 BC Out of Africa migration, Cutler suggests a much later time circa 40,000-30,000 BC(ae).
A more extreme view is the concept of ‘hyperdiffusion’, which is the idea that there was a single ‘mother culture’ that led to the development of all major civilisations. Ignatius Donnelly was a hyperdiffusionist, advocating Atlantis as the mother culture. His ‘heretical’ views were highlighted by the range of similarities between structures around the world in apparently unrelated cultures, which seem to greatly exceed what could be expected by mere coincidence alone. This is explored further in a recent illustrated article on the Malagabay website(v).
Similarly, James Churchward proposed his invention, Mu, as an alternative hyperdiffusion centre. Perhaps better known is the work of W. J. Perry who was convinced [1353] that an archaic civilisation had begun in Egypt and gradually spread eastward through Asia and Polynesia, eventually reaching the Americas. Ben Urish published a paper(d) in 1986 that offers a critical overview[969] of hyperdiffusion.
Alice A. Storey and Terry L. Jones commented that “Hyperdiffusion, in which diffusion is used to explain all phenomena observed in the archaeological record, implies that independent invention was the property of only a select few in prehistory; it is this extreme view that tarnished early diffusionists and led mainstream archaeologists away from the concept” (ah).
Konrad Kulczyk promotes a hyperdiffusionist theory that places his proto-civilisation, New Atlantis, just south of the Aral Sea(e).
Ivar Zapp proposes the existence of a global seafaring civilisation thousands of years before the Greeks, Egyptians or Sumerians(k) in an as-yet-unpublished book, Babel Deciphered.
Hyperdiffusion is clearly a seductive theory that has attracted the attention of researchers such as Richard Cassaro, who has produced an impressive collection of visual cultural similarities between ancient Egypt and pre-Columbian America(a). While the idea is not new, Cassaro’s images highlight the concept of diffusion very effectively, although he has, in my opinion, overinterpreted the evidence in order to support hyperdiffusion.
Cassaro published The Missing Link[1208] in 2016 in which he expands on the widespread distribution of what he refers to as the ‘godself icon’. Although he clearly demonstrates that the motif has an extensive geographical spread it is equally obvious that the appearance of the icon is spread over a vast period of time apparently coinciding with the emergence of civilisation in different places at very different times, which, in my view, is not fully compatible with the concept of hyperdiffusion, as I would have expected a ‘mother-culture’, if such existed, to have spread its global influence far more rapidly.
A comparable discovery has been made by Ozgür Baris Etli, who has drawn attention(o) to carved hands at Göbekli Tepe that have counterparts in many other parts of the world where hands meet at the navel are similarly depicted. I recently came across an image of(q) a megalithic statue in the Indonesian Bada Valley(u) showing its hands in a similar position. Also in Göbekli Tepe, we encounter what has become known as ‘the handbag of the gods’(y) which has been found depicted in many locations such as Turkey (Göbekli), Iraq (Assyria), Mesoamerica (Olmecs)(w), Egypt and New Zealand(x). These images are not only spread over thousands of miles but thousands of years.
However, Andrew Gough is the only researcher who seems to have come anywhere near to explaining the purpose of the ‘handbag’. In a lengthy article on his website, he explains how a British Museum guide confirmed that the bag was a pollen carrier(ac). This dovetailed with Gough’s belief regarding the importance of the bee in ancient cultures.
Having mentioned Indonesia, I must draw your attention to a recent book by Dhani Irwanto, entitled Sundaland: Tracing the Cradle of Civilizations (1618), in which he makes a strong case for considering his native land as an ancient diffusionist centre, which experienced waves of emigration at the end of the Younger Dryas period that influenced the great civilisations of the Indus Valley, Egypt and Greece. Irwanto also claims that their cultural impact included the transference of the story of Atlantis from its original home in Sundaland.
Equally intriguing is the ‘Three Hares’ motif, found across Europe, the Middle East ad as far as China(p) and now the subject of a book by Greeves, Andrew & Chapman[1210]. Another stylised symbol is that of the rosette found in the Mediterranean and spread as far as India(r)(s).
In a similar vein, Jim Allen has devoted chapter three of his latest book to outlining what he entitled Bolivia and the Sumerian Connection(b). Arguably, even more impressive us the array of images presented by Allen(b) suggesting that the civilisations of America were greatly influenced by ancient cultures in both the east and the west . Although some artefacts can be developed independently, at some point , the number of similar items produced by two separate cultures can exceed the number that can be reasonably attributed to coincidence. The number of similarities presented by Allen alone clearly exceeds that threshold suggesting that the Americas were influenced by different sources, ruling out the Americasas the home of a mother culture!
In the August 2019 edition of National Geographic magazine there is an update on the results of the latest genetic studies relating to the origins of European peoples(ag). “Their findings suggest that the continent has been a melting pot since the Ice Age. Europeans living today, in whatever country, are a varying mix of ancient bloodlines hailing from Africa, the Middle East, and the Russian steppe.” One item that caught my attention was that about 5,000 years ago “Farther north, from Russia to the Rhine, a new culture sprang up, called Corded Ware after its pottery, which was decorated by pressing string into wet clay.” and “Many Corded Ware people turned out to be more closely related to Native Americans than to Neolithic European farmers. That deepened the mystery of who they were.” Does it imply that prehistoric transatlantic travel took place then and if so, in which direction? As I read it, the NG article offers nothing to endorse hyperdiffusion, if anything, it does the very opposite.
An extensive website managed by Erich Fred Legner offers a wide range of evidence to support the view that the Americas had been visited and settled by people from both Asia & Europe before Columbus(aa).
Similarly, Gary A. David proposed that Votan was a diffusionist deity with counterparts known by other names such as Kukulkan, Quetzalcoatl or Viracocha in the different American civilisations. However, he goes further placing Votan’s origins in the Old World suggesting that he may have been Phoenician or Hebrew, citing Adrian Gilbert and Andrew Collins in support of this(af).
The whole subject of diffusion is wide-ranging and complex and well beyond my competence to do it justice in this short entry. However, for those interested in pursuing the subject further, I would like to recommend a 1997 paper(l) by David H. Kelley (1924-2011), available on Dale Drinnon’s website.
Egypt is frequently mentioned in this regard being seen as the influence behind Neolithic megalith building AND the pyramids of Central America, in spite of the fact that Newgrange was constructed before the Egyptian Pyramids and the New World pyramids were built thousands of years after those in Egypt. Atlantis is regularly suggested as another mother culture but without a single piece of evidence to support this speculative contention. For decades the idea that the pyramids of Egypt and those in the Americas were the consequence of diffusion from a common source, namely Atlantis situated in the Atlantic was heavily promoted. However, we can now more closely identify the pyramids of America with the step pyramids of China!
Consequently, for me, hyperdiffusion is not convincing. History has clearly shown that inventions have frequently been independently developed at the same time in different countries, while even in prehistoric times it has been demonstrated(f) that the evolution of stone tools took place as a result of the innovative abilities of local populations, addressing the same needs.
A word of warning; “recent research published in Nature by a team led by Tomos Proffitt at the University of Oxford shows that capuchin monkeys regularly produce sharp-edged flakes indistinguishable from those made by early hominins.”(t)
Even today technologies are developed independently throughout the world, but not in complete isolation, because of the instant worldwide communications available.
As a result of global marketing, in Ireland now we drive German, British and Japanese cars, use US computer technology and play with Chinese toys. However, being generous by nature, we gave the world the Irish pub, Riverdance and Guinness.
A two-part blog(m)(n) highlighting the many weaknesses in the concept of hyperdiffusion should be required reading for anyone interested in the subject.
Although Donnelly and his contemporaries, focused on the possibility of Old World influences in the New World, today, there is less of a Mediterranean-centred or Eurocentric approach to diffusionism. Instead, there is greater acceptance that the Americas have also had extensive cultural influences from Asia.
In March 2021, Hugh Newman published a paper drawing attention to the similarity of megalithic building techniques, using polygonal stones, in America, Asia, Europe and Africa. He goes further noting that “Peruvian relief carvings match those at Göbekli Tepe.” How much might be the result of coincidence is a matter of opinion.(ab) In January 2022, Marco M. Vigato published a new book, The Empires of Atlantis [1830], in which he offers a hyperdiffusionist view of Atlantis. He “traces the course of Atlantean civilization through its three empires, as well as the colonies and outposts formed by its survivors in Egypt, Göbekli Tepe, India, Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, and North and South America” and “reveals how the first Atlantean civilization lasted from 432,000 to 33,335 BCE, the second one from 21,142 to 10,961 BCE, and the third Atlantis civilization–the one celebrated by Plato–collapsed in 9600 BCE, after the Younger Dryas cataclysm.”(z).
(c) https://web.archive.org/web/20200629021253/http://www.atlantisbolivia.org/artefacts.htm
(d) https://soar.wichita.edu/bitstream/handle/10057/1746/LAJ_v11_no1_p75-87.pdf?sequence=3
(e) https://blog.world-mysteries.com/mystic-places/new-atlantis-the-source-of-civilization-on-earth/
(g) Stone Age site challenges old archaeological | EurekAlert! (archive.org) *
(h) https://web.archive.org/web/20190430181930/http://www.seachild.net/atlantology/fields/socialsci.html
(I) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130705101629.htm
(j) Stone Age site challenges old archaeological | EurekAlert! (archive.org)
(l) See: Archive 3563
(m) https://skepticalcubefarm.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/hyperdiffusionism-a-blog-in-two-parts/
(n) https://skepticalcubefarm.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/hyperdiffusionism-part-the-second/
(r) https://aratta.wordpress.com/the-rosette-symbol/
(s) https://www.sophia-project.net/conferences/HeavenAndEarth/presentations/pdfs/CherylHart.pdf
(u) Atlantis Rising No.110 March/April 2015 p.41
(v) Ignatius Donnelly: Trans-Atlantic Architecture | MalagaBay (archive.org)
(aa) E. F. Legner vita and websites (ucr.edu)
(ac) https://andrewgough.co.uk/articles_pollen/
(ae) https://www.vectorsofmind.com/p/evidence-for-global-cultural-diffusion
(af) http://www.viewzone.com/votanx.html
(ag) Genetic testing reveals that Europe is a melting pot, made of immigrants (nationalgeographic.com)
The Last Atlantis Book
The Last Atlantis Book [472] by Gene Matlock, claims on its cover that this is the last Atlantis book you will ever have to read. He attempts to prove that Mexico was the location of a Meso-American Atlantis that was essentially a Phoenician colony, established about 4000 BC. Although, a fairly slim volume, he covers a lot of ground, linking Mexico, India and Atlantis. He deals extensively with possible linguistic connections between Mesoamerica and Atlantis and Sanskrit. However, his linguistic abilities, not to mention his conclusions, have been subjected to severe criticism, as was the book generally. I think many more books other than Matlock’s will have to be read before the truth can be finally established.
Matlock identifies a site near San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán as matching Plato’s description of Atlantis. Matlock claims “the archaeological remains in San Lorenzo supposedly belong to the Olmec culture. The Olmecs themselves were either survivors of the Atlantis disaster or latecomers to the area”.
The back cover notes claim that over 25,000 books have been written about Atlantis. This is utter nonsense – at most the figure is in the mid hundreds. This sort of inaccuracy raises doubts about the quality of research and the rest of the book. Two further quibbles are that this book is surprisingly short at 140 pages and unforgivably, it has no index.
Matlock has also ventured into other contentious areas claiming that the story of Abraham and Sara of the Old Testament was based on Brahm and Saraisvati in Hindu mythology(a).
(a) https://www.lightforcenetwork.com/shabda-preceptor/who-was-abraham-paper-gene-d-matlock-ba-ma
Matlock, Gene
Gene D. Matlock (1928- ) was born in El Dorado, Kansas. He claims that from the age of twelve onward, he developed an interest in foreign languages and human beliefs.
After high school, he went to study at the University of New Mexico, and then went to Mexico City College, in Mexico, where he got a B.A. degree in Spanish and Latin American Affairs in December 1951. While in Mexico he became aware that somehow the ancient Mexicans had maintained close cultural and religious ties with India. He was drafted into the Marine Corps after graduating from Mexico City College and sent to Korea. After getting out of the Marines, he ‘travelled up and down Central America, from Mexico to Panama‘.
In New Orleans he earned a Masters Degree in Spanish at Tulane University. After teaching for a year in a New Orleans high school, he returned to Kansas where he taught for a year at Campus High School in Haysville, a few miles outside Wichita. He became a high school teacher in the Azusa Unified School District and retired after 27 years. He now lives in the California High Desert and spends his time researching the origins of Native Americans and their religions.
He believes that India ruled our prehistoric world including parts of America and that Atlantis was located in South-East Mexico at San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan[472]. In an attempt to link his Mexican location with Plato’s description of Atlantis Matlock contends that the ‘elephants’ mentioned by Plato were in fact the long-snouted tapirs of Meso-America!(c) Furthermore, he claims that there was a connection between India, the Phoenicians, Atlantis and Mexico. Matlock has a widely quoted Internet article(a) on the connection between Abraham and India, beginning with the identification of Abraham and his wife Sarai with the Hindu god Brahma and his wife Saraisvati. In 2000, Matlock published Jesus and Moses Are Buried in India, Birthplace of Abraham and the Hebrews[473], in which he develops this theme further.
>>Matlock also proposed that that the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl originally came from India(g).<<
A supportive book by the controversial Sri G. Ananda (Gregory Alexander) entitled Brahma: The God of Abraham[1187] was published in 2014. However, this idea is hotly debated on the Internet by all interested parties, Christian, Muslim and Hindu.
Matlock is forced to admit that “My readers should know that the ‘Atlantis’ described in this book may not be the same as Plato’s ‘Atlantis’. I’m just proving that there was once a part of the world called ‘Atlantis’ – that a part of Mexico once had the Sanskrit name Atlán, Tlan or Toltán, whose citizens were known as Atlantecas and Atlantl”. He then continues with “if my ‘Atlantis’ is not the real ‘Atlantis’ no one will ever find the one Plato mentioned”.
In 2014, Matlock wrote an article(d) advocating the rewriting of ancient history. He appears to have been inspired by the amazing discoveries at Gobekli Tepe.
Matlock has written a number of books[474][475] none of which have generated any serious critical endorsement, and also has had some critiques have been more than unkind. You can judge for yourself by reading some of his radical ideas on the Viewzone website(a)(b).>>They include the suggestion that Garden of Eden was at the North Pole, while, in the same paper endorsing the reality of ancient astronauts à la Zecharia Sitchin. “I must confess that I used to be a fanatical believer in Darwin’s theory of evolution. But my research, which led me to the outer space founders of all gods and religions, has turned me into an Intelligent Design Creationist.” (h)<<
Matlock has also contributed to Graham Hancock’s website under the name of Gene Douglas!(e)
(a) https://www.viewzone.com/hinduturk.html
(b) https://www.viewzone.com/abraham.html
(c) https://viewzone.com/atlantis22.html
(d) https://www.turk.org.au/must-we-rewrite-ancient-history-by-gene-d-matlock/
(e) https://grahamhancock.com/phorum/read.php?1,139807,139807
(g) http://www.viewzone.com/gene.word.html *
(h) http://www.viewzone.com/edenpole.html *
Göbekli Tepe
Göbekli Tepe is a site in South-East Turkey, just north of the Syrian border near the town of Sanliurfa that has been excavated for the past 15 years. The Smithsonian.com website noted(be) that “Gobekli Tepe was first examined—and dismissed—by University of Chicago and Istanbul University anthropologists in the 1960s. As part of a sweeping survey of the region, they visited the hill, saw some broken slabs of limestone and assumed the mound was nothing more than an abandoned medieval cemetery.”
The site work has been led by the German archaeologist, the late Klaus Schmidt, who has dated the site to 9600 BC, eerily coinciding with Plato’s apparent date for the war with 
Atlantis. In fairness to those who accept Plato’s date, the existence of the monuments at Göbekli Tepe at such an early date at least indicates the possibility, of Plato’s date being correct. However, I am not altogether happy with the date assigned to the site, as I cannot imagine how the stones were carved to such a high standard without metal tools, a development still some thousands of years in the future. Dating details are available online(ar).
There is now a claim that another site, Körtik Tepe, may even be older(av), with a suggested date of 12,500 to 11,700 years ago! Furthermore, another site, Boncuklu Tarla, located about 300 kilometres east of Göbekli Tepe is also believed to be older(br).
A paper by Schmidt on the development of agriculture at the time of Göbekli Tepe is freely available online(ao)
Sanliurfa mentioned above was ancient Urfa and is suggested by David Rohl as the original Ur of the Chaldees, the birthplace of Abraham.
The site consists of megalithic stone circles with T-shaped uprights on some of which are carved a variety of animals. What is most peculiar is the fact that these monuments were completely buried after hundreds of years of use. One suggestion is that the site is pre-diluvian and was buried by the biblical Flood!
A paper by Alastair Coombs entitled The Atlantis Twins offered further thoughts on possible prehistoric references, including a suggested link with Göbekli Tepe. This was expanded and retitled as Göbekli Tepe & the Atlantis Twins and later published on Graham Hancock’s website(aq)(bx)*.
Schmidt was convinced that this site marked the transition from a hunter-gatherer to an agricultural society. An interesting article is to be found in the March/April 2009 issue of Saudi Aramco World and on its website(a).
The consensus now is that Göbekli Tepe is the oldest known temple in the world, predating the temples of Malta by an astonishing 4,000-5,000 years. This, of course, is based on the dating offered by Schmidt, which may require revision. Further north is the ancient site of Kahin Tepe considered to be the oldest temple site in the Black Sea region. The remains of structures there have been identified as belonging to the Aceramic Neolithic Period, which dates back as far back as 12,000 years ago(bf).
However, Adam’s Calendar(c) in Mpumalanga, South Africa, has been dated to over 70,000 BC, which, if true, would throw an even greater number of theories onto the scrap heap. However, such dates are highly speculative and, at this point, without any scientific basis.
An imaginative article by Tom Knox, in the UK’s Daily Mail Online, suggested that Göbekli Tepe may be connected with the Garden of Eden(bd). Klaus Schmidt commented that ‘Gobekli Tepe is not the Garden of Eden: it is a temple in Eden.’
However, the idea that Göbekli Tepe is a temple site has been challenged by Professor Ted Banning at the University of Toronto, who has claimed(j) that it was ‘one of the world’s biggest garbage dumps’ suggested by the amounts of bones, tools and charcoal found there. Instead, he claims that the structures were homes, I find this unconvincing. Needless to say, Schmidt was also unhappy with Banning’s contention and was writing a rebuttal of his claim, which I’m not sure if it was completed or published.
Readers might be interested in comparing the monuments of Gobekli Tepe with the taulas of Menorca(d) at the far end of the Mediterranean. Some of which are also to be found in clusters.
Studies have confirmed astronomical alignments at these sites(i). A German site has highlighted a possible connection(ac). The most extensive publication on the subject of taulas was published in 1995 by Hochsieder & Knösel, in French[1064].
A 2020 paper by Gil Haklay & Avi Gopher has concluded that their “architectural formal analysis (and the central points calculated)
has brought to light an underlying geometric pattern based on an equilateral triangle and a set of main perpendicular axes that ties together Enclosures B, C and D under a single, rather complex geometric design. This suggests a new understanding of what has been initially planned and then built in the enclosure’s system of the main excavation area. It offers an answer to questions on the chronological relationships between the three enclosures, and it evokes insights regarding the architectural design process and how such architectural complexity could have been achieved.” (bv)
National Geographic magazine published a leading article on the site in June 2011, which can be read online(e). A new website devoted to Göbekli Tepe with more images is worth a visit(f). Another well-illustrated site(k) has drawn attention to the possibility that the animal images at the site match constellations at the time they were carved. It will be interesting to see how this particular investigation proceeds.
Nevertheless, another temple site 30 km to the northwest, Nevali Çori(g), dated to 6,000 BC also has T-shaped pillars but in my mind, it raises the question of how the same form of the monument would still be in use three and a half thousand years later. I would expect some stylistic evolution unless, of course, the dating of the two sites should be closer.
Another large site designated as Karahan Tepe(t), which is 63 km east of Sanliurfa is ‘reported’ to have hundreds of pillars, many T-shaped(h). In September 2019, a start on the excavation of the site was announced(aw). Work continued through 2020 and is expected to restart in 2021(bg). The suggestion now is that Karahan Tepe may be older than Göbekli Tepe(bq). Andrew Collins has written a paper entitled Karahan Tepe: Göbekli Tepe’s Sister Site—Another Temple Of The Stars?(bj)
A Norwegian website(l) has some little-seen images of the Göbekli Tepe site.
A new suggestion has now emerged linking Easter Island and the ongoing discoveries at Göbekli Tepe. This seems to date back to early 2010(m) and has now been given greater prominence in Robert Schoch’s most recent book, Forgotten Civilization[867]. A 2013 article(n) by Schoch includes a report of a recent visit by him to the site.
In July 2013 a paper(o)(p) by Giulio Magli explores the possibility that Göbekli Tepe had been constructed to “celebrate and successively follow the appearance of a new, extremely brilliant star in the southern skies: Sirius.” Sirius is the brightest star and had significance for ancient Egyptians and Greeks and features in Robert Temple’s theory regarding the astronomical knowledge of the Dogon people of Mali.
Amanda Laoupi has written a five-part paper in which she expands on the significance of Sirius for the Pelasgians, among others(al).
Magli’s suggestion has been dismissed in a paper(q) by Andrew Collins and Rodney Hale, who have made the alternative proposal that if there was an intended astronomical orientation, a more likely candidate was the star Deneb in the Cygnus constellation. Collins has already explored the significance of that constellation in the ancient cultures of America, Egypt and Britain in The Cygnus Mystery[075].
Nevertheless, Anthony Murphy and Richard Moore have written(bi) about the Cygnus Constellation and a possible link with Ireland’s Newgrange [1441].
In 2014, Collins devoted an entire book to the Göbekli Tepe discoveries with the publication of Göbekli Tepe: Genesis of the Gods[983]. In it, he refers briefly to Atlantis commenting that “Plato’s account of Atlantis might well be based on some kind of historical reality” (p.168). This seems to lack the certainty he showed in his best-selling Gateway to Atlantis[073]. Collins and Rodney Hale have published a paper in which they discuss the possible astronomical value of ‘Pillar 43’ at Göbekli Tepe(bw).
Additionally, Collins has produced a 68-minute video entitled Gobekli Tepe and the Watchers of Eden, referencing his earlier work(w). A preview(y) of Genesis of the Gods has been published on several websites including Academia.edu and Graham Hancock.com. Collins’ book has been heavily criticised as pseudoscience(an) by at least one reviewer on ‘goodreads’.
Hugh Newman, author and self-confessed ‘megalithomaniac’ has now proposed links between Göbekli Tepe and ancient Peru. He has also managed to include Göbekli Tepe in his theory of earth grids(r). Another writer, Trebha Cooper, claims a link between France and Göbekli Tepe(x)!
The unexpected death of Klaus Schmidt (1953-2014) took place on Sunday, July 20th, 2014 and was announced shortly afterwards(s).
In September 2014, archaeologists on the site described it as “the oldest known sculptural workshop on the planet.”(v)
The excellent The Stream of Time website from ‘antiquated antiquarian’ has a couple of well-illustrated blogs relating to Göbekli Tepe(z) and the region generally.
In April 2015, the Ancient Origins website published a two-part article(ag) by Ozgür Baris Etli, a Turkish scientist, in which he discusses the most recent discoveries on the site. The article(aa)(ab) is well illustrated as the author reviews the carvings there and their possible relevance to the early development of religion. In a 2016 article(ah), on the same site, he has drawn attention to the similarity of the position of carved hands at Göbekli Tepe, Easter Island as well as some other sites around the world where the hands are shown meeting at the navel. The significance of this, if any, is not known.
What has been identified as possibly the earliest pictograph in the world has now been revealed at the Göbekli Tepe site(ad). Andrew Collins also claims(ae) to have found the earliest depiction of Göbekli Tepe in the museum at Sanliurfa. Not unexpectedly Jason Colavito has a few words to say on the matter(af). Colavito also has a critical view(ai) of the recent Turkish documentary, supported by the government, which claims that Göbekli Tepe was built by Telah, Abraham’s father, and destroyed by Abraham. So who built Nevali Çori?
A 2016 paper(bm) by J.A. Belmonte, et al offers a review of recent archaeoastronomical studies in the Eastern Mediterranean including Göbekli, the Hittites and the Egyptians.
The March 2017 edition of Mediterranean Archaeology & Archaeometry (Vol.17, No.1, pp 233-250) includes a paper(aj) by M.B. Sweatman & D. Tsikritsis of the University of Edinburgh. In it they claim that the animals carved on the Göbekli Tepe pillars represent asterisms and that they found “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.” Understandably, their claims have been met with stony scepticism(ak). Sweatman has expanded his ideas further in Prehistory Decoded [1621].
Shortly after Sweatman & Tsikritsis (S&T) published their paper, a number of the archaeologists who have excavated at the site quickly published, in the same journal, several critical comments relating to the methodology and conclusions of S&T(bn).
The interpretation of the carvings has exercised the imagination of various researchers such as Graham Hancock, Andis Kaulins, and Paul Burley, as well as Sweatman and Tsikritsis, but no consensus has emerged, apart from an element of an agreement that some form of zodiacal representation is involved. The range of decipherments is discussed in detail in a paper by Edmond Furter who is disinclined to accept the zodiac explanation(bl).
In an August 2019 article on Graham Hancock’s website(at) Sweatman ventures further into the realms of wild speculation with the suggestion that Göbekli Tepe should be considered the world’s first ‘university’. This obviously had Jason Colavito spluttering into his cereal bowl, prompting him to apply his literary scalpel to the idea(au).
Constantinos Ragazas has produced a paper(am) in which he argues against the early date ascribed to Göbekli Tepe by Schmidt and others. He ponders on “How a Date can go wrong: Were Göbekli Tepe built 600 BC by Babylonians/Assyrians, no one would flinch a thought. It is the Date that makes Göbekli Tepe an enigma. The great dilemma for archaeologists is reconciling the date with the people that built Göbekli Tepe. Either the date is wrong or our theories of prehistoric people are wrong. And prehistoric people were more capable 12,000 years ago than all our other evidence tells us. Archaeologists trust their data over their understanding of prehistoric people. I argue the date is wrong. And prehistoric people were as we have always thought.” While this is controversial enough, Ragazas goes further and claims that Göbekli Tepe is, in truth, the site of the ‘Hanging Gardens of Babylon’!
However, Ragazas’ reservations regarding the early dating of Göbekli Tepe were given further support in an extensive 2016 paper(ap) by Dimitrios Dendrinos of the University of Kansas.
In March 2019, a paper by Roger M. Pearlman put forward another radical idea, namely, that Göbekli Tepe had been founded by Noah (Noach) and his sons(as).
There was further excitement at Göbekli Tepe in September 2019 when Andrew Collins was removed from the site and his book, From the Ashes of Angels, banned in Turkey and Collins himself may be subject to a ban. It seems that he may have expressed pro-Kurdish sentiments, which is a big no-no with the Turkish authorities. It is also speculated that some of Collins’ historical views run counter to some extreme Islamic interpretation of the past!
2019 produced another radical theory from A.Refik Kutluer, a Turkish tourism executive, who proposed in an interesting article(ax) that Göbekli Tepe was a site of ritual sacrifice. He suggests the possibility that “Men tried to placate the gods to avoid their anger and to keep them satisfied. As the gods punished them with natural disasters taking many lives when they became angry, men sought a way to mollify the gods, killing some of their own to ward off the gods’ rage, thinking that the gods were satisfied when these people or animals were sacrificed.“
2019 also saw reports(ay) of a ‘mini’ Göbekli Tepe in the Mardin Province of southeast Turkey and dated to 11,300 years ago.
In 2019, Robert Schoch in a paper(ba) written with Manu Seyfzadeh claimed that the “world’s first known written word at Göbekli Tepe on T-Shaped Pillar 18 means God”. In a recent Lost Origins podcast, Schoch repeated this claim, which led Jason Colavito to attack its credibility(bb), finding it “remarkable that he (Schoch) can translate a heretofore unsuspected system of writing in a 10,000-year-old language no one alive has ever heard. After all, several writing systems from historic times, such as linear A, related to languages that were only spoken a few thousand years ago, remain largely unreadable. We can’t even read Etruscan fluently, and yet Schoch has supposedly learned to read an Ice Age language! Think about that. For example, Old English is largely unintelligible to modern English speakers, while the Ice Age is removed in time from us by a factor of twenty times that chronological distance. The unlikeliness of Schoch’s claim boggles the mind.”
There are now regular updates available regarding the ongoing work at the Göbekli site, with contributions from members of the Göbekli Tepe Archaeological Research Project(az).
In 2020, Stone Age rock tombs were excavated not too far from Göbekli Tepe at the Kizilkoyun Necropolis area, adding to the importance of the region(bc).
Also, in April 2020, Haaretz published a report that “a discovery by Israeli archaeologists suggests the Göbekli Tepe construction project was even more complex than previously thought and required an amount of planning and resources thought to be impossible for those times.”(bh)
In June 2021, “Turkey’s Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Ersoy told reporters gathered in the southeastern Turkish city of Sanliurfa that several new sites had been found in the vicinity of Göbeklitepe.” and “We have [discovered] 11 more major hills on a 100-kilometre line around Göbeklitepe,” Ersoy declared. “Here, we will give the details for the first time, and now call it 12 hills.” In fact, Ersoy offered few details about what had been found at these new sites. He explained that a “major study” was on the verge of being completed and said the results of that study would be released in September 2021.”(bk)
Graham Hancock visited the Karahan Tepe site in 2020 and found a team of Turkish archaeologists well-advanced with their excavations. As their findings were unpublished until now(bp), Hancock refrained from offering his observations(bo). The enclosure revealed a carved human head protruding from the bedrock as well as a number of pillars that appeared to represent phalli! Hancock echoed Minister Ersoy’s comments noting that “a dozen other sites of similar antiquity are under excavation in the so-called “Stone Hills” area, a zone of intense interest to archaeologists extending for 100 square kilometres around Gobekli Tepe.”
A travel site has a useful article that should be read by anyone intending to visit Gobekli Tepe. This was last updated in August 2022(bt).
The World History Encyclopedia offers further interesting information regarding the discoveries at the site(bu).
Fortunately, no damage was reported at Gobekli Tepe following the 2023 earthquakes in Turkey and nearby Syria. However, October 2023 brought news that further exciting discoveries have been made at both Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe. At the former a statue of a giant man, 7.5-foot-tall, and apparently clutching his penis, while at Karahan a life-size statue of a wild boar. carved from limestone was found. “Archaeologists detected red, black and white pigments on its surface, indicating that the sculpture was once painted.”(by)
>>Early August 2024 brought fascinating news from Göbekli Tepe with the revelation that clear evidence has been found that its builders had developed a calendar, recording it wth a series of carvings on one of the pillars. Martin Sweatman, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Engineering, mentioned above, led the research that concluded that “Fresh analysis of V-shaped symbols carved onto pillars at the site has found that each V could represent a single day. This interpretation allowed researchers to count a solar calendar of 365 days on one of the pillars, consisting of 12 lunar months plus 11 extra days.” (bz)<<
(a) Saudi Aramco World : The Beginning of the End for Hunter-Gatherers (archive.org)
(d) https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taula
(e) The Birth of Religion (archive.org)
(f) https://web.archive.org/web/20200307093932/http://gobeklitepe.info/news.html
(g) https://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=14991
(h) Wayback Machine (archive.org) (new link)
(k) https://web.archive.org/web/20180215143747/https://timothystephany.com/gobekli.html
(l) https://spredtetanker.wordpress.com/tag/atlantis/
(m)https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=176228
(n) https://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/the-mystery-of-gobekli-tepe-and-its-message-to-us
(o) https://arxiv.org/abs/1307.8397
(q) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/Gobekli_Sirius.htm
(r) https://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/NewmanH2.php
(s) https://maviboncuk.blogspot.com.mt/2014/07/in-memoriam-klaus-schmidt-1953-2014.html
(u) https://www.press.uchicago.edu/pressReleases/2011/October/CA_1110_Gobekli.html
(w) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxW9uU0r8jQ
(x) https://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/CooperT1.php
(y) Göbekli Tepe: Who Built It, When and Why (archive.org)
(z) https://antiquatedantiquarian.blogspot.ie/2014_11_01_archive.html
(ac) https://www.efodon.de/html/publik/sy/SY124/SY12412%20Augustin%20-%20Menorca-Taulas.pdf
(ag) https://www.ancient-origins.net/users/ozgur
(am) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271076011_The_Hanging_Gardens_of_Gobekli_Tepe
(an) https://dtc-wsuv.org/afryer15/portfolio/gobeklitep (link broken)
(ao) https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/084d/c4204c7531fed6dc910efbe0caa1fbc85a11.pdf
(ap) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317433791_Dating_Gobekli_Tepe
(aq) https://grahamhancock.com/coombsa1/
(ar) https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/2016/06/22/how-old-ist-it-dating-gobekli-tepe/
(at) https://grahamhancock.com/sweatmanm1/
(av) https://www.sott.net/article/421222-Kortik-Tepe-Older-than-Gobekli-Tepe
(aw) https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/karahantepe-excavations-start-in-sanliurfa-146434
(ax) https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-asia/gobeklitepe-0012722
(ay) https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/mini-g-bekli-tepe-0012801
(az) https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/home/
(bc) https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/stone-age-rock-tombs-0014220
(be) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-temple-83613665/
(bf) https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/exciting-finds-at-kahin-tepe-excavations-147009
(bg) New Karahantepe settlement may be older than Göbeklitepe | Daily Sabah
(bi) Mythical Ireland | Astronomy | The Cygnus Enigma (archive.org)
(bl) https://www.academia.edu/33399739/Gobekli_Tepe_pillar_art_scorpion_is_not_a_zodiac
(bo) https://www.cnnturk.com/amp/turkiye/gobeklitepe-gibi-12-buyuk-kesif-daha-geliyor-insanligin-sirrini-taslarin-dili-anlatacak; and https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10050217/Stunning-carvings-human-figures-heads-uncovered-Karahantepe.htm.
(bq) Karahan Tepe is older than Göbekli Tepe – The Tapestry of Time (larazzodeltempo.it)
(br) Found in Turkey an older site than Göbekli Tepe – The Tapestry of Time (larazzodeltempo.it)
(bs) Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Astronomical Observatory? | Discover Magazine
(bt) https://trip-turkey.com/visit-gobekli-tepe-turkey/
(bu) Lost Civilisations of Anatolia: Göbekli Tepe – World History Encyclopedia
(bw) Göbekli Tepe’s Pillar 43 – The Vulture Stone (andrewcollins.com)
(bx) Archive 3642
(by) 11,000-year-old statue of giant man clutching penis unearthed in Turkey | Live Science