Göbleki Tepe ‘decoded’ — the Nabta Playa, Giza Plateau connection
[Disclaimer: The contents of this post are merely the reflections of the author’s opinions an beliefs, the subject matter holds no scientific weight. The aim is to explore alternative views on history.]
Neolithic astronomy was communicated by creating paintings or stone cut reliefs of animals to create a scene that mimics the heavens. It is evident that the ancients understood concepts like precession of the equinoctial points, in this post I will explain ancient reliefs of Göbleki Tepe as skymaps that incorporate such concepts.
Neolithic astronomers leveraged their understanding of cosmology to track time and space. I have demonstrated the concept of the Meridian Star using the Nabta Playa Stone Circle in ancient Nubia (c. 4,800 BCE)
Read More | Nabta Playa Circle Tracks the Meridian Star
Göbekli Tepe, or “Potbelly Hill”, is an archaeological site in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey dating back to the 10th–8th millennium BCE. Massive ‘T’-shaped stone pillars were erected, the world’s oldest known megaliths. More than 200 pillars in about 20 circles are known (as of May 2020) through geophysical surveys. Each pillar has a height of up to 6 m (20 ft) and weighs up to 10 tons.
Many of the pillars are decorated with abstract, enigmatic pictograms and carved animal reliefs. The pictograms may represent commonly understood sacred symbols, as known from Neolithic cave paintings elsewhere. The reliefs depict mammals such as lions, bulls, boars, foxes, gazelles, and donkeys; snakes and other reptiles; arthropods such as insects and arachnids; and birds, particularly vultures.[1]
Read More | Protodynastic Egyptian Astronomy, Protodynastic Egyptian Starmaps.
The most frequently recurring pillars while searching the internet have been pillar 2, 33 and 38, I will limit my time to Pillar 43 for now. Pillar 43 is been regarded as Göbleki Tepe’s Rosetta Stone therefore I will start with these reliefs.
To the left is a photograph of the front of Pillar 43, what you see are two segments on top of each other with a group of animals.
On the top half we have an eagle, a disc, two sets of vultures and an oddly shaped plough like figure. Just below lines that could be described as sinusoid.
The top row shows three baskets like figures with handles.
On the bottom half we see a prominently displayed scorpion in the center, directly below it a birdlike head and neck.
To the bird’s right a figure that looks like a decapitated lizard.
To the left of the scorpion a figure that resembles a boar and another tail like figure with a mace. I will not consider the side of the pillar for now.
We know that our primary focus should not be the summer solstice but on the winter solstice as stars are not visible during the day. It is a common mistake to focus solely on the summer solstice.
Before continuing we need to consider the importance of the Milky Way, the celestial poles and any kind of alignments that have to do with solstices of equinoxes. We know that our primary focus should not be the summer solstice but on the winter solstice as stars are not visible during the day and we want that maximum tilt. It is a common mistake to focus solely on the summer solstice.
Note that the eagle and disc are strikingly familiar to the constellation Cygnus, this has been mentioned often by independent researches and I would agree. However the placement of the disc is odd, it seems to have been flipped horizontally where west becomes east and vice versa.
I’m starting with the top half and setting the date to the winter solstice of 10,017 BCE and the following image appears:
Here we see the constellation Cygnus as represented by the eagle, Vega (Lyra) as the disc, Hurcules relates to the top vulture, the bottom vulture is related to Draco, the odd shaped plough could be Bootus (the plough) or could perhaps include stars within that region like the Corona Borealis.
Around 10,000 BCE Vega sits just above the equinoctial colure. The equinoctial colure is the meridian or great circle of the celestial sphere which passes through the celestial poles and the two equinoxes. [2] Due to precession this will change over the course of centuries, c. 9,500 BCE the disc would have dropped below the equinoctial colure as described by the sinus waves above the disc on Pillar 43. The waves could therefore describe the changes of daylength according to the seasons.
The equinoctial colure as a line will be straight and vertically aligned to the polar axis on the night of the equinoxes, this will happen on either of the equinoctial midnights. You can see this by clicking the following links: vernal equinox, autumnal equinox. Knowing when Vega has crossed the this meridian is to know when it has crossed the equinoctial colure! Vega is therefore the ‘Equinoctial Meridian Star’ for this period.
Vega is therefore the ‘Equinoctial Meridian Star’ for this period.
Read More | The Meridian Star, Four Absolute Seasons.
The bottom halve complements the top halve if you follow the Milky Way and start from the south west:
Scorpion is of course the constellation Scorpius, the boar represents Centaurus with the tail above its head belonging to Lupus. The bird’s head is represented by Triangulum Australe and the decapitated lizard could resemble the constellation Pavo.
I have chosen the year 10,017 BCE because in this year the Solstice Colure (or the polar axis) crossed the celestial equator and the galactic equator in the midst of Lupus, Scorpius and Triangulum Australe at the constellation of Norma. A crossing that only happens every 25,800 years.
A different bus evenly rare was the observation in ancient Nubia in the year 4,461 BCE when the polar axis crossed the Galactic equator, the Celestial equator, and the Ecliptic during the autumnal equinox at Nabta Playa. This goes to show that those who lived in the Neolithic and erected monuments were in the right time and place to venerate these precession events, as was the case with the Sphinx in lower Egypt. This does not mean that this was certainly the case, it merely means they could have but in my opinion this train of thought serves as the best explanation for these structures at this time.
Read more | Sphinx’s Aligns To Regulus (Leo) During Fifth Dynasty Egypt.
Another take would be the meridian stars. In 9853 BC Vega crosses the equinoctial colure as the equinoctial meridian star(top). In 9665 BCE the star Antares (Scorpius) crosses the solstitial colure as the solstitial meridian star(top, bottom).
What is left of the front of Pillar 43 are the three baskets with handle. Given the placement at the top and in threefold it might have something to do with the crossing mention above with the three handles possibly resembling the three arcs of the polar, the equatorial and the galactic.
Furthermore the image resembles a bit like that of the ‘teapot’ within the constellation of Sagittarius, this is also the location where the Milky Way crosses the Ecliptic at the Galactic Center.
A different take, and more likely, is that they describe the movement of the sun over the hills and thereby describing both solstitial points and the equinoctial point as can be seen in the image below, such an explanation fits well with the sinusoid lines that express the equinoctial colure as mentioned above.[3]
Resumé… Neolithic cultures in all likelihood erected monuments to venerate the precessions, observe the solstices and equinoxes, Göbekli Tepe is no exception. At Göbleki Tepi the people used stone cutting to create reliefs as was common during the Neolithic.
The relief of Pillar 43 depicts the star Vega from the constellation Lyra crossing over the Equinoctial Colure on the winter solstice. This could have been deduced by tracking the midnight meridian on either of the equinoxes. The pillar shows the visible constellations along the Milky Way during the winter nights.
On the winter solstice of 10,017 BCE the galactic equator cross the celestial equator and the midnight meridian, an event rare enough to be venerated. I am of the opinion that it was this event, along with the tracking of Vega as it crossed the Equinoctial Colure, that were among the prime motivators of this site’s construction.
In 9853 BCE Vega is the equinoctial meridian star, in 9665 BCE Antares is the solstitial meridian star.
On Pillar 43 a disc shaped figure was used to represent Vega, perhaps to signal it as a pole star. Vega was close to being the pole star at the time and so it is likely that the disc represents the axis of rotation of the earth. The distance of Vega to the North Celestial Pole provides the symbolic radius of the circle. The same idea was presented in my post about Protodynastic Egyptian Astronomy.
The observational techniques at Göbleki Tepe are the same as observed at Nabta Playa (South Egytpt c. 4,800 BCE) and in Upper and Lower Egypt (c. 3,100 BCE). During the Neolithic the focus always seems to be on the midnight meridian and its relation to the solstices and equinoxes.
By Orestes_3113
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References
[1] Göbleki Tepe — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobekli_Tepe
[2] Equinoctial Colure — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colure
[3] Cosmic Power of the Shaman and Symbols at Göbekli Tepe — Part II — https://www.ancient-origins.net/opinion-guest-authors/cosmic-power-shaman-and-symbols-g-bekli-tepe-part-ii-005194
