Stone Age

Copper Age, The *

Published November 25, 2012

The Copper Age also known as the Chalcolithic Age existed for a relatively brief period between the Stone and Bronze Ages with wide regional variations, in Britain around the 3^rd millennium BC^(a), while in Serbia it was as early as 5500 BC^(b).

As recently as 1969, Lucile Taylor Hansen incorrectly wrote^[572.116] “a copper age……..should precede a bronze age. It does not in Europe. Nor in the Mediterranean.” The lesson here is that if we think we know it all now, time will show that we are sadly mistaken.

^(a)Feature: British Archaeology 101, July/August 2008 (archive.org) *

^(b) https://www.hindustantimes.com/world/world-s-oldest-copper-age-settlement-found/story-k9rIzW37qpM47mMbJv2lmL.html

Dating Techniques

Published January 26, 2011

Dating Techniques have improved in leaps and bounds since the 19^thcentury when Charles Lyell first gave stratigraphy widespread publicity as a means of dating archaeological finds, if only relatively. Nicolas Steno had laid the foundations of this discipline two centuries earlier^(j).

In very simple terms, generally, it means that as you dig, older objects will be found under younger ones. For over a century this was one of the few dating methods available to archaeologists, but unfortunately, it could not offer specific dates.

Another early dating method was ‘typology’^(d), defined as the classification of artefacts according to their physical characteristics.

This approach can be traced back to the 16th century when John Leland (1503-1552) began classifying bricks according to size and shape^(I).

Arguably the best known uses of the method relate to Stone Age implements and later to pottery. Relating to Atlantis studies, we find that Jürgen Spanuth applied typology to the weaponry and dress of the Sea Peoples as portrayed at Medinet Habu to support his theory that they came from Northern Europe.

However, I would tread warily when accepting the conclusions of such comparisons. Although Spanuth enthusiastically linked the Sea Peoples images at Medinet Habu with warriors from ancient Scandinavia, Jim Allen has produced a series of images that appear to link the Medinet Habu helmets with modern native headgear worn in South America^(m). The Vikings, perhaps apart from ceremonial occasions, did not wear horned helmets in battle. With regard to the South American headresses, I find it odd that they have retained the same style for over three thousand years!

The Cogniarchae website maintains that with the assistance of the Atlantic sea currents some of the Sea Peoples were the first to reach Mesoamerica⁽ⁿ⁾. The author offers a number of images to support this idea.

Absolute dating began with the introduction of radiometric dating methods beginning with radiocarbon dating developed by Willard Libby in 1949. Around the same time, dendrochronology was being refined as a dating method with a margin of error less than that of radiometry, which requires expensive equipment and potentially has a greater risk of contamination. This was followed by thermoluminescence (1957) for dating pottery and more recently optical thermoluminescence (1994) has been developed, enabling the dating of building stone.

Dating objects between 50,000 and 100,000 years old has been difficult as most methods have questionable reliability for this period. However, in 2004 a new method, known as quartz hydration dating was developed at UC Irvine^(f).

All the above methods have varying margins of error that are continually being reduced and no doubt will improve further. These enhancements together with new exciting dating methods that can be expected to emerge, will undoubtedly have a profound influence on our understanding of prehistory. Consider how improvements in DNA analysis have enabled the solving of crimes years after cases had gone ‘cold’.

More cautionary offerings^(a)(c) came from the catastrophist website, thunderbolts.info., in which events involving influences outside our planet might affect the assumptions upon which some of our radiometrics are based. Since these events are not frequent occurrences we do not, as yet, have enough data to develop more reliable calibration charts.

In May 2012, in the journal Nature, Ewen Callaway has an article^(b) that further highlights potential weaknesses that may be encountered with radiocarbon dating.

The fascinating CAIS website offers a good overview^(e) of the range of sophisticated dating techniques available today. We can reasonably expect it to expand.

A July 2015 article^(g) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. has highlighted a new threat that the burning of fossil fuels has introduced into the reliability of radiocarbon dating.

“As carbon-14 decays over time the fraction will decrease so that’s how we use it for dating,” the paper’s author Dr Heather Graven told BBC News.

“But we can also change this ratio of radioactive carbon to total carbon, if we are adding non-radioactive carbon and that’s what’s happening with fossil fuels, we get this dilution effect.”

“At current rates of emissions increase”, according to the research, “a new piece of clothing in 2050 would have the same carbon date as a robe worn by William the Conqueror 1,000 years earlier.”

The latest dating method, proposed by Michael Dee and Benjamin Pope^(h) combines dendrochronology with radiocarbon dating and is designed to identify specific years based on spikes in the carbon14 found in specific growth rings, caused by energy discharges during solar storms. Dee and Pope have called this new science ‘astrochronology’ and anticipate that its application will tie down the so-called ‘floating chronologies’ of ancient Egypt and elsewhere.

I must also note that radiocarbon dating is not universally accepted. Atlantisforschung published the following

“In 1997, the long-prepared book “C14-Crash” by the mathematician and science critic Christian Blöss (Berlin) and the professor of history of technology Hans-Ulrich Niemitz (Leipzig) was published.

In lectures at the Berlin History Salon and on various occasions outside Berlin, the two have presented their theses for several years and caused a corresponding uproar.

But it was only with the finished book that the crash happened: C14 has had its day as a chronological aid. The evidence is stunning. When reading, one often has the feeling that no scientist can be so stupid that he would not have previously come up with the blatant errors in the C14 determination method. After all, it has been used (almost) unchallenged for sixty years.”^(k)

Obviously this view has fallen neatly into the hands of chronology revisionists and should not be cast aside without good reason. A paper on the Researchgate website offers an insight into possible problems with dendrochronology^(l).

^(a) https://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/arch/041129antarctic-fossil.htm

^(b) https://www.nature.com/news/archaeology-date-with-history-1.10573

^(c)https://web.archive.org/web/20130515195722/https://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2992

^(d) https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1525/aa.1933.35.1.02a00070

^(e)https://atlantipedia.ie/samples/archive-2408/

^(f) https://www.spacedaily.com/news/human-04i.html

^(g) https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33594658

^(h) https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/aug/17/traces-of-sun-storms-locked-in-tree-rings-could-confirm-ancient-historical-dates-astrochronology

⁽ⁱ⁾ https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquaries-journal/article/john-leland-and-the-briton-brykes/E0988BD51311BCFF4BBFDF7B1B0F4EDD

^(j)https://web.archive.org/web/20200302223241/https://homepage.smc.edu/grippo_alessandro/gss1.html

^(k) C14 crash: The end of the illusion of being able to date with radiocarbon method and dendrochronology – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantis-forschung.de) *

^(l) ResearchGate *

^(m) https://web.archive.org/web/20200629021253/http://www.atlantisbolivia.org/artefacts.htm *

⁽ⁿ⁾ Earth is my witness… Sea peoples reached Mesoamerica – COGNIARCHAE *

Tagged astrochronology, Benjamin Pope, Charles Lyell, Christian Blöss, dendrochronology, Ewen Callaway, Heather Craven, Horned helmets, Jim Allen, John Leland, Jürgen Spanuth, Medibet Habu, Michael Dee, Nicolas Steno, pottery, radiocarbon dating, Sea Peoples, Stone Age, stratigraphy, thermoluminescence, typology, Vikings, Willard Libby

Stade *

Published June 11, 2010

The Stade was an ancient Greek measurement of distance. The origins of the stade are not clear. One opinion claims that at first, it was the distance covered by a plough before turning. Later it was the length of a foot race in a Greek Stadion (Roman Stadium) or 157 meters. Different ‘standard’ stadia existed in various city-states of ancient Greece ranging from 157 to 211 meters.

Some commentators have treated the stade as a synonym for the British ‘furlong’ (one eight a mile or 220 yards – approximately 201 metres), which was an old Anglo-Saxon measure for a ‘long furrow’.

Nick Kollerstrom has published a paper on Graham Hancock’s website arguing that “Mother Earth was clearly the source of the Greek stade, though the ancient Greek philosophers do not seem to have been aware of this fact.”^(e)

Most commentators on Plato’s Atlantis seem to accept a value of 185 metres (607 feet) to the stade. Thorwald C.Franke argues for a value of 176 metres – ” It is confusing: The building called “stadion” had been 185 meters, but the measure “stadion” not. We can conclude that the Athenians once had a shorter building, but decided to build a bigger building in later times. It is the same story for the “stadion” of other cities.” (private correspondence)

The problem that has arisen is that irrespective of whichever stade was used by Plato, the resulting dimensions suggested by him are unacceptably large. This has led quite a number of commentators to suggest that Plato’s use of the stade was possibly due to some misunderstanding or transcription error and have striven to find a more credible unit of measurement.

Jim Allen who is the leading advocate for a Bolivian location for Atlantis has used a value for the stade that is half the conventionally accepted 185 metres. He bases this on the fact that the ancient South Americans used a base of 20 rather than 10 for counting. He offers an interesting article with impressive images on his website^(a)in support of his contention.

Dr Rainer Kühne, who recently publicised that a site in Andalusia, identified by Werner Wickboldt from satellite photos, suggested that Plato used a stade that was probably 20% longer than what is normally accepted since the dimensions of the Spanish site are greater than those given in Plato’s text. This idea is not satisfactory as so many other dimensions of the city’s features already suggest over-engineering on a colossal scale. To add a further 20% would be even more ridiculous.

If the dimensions of Atlantis did originate on the pillars in the temple at Sais, the unit of measurement used was probably Egyptian (or Atlantean) and so their exact value must be open to question. The values given by Plato relating to Atlantis have long been ammunition for sceptics. They argue that Plato’s topographical data suggests either a degree of over-engineering that was improbable in the Bronze Age or impossible in the Stone Age and must, therefore, be a fantasy.

In the 1930s and 1940s, there was a degree of confusion among those reluctant to accept that the Greek ‘stade’ was a reliable unit of measurement for the architectural features described by Plato in Atlantis. Alexander Braghine in 1940, seems to have the matter entirely confused when he wrote ^[156.58]about Albert Hermann‘s proposal of 1934 that the unit of measurement used by the Egyptians to describe Atlantis was the ‘shoinos’, which Braghine noted is 604 times shorter than a stade, which is completely wrong or just a misprint that should read 60! Earlier in 1937 James Bramwell also commented on Hermann’s suggestion that it was the Egyptian ‘schoinos’, which is equivalent to 30 stadia ^[195.117].

William Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, noted that “SCHOENUS (?, ?, ???????), literally, a rope of rushes, an Egyptian and Persian itinerary and land measure (Herod. i. 66). Its length is stated by Herodotus (ii. 6, 9) at 60 stadia, or 2 parasangs; by Eratosthenes at 40 stadia, and by others at 112 or 30. (Plin. H. N. v. 9. s. 10, xii. 14. s. 30.) Strabo and Pliny both state that the schoenus varied in different parts of Egypt and Persia. (Strabo, p. 803; Plin. H. N. vi. 26. s 30; comp Athen. iii. p. 122, a.) [–Phillip Smith]”

An award-winning paper by Newly Walkup discusses in detail Eratosthenes attempt to measure the circumference of the Earth^(f).

Today, Wikipedia proposes a conversion rate of 40 schoeni to the stade^(c).

The late Ulf Richter proposed a simple solution to this problem^(b), namely that the unit of measurement originally recorded was the Egyptian Khet. This was equivalent to 52.4 metres or approximately 3.5 times less than the value of the stade. The acceptance of this rational explanation removes one of the great objections to the veracity of the Atlantis narrative.

The most recent entrant into this particular debate is M.P. Courville ^[1960.10] who has proposed that Plato intended to use the plethrum, which is around 30 metres long or very roughly one-fifth the length of a stade. The problem arising from that idea is that Plato also uses the plethrum together with the stade in contexts where they both seem too large (Crit.116a & 118c)!

Jean-Pierre Pätznick commented in a paper on the Academia.edu website that “the 10,000-stadia ditch that would have surrounded the great plain on three sides would in fact have measured 1850 km long, 30.80 m deep and 185 m wide. A colossal structure that would have been 23 times larger than the Panama Canal and nearly 10 times larger than that of the Suez Canal!”^(d)

It seems that all of Plato’s numbers, or at least all the larger ones, appear to be exaggerations and in my opinion, should be reduced by a common factor to bring them in line with credibility. I have elaborated more fully on this in Joining the Dots.

^(a)https://web.archive.org/web/20200709181313/http://www.atlantisbolivia.org/atlantisstade.htm

^(b) https://web.archive.org/web/20180728113519/http://www.atlantisbolivia.org/ulfrichterstade.htm

^(c) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoenus#:~:text=in%20Egyptian%20surveying.-,Length,several%20regional%20variants%20of%20each.

^(d)(99+) (PDF) Atlantis: ‘Lost in Translations’ – In Search of the Egyptian Version | Jean-Pierre PÄTZNICK – Academia.edu (French with English translation available)

^(e) Ancient Units and Earth-Measure – Graham Hancock Official Website

^(f)Eratosthenes and the Mystery of the Stades – Introduction | Mathematical Association of America (archive.org) *

Tagged Albert Herrmann, Alexander Braghine, Andalusia, Bronze Age, Furlong, James Bramwell, Jean-Pierre Pätznick, Jime Allen, khet, M. P. Courville, Nick Kollerstrom, Panama Canal, Plethrum, Rainer Kuhne, Sais, Schoenus, schoinos, stade, Stone Age, Suez Canal, Thorwald C. Franke, Ulf Richter, Werner Wickboldt, William Smith

Göbekli Tepe

Published March 23, 2010

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)

⁽^c⁾https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-africa/adam-s-calendar-oldest-megalithic-site-world-003160

^(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)

⁽ⁱ⁾https://web.archive.org/web/20080425092420/https://perso.wanadoo.es/chanches/menorca/taulas/binisaes.htm

^(j) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2050908/Gobekli-Tepe-Temple-thats-6-500-years-older-Stonehenge-house.html

^(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