Dogon
Bee, The *
The Bee and its place in many cultures from prehistoric times is outlined in three lengthy articles(a)(b)(c) by Andrew Gough. Much of what he has written is news to me as I’m sure it will be to most readers here. They should be read along with an equally fascinating article in National Geographic magazine of March 2020. All three of Gough’s papers are highly informative and worthy of a read.
An article(c) on the BBC website refers to studies that indicate “that humans have been exploiting honeybees for almost 9,000 years” also noting that “traces of beeswax found on ancient pottery from Europe, the Near East and North Africa suggest the first farmers kept bees.”
Its medicinal and nutritional qualities have been identified in ancient societies as far apart as early Aboriginal Australia and Sumeria. The bee also featured “as the symbol of the constellation presently occupied by Libra” in the zodiac of the Dogon of Mali. Gough deals extensively with the place of the bee in ancient Egypt where the bee ideogram represents honey, and “Intriguingly, Northern Egypt – the land stretching from the Delta to Memphis was known as “Ta-Bitty”, or “the land of the bee”. Similarly in the bible, the Lord promises to bring the Israelites out of Egypt and into a land flowing with milk and honey.”
Gough, who had earlier been attracted to the Minoan Hypothesis, noted that the Minoans of Crete, like the Egyptians, also venerated the bee and added that “Although speculative, the notion of Atlantis as a centre of bull and Bee worship is alluring, and based on the evidence, not entirely unfounded.”(a) Throughout his three articles, Gough touches briefly on the subject of Atlantis including the books of Jürgen Spanuth and his North Sea Atlantis. In the same way, I should point out that in the case of another Atlantis candidate, Malta, its name is generally thought to be derived from the Greek word for honey meli and was later known to the Romans as Melita, the Latin equivalent. Malta was renowned in ancient times for the quality of its honey, which may explain why the light-fingered, 1st century BC Roman governor, Verres, stole 400 amphorae of it (about 2800 gallons) over a three-year period.
Eire Rautenberg has offered a more speculative Malta/Bee connection claiming “The first humans came 11,000 – 6,000 BC. BC, historically very early. ‘Malet’, the Punic name for Malta , means refuge and the Greek interpretation ‘Melita’ of -melas means a honeyed dark goddess. The bee structure of the Megalithic Temples of Malta everyone can study at the temple stones; they sometimes look like huge honeycombs that have been proven to be artificially created. The owl as a symbol of the dark, all-seeing eye goddess can also be found on a stele of the megalithic temple Hagar Qim on the southwest coast.(f)
Antoine Gigal, the French researcher, has drawn attention to a possible link between Egypt and Malta based on the bee and its honey.(d)
Eva Crane (1912-2007) the renowned British expert on bees and beekeeping has authored many papers and books on the subject among which is the 682-page tome The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting [1870], a must for anyone with a keen apiarian interest.
(a) THE BEE: PART 1 – BEEDAZZLED | Andrew Gough (archive.org) *
(b) THE BEE: PART 2 – BEEWILDERED | Andrew Gough (archive.org) *
(c) THE BEE: PART 3 – BEEGOTTEN | Andrew Gough (archive.org) *
(d) EGYPT BEFORE THE PHARAOHS (gigalresearch.com)
(e) Prehistoric farmers were first beekeepers – BBC News
(f) Poseidon is not a Greek god! – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog)
Sirius *
Sirius is a binary star in the constellation Canis Major and the brightest star in the night sky and is expected to remain so for the next 210,000 years. In relative terms, it is a near neighbour of ours.
One wild theory speculates that Sirius and our Sun had once been binary partners(i).
Many people of my vintage were first made aware of Sirius when Robert Temple published his bestselling The Sirius Mystery [735]. In which he supported the idea of extraterrestrial influence on human cultural development, citing as evidence, the ‘knowledge’ of the Dogon people regarding the Sirius star system before verification by modern astronomy. This idea has now come under serious attack with the claim that Sirius C does not even exist(a). The controversy is still raging as the Bad Archaeology website demonstrates(b) as well as an article from the Armagh Planetarium website(c). Jason Colavito has also added a few critical comments regarding the knowledge of the Dogon(j). Colavito also reveals(k) that Arthur M. Young (1905-1995), the helicopter pioneer and Robert Temple’s mentor also “believed he had been in contact with extraterrestrials from Sirius who served as the creator gods of Egypt.”
Two decades ago, Laird Scranton wrote in Atlantis Rising magazine(q) that, “the answers to Temple’s mysteries can no longer be reasonably found in the Sirius question itself because the debate has succeeded in casting doubt on so many of Temple’s assertions. However, there are many other fascinating aspects of the Dogon religion and cosmology not entangled in this debate which, due to the continuing glare of the star Sirius, seem to have been overlooked for study. Some of the most promising of these are the Dogon symbols relating to the structure of matter.” and the blub for his book Hidden Meanings [1916] added that “The mythology of the Dogon tribe of Mali describes how their one true god Amma created all of the matter of the universe. But the system defined by these tribal myths bears a striking resemblance to the actual scientific structure of matter, starting with the atom and continuing all the way down to the vibrating threads of string theory. Moreover, many of the Dogon words, symbols and rituals used to describe this structure are a close match for those found in the myths of ancient Egypt and in the daily rituals of Judaism.“
For the ancient Egyptians Sirius, known to them as Sothis, had great importance, as the heliacal rising of Sirius coincided with the summer solstice which heralded the next flooding of the Nile. They also associated Sirius with the goddess Isis. John deSalvo claims in his list of old pyramid theories(s) that “Several Arabian writers have seen a mystic correlation between the design of the pyramid and the revolutions of Sirius, the judge-god of the dead.”
A 2008 report from the University of Hamburg said “scientists led by Helmut Ziegert had found remains of a 10th-century-B.C. palace at Axum-Dungur (Ethiopia) under the palace of a later Christian king. There was evidence the early palace had been torn down and realigned to the path of the star Sirius.”(l)
Additionally, it is also suggested that the earlier structure was the palace of the legendary Queen Of Sheba. Today, Axum is claimed by the Ethiopian Church to be the current home of the Ark of the Covenant, a claim given widespread attention by Graham Hancock some decades ago in The Sign and the Seal.
In the 19th century, Theosophists claimed Sirius as having particular esoteric significance. “Blavatsky stated that the star Sirius exerts a mystic and direct influence over the entire living heaven and is linked with every great religion of antiquity.
Alice Bailey sees the Dog Star as the true ‘Great White Lodge’ and believes it to be the home of the ‘Spiritual Hierarchy’. For this reason, she considers Sirius as the ‘star of initiation’.”(m)
Even today, Sirius plays a part in the symbology of Freemasonry, where it is referred to as the ‘Blazing Star’.
Amanda Laoupi has written a five-part paper in which she expands on the significance of Sirius for the Pelasgians, among others(h).
Giulio Magli (1964- ) is an Italian archaeoastronomer with a website in English(d) dedicated to the application of the discipline in Egypt. In 2013, Magli proposed that aspects of the Göbleki Tepe site are related to the recent appearance of Sirius in the night sky around 9300 BC(e). Andrew Collins and Rodney Hale argue against this interpretation(f), which is perhaps understandable as they support a linkage with the Cygnus constellation.
A 2004 paper by Magli, on precessional effects in ancient astronomy(g), has recently been applied by Lenie Reedijk to her contention that the Maltese temples were oriented to Sirius[1631].
In 2012, E. A. James Swagger published The Newgrange Sirius Mystery [1683] in which he endeavoured to link Ireland’s most important megalithic site with both an early understanding of precession and the symbology of the Dogon.
Further to the east, in Armenia, Sirius was closely studied by the people of Metsamor at what is claimed as one of the oldest observatories in the world. In a series of six articles(o) by Rick Ney, Metsamor and the ancient site of Karahundj, sometimes dubbed ‘Armenia’s Stonehenge’, whose 204 stones stand near the town of Sissian are fully discussed. The Trip Advisor website(n) offers several enticing images.
Going from the serious to the silly, I note that the late Flying Eagle (1920-2007) and his partner Whispering Wind specified the planet Xylanthia(f) in the Sirius star system as the original home of a visitor who fell in love with an earthling and later became known as Poseidon!
The Wessex Research Group offer more nonsense in a paper by Murray Bruce in which the author endeavours to convince us that there were ancient astronauts, who originally came to Earth from Sirius and are remembered in our mythologies as the Gods, the Old Ones etc. Bruce suggests that these visitors probably inspired the description of the Sumerian god Oannes!(r)
The Sirius Research institute is concerned with the study of binary stars, precession and, of course, Sirius(p).
(b) Did the Dogon of Mali know about Sirius B? (archive.org)
(d) https://web.archive.org/web/20180903021842/https://archaeoastronomy-egypt.com/?page=introduction
(f) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/Gobekli_Sirius.htm
(g) https://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0407/0407108.pdf
(i) https://humanoriginproject.com/sirius-mythology-two-sun-solar-system/
(j) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-ancient-aliens-s14e04-the-stat-gods-of-Sirius
(k) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/robert-temple.html
(l) https://www.wnd.com/2008/05/63998/
(m) https://vigilantcitizen.com/hidden-knowledge/connection-between-sirius-and-human-history/
(o) Astrology on the Web: Armenia’s Stonehenge (archive.org) (to view all six papers, just change the number in the URL) *
(q) Atlantis Rising magazine #29 https://archive.org/details/Atlantis_Rising_29/page/n3/mode/2up
(r) http://www.wessexresearchgroup.org/download/pdf_are_our_roots_in_sirius.pdf
(s) THEORIES ON WHY THE GREAT PYRAMID WAS BUILT (gizapyramid.com)
Temple, Robert *
Robert K. G. Temple (1945- ) is the American bestselling author of The Sirius Mystery [735]+. In it he supports the idea of extraterrestrial influence on human cultural development, citing as evidence, the ‘knowledge’ of the Dogon people regarding the Sirius star system before verification by modern astronomy.
Temple’s claims were, in the main, based on the work of Marcel Griaule (1898-1956) and Germaine Dieterlen (1903-1999), published in The Pale Fox [1698].
In Gods of the New Millennium [006.109], Alan Alford described Temple’s evidence as ‘incontrovertible’!
Temple published a response to some of his critics, particularly Carl Sagan, with an open letter in 1997(l).
However, Temple’s ideas ha now come under further attack with the claim that Sirius C does not even exist(c). The controversy is still raging as the Bad Archaeology website demonstrates(d) as well as an article from the Armagh Planetarium website(e). The refutation of the Sirius ‘mystery’ was achieved through the fieldwork of anthropologist, Walter E. A. van Beek, among the Dogon, which produced no evidence to support Temple’s claims(h). He published his findings in a 1991 paper [1685] and it is worth noting that van Beek’s criticisms were aimed at fellow anthropologist, Griaule, rather than Temple.
The late Philip Coppens wrote two highly critical articles(i)(j) denouncing the Dogon story as ‘false mythology’. He cites the work of Van Beek and The Stargate Conspiracy [705] by Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince, which he felt completely demolished Temple’s claims. Over twenty years later the book has again been reviewed in an audio format(k).
Temple contends that this interaction took place between 5000 and 3000 BC and refers to that era as the ‘Contact Period’. He goes further and claims that these ‘visitors’ were responsible for the building of the Sphinx and the pyramids and that later efforts by the Egyptians to build other pyramids on the same scale failed. However, some of the Mayan pyramids are equally impressive although built later than the magnificent Giza monuments, Temple does not explain the source of the Mesoamerican structures.
In 2000, Temple published The Crystal Sun[928] in which he outlined the evidence for early optical science, including its possible use in the lighthouse at Pharos(f). The matter of ancient lenses is discussed online(g). 2013 saw the publication of Ancient Glass[1002] by Prof. Julian Henderson in which he pushes back the earliest production of crude glass to the middle of the third millennium BC. Temple has a degree in Oriental Studies and Sanskrit from the University of Pennsylvania. He has written a number of sometimes controversial books on various historical subjects(a). Jason Colavito has cast doubt on Temple’s academic credentials in a September 2012 blog(b). However, it was not until his 2010 book, Egyptian Dawn[736], that he touched on the subject of Atlantis. In it, he declared that the “true ‘Atlantis’ was the Atlantic Coastal civilisation of the megalith builders.” He further proposes that the story of Atlantis was concocted by those megalith builders “for consumption by the people of the Mediterranean, as a kind of disinformation campaign.” Temple has hinted that he may devote an entire book to the subject of Atlantis sometime in the future!
Temple’s next offering came in 2022 in the form of A New Science of Heaven [1959]. The promotional blurb claims the book is “a new, explosive study of plasma and its revolutionary implications for how we understand the universe and our place in it.” Some of us probably find the subject of plasma rather arcane, nevertheless, there is one suggestion in this book that might have relevance for all of us. Plasma pervades the universe and Temple puts forward the idea that it may be sentient, which sounds like an updated form of pantheism!
[735]+ Available online: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242865509_The_Sirius_Mystery
(a) https://www.robert-temple.com/
(d) Did the Dogon of Mali know about Sirius B? (archive.org) *
(f) https://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/lost-technology-of-the-ancients-the-crystal-sun
(g) https://web.archive.org/web/20200212044246/http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/optics.htm
(h) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/germaine-dieterlen-the-sirius-mystery-and-the-quest-for-truth
(i) https://atlantipedia.ie/samples/archive-4055/
(j) https://atlantipedia.ie/samples/archive-4056/
(k) The Stargate Conspiracy – The Saucer Life
(l) Sirius-AnswerCritics.pdf (robert-temple.com)
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