Skull Cult at Gobekli Tepe?

[shawomet]

So anyway, here's a curveball. Maybe this is nonsense as well. I don't know....

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1307/1307.8397.pdf

[shawomet]

Here is a recent critique of the Sweatman/Tsikritsis comet impact interpretation of GT, by the research staff at GT. I recommend reading the comments that follow this short piece as well....

https://tepetelegrams.wordpress.com/201 ... e-aurochs/

I note in passing that Sweatman, et al interpreted the headless motifs as conveying the scope of this hypothetical celestial disaster. "The worse day in humanity's history" as they put it, was conveyed by the image of a man without a head. Yet the new study would certainly seem to contradict such speculation, would it not?

[shawomet]

Hello tiompan -

From earlier in our discussion:




For comparative purposes:




ESPECIALLY NOT THE HOLED STONE'S LOCATION AT GOBLEKI TEPE.

NOTE PLAQUE C here especially:



C looks to me to be two sighting stone circles, with a comet shown nearby.

The ant(?) at the bottom may be raising a stone.
This is the first time I have seen an ant(?) symbol in this area.

The obverse of C may represent a meteor storm, the Draconids.

It appears there is disagreement on which ends are up:



That said, the twin pillars had significance for the builders of Gobekli Tepe:




good morning. Tiompan.

While you yourself may have an intense interest in PPN-B. we (Fletcher and myself) don't.
I thank you for your earlier help with guidance to links to PPN-B materials.

Typing is quite difficult now. but please do not mistake my abruptness for rudeness.
Also please do not mistake your ability to out-type me for any concession of points in analysis.

As far as Andrew Collins' analysis goes
Fletcher tells me that Cygnus was the Thunderbird constellation for many Native American peoples.
Bill Romain stresses the importance of Cygnus in his works on Ohio Hopewell archeo-astronomy

I have serious doubts about these identifications
and suspect that different asterisms were involved
My own role in this work here is limited to identifying successor peoples
and then finding reliable written recordings of traditions from these successor peoples for analysis.

As far as the absolute timing of the remains at Gobekli Tepe
The platinum group spike should show up in cores taken at the site
and if those cores also contain carbon 14 materials
they could provide a nice key for absolute carbon 14 calibration curve for remains found at the site proper.

Fletcher and I agree that far more excavation work needs to be done at Gobekli Tepe in the quarry area.
hell as even I could not fuck up a couple of squares there it should provide a great student training area.

You already have Fletcher and my own terms for work on further detailed site archaeo-astronomcal analysis.

As far as sites in Turkey go, I am far more interested in Lycia,
and the question as to whether poems recited at the ancient Sarpadoneia games
were the source for the later oral cycles about the Trojan War.

E.P. Grondine

I think your interpretation of a comet on plaque C might just as well be a snake, as seen on a plaquette here:

https://tepetelegrams.wordpress.com/201 ... ekli-tepe/

[Tiompan]

I think your interpretation of a comet on plaque C might just as well be a snake, as seen on a plaquette here:

https://tepetelegrams.wordpress.com/201 ... ekli-tepe/[/quote]

Yep , he was told this nearly two years ago .
see http://archaeologica.boardbot.com/viewt ... orm#p71800

" What you see as a comet is a phosphene form and one of the most common symbols used in rock art and prehistoric engravings the world over .
It’s present on all four of the stone objects ,and ,as is also common there are often multiple examples together .In this case two of the stones have three ,but often there are many more .
It is usually referred as a serpentiform or when more angular simply a zig zag , neither of which look like a comet or are similar to actual depictions of comets .In some cases they may
represent a serpent /snake but there are countless other interpretations from different cultures e.g. water ,life force ,smoke , lightning etc and very often it is purely decorative .
As noted earlier there is a similar explanation for the arcs ,which are also phosphenes ,found all over the world in all periods of rock art and
have multiple possible explanations including ethnographic ones which don’t mention meteor showers ."

But as ever it didn't sink in or evaded/ conveniently ignored .

[E.P. Grondine]

shawomet - thanks you for the materials, in particular the phytolith sequences, Wick et al is available to me, I will be reading it closely in the next couple of days.
Tiompan - notice how shawomet just provides materials and does not bloviate. Would you please follow his example in the future?

Now I need to explain a few things to both of you.

From my house in Illinois it is a 4 hour round trip to Chicago,

The Ayre Collection of the Newberry Library holds unique materials on Native American astronomy and other matters.
( I am very disappointed that Chicago's second major musicians' hangout, Lonnie Dunigan's Under Ground Wounderbar,
near the Newberry, was driven out of business by the property owner. It was a GREAT scene while it lasted.)

Years ago, before the advent of carbon 14 dating, the only way at arriving at dates for the Ancient Near East was though the use
of written astronomical records, but today that is not the case. Thus today world wide there are only about 12-14 experts in cuneiform systems
and Egyptian hieroglyphs who are intimately familiar with those astronomical records.

The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago has the relevant publications to compare Ancient Near Eastern constellation systems,
which is pretty much a pre-requisite for any detailed analysis and comment on the Gobekli Tepe symbols.
While the parking there is much easier, for me to work through those materials would take so much time
that I would need either a dorm room or hotel expenses plus food.

( Let me mention that when I had money, I donated a few dollars to them for refreshments for their excavation crews working in northern Syria.)

I finished the draft of "Man and Impact in the Americas", had a stroke,
and never got to "Man and Impact in the Ancient Near East".

Fletcher and I are deeply involved in recovering ancient Native American constellation systems.
and the location and analysis of with major Native American sites.

Why the hell the two of you think that Gobekli Tepe is more important than those sites,
and that those people are more important than Native Americans,
or more interesting,
are questions you'll have to answer for yourselves

My advice is that if you want to limit the woo spun about Gobekli Tepe, then help with the excavations of the quarry areas.

[E.P. Grondine]

Yes, shawomet, not all serpents are comets.
In this case, it may be we are looking at a penis next to a vulva.
But not all serpentine forms are penises.

So let us confine our discussion to the plaques with pillars,
and see what we may be able to safely guess from them.

[Tiompan]

Another evasion of points .
I mention GT when you talk rubbish about it .
You are the one who waffles about the "alignments " at GT and fantasies about typical phosphene forms on the plaques .
I quote your comments and point out where they are wrong .

More recently in attempting to evade the issues you came up with more fantastical nonsense .
And still managed to evade these too .

i.e "You have demanded that I defend Collins' and Hancock's works."
As ever , you just made that up ,as ever provide a quote ,as ever no breath held .
Then
"by the way, the Thom's hypothesis about the henges is now established doctrine"
You just made that up too .
It's yet another example of something that was pointed out to you years ago and as usual it failed to sink in .
You are confused as usual . Henges are not what you imagine ,do I really have to repeat the definition yet again .
Thom worked mostly with megalithic monuments i.e. stone circles , stone rows etc , henges , not being megalithic were rarely part of his work .
Henges are sometimes associated with megaliths but only a very small percentage .
Not only did Thom not have an hypothesis about henges , whatever you are fantasising about is not established doctrine either .
Thom was a excellent surveyor and engineer but wildly over interpreted his "findings" .
Why didn't you provide a quote or link to anything reputable /falsifiable that actually supports that nonsensical comment? Yet again a simple comment can contain multiple errors .

[E.P. Grondine]

Tiompan -

While you want to define "henge" in an old way, science and data have moved on.
You may have problems with the alignments and construction phases at Stonehenge,
most people do not.
I can't even agree with you, for example about the Edinburg Teams' hypothesis about possible alignments,
by pointing out that it is too early to tell.

You will not concede that you know nothing about the evolution of comets,
even when confronted by hard data.

The study of recent asteroid and comet impacts is a new field of science,
which was begun by the late Gene Shoemaker,
and is multi-disciplinary in nature.

Usually what has happened is that well know expert scientists working in different fields
have been driven to it when nothing else explains the data before them.

While vigorous scepticism is absolutely essential for the advancement of any science on a firm footing,
scepticism in the form of denial of data, or the psychological process of denial in general, is not.

It is clear that there was far more to Gobekli Tepe than just getting drunk and screwing.
If you are looking for a rational explanation of the site,
I need to point out to you that "magical" practices have their own internally consistent logic.

[Tiompan]

Tiompan -

While you want to define "henge" in an old way, science and data have moved on

lol . No I define "henge" in the way it is actually defined today , not as in your case , a misunderstanding of the term .
Science hasn't changed the definition , you simply don't know the definition .
Yet again you have evaded the problems with your short and errorful and made up comment "by the way, the Thom's hypothesis about the henges is now established doctrine"
It's yet another example of something that was pointed out to you years ago and as usual it failed to sink in .
You are confused as usual . Henges are not what you imagine .
Not only did Thom not have an hypothesis about henges , whatever you are fantasising about is not established doctrine either .
Thom was a excellent surveyor and engineer but wildly over interpreted his "findings" .
Why didn't you provide a quote or link to anything reputable /falsifiable that actually supports that nonsensical comment?

You may have problems with the alignments and construction phases at Stonehenge,
most people do not.

I can point to point to problems about alignments at Stonehenge , just as I do with your comments ,but it depends on who is doing the work .
There is a lot of rubbish associated with "astronomy" at Stonehenge and also some fine work .

Your understanding about comets has been shown to be lacking , I highlighted the quotes and data showing why .
If I said anything wrong about comets why haven't provided a quote to refute it ?

[E.P. Grondine]

And here is the full research paper itself:

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/ ... 00564.full

To myself, this is just one piece of evidence demonstrating what's been obvious to me from the start of these Gobekli Tepe discussions, namely, that we are only at the very beginning stages of understanding this site.

In the now closed Gobekli Tepe thread, I asked what I felt was a perfectly reasonable question that was completely ignored. One of the respondents in that earlier thread claimed the monument was aligned to Comet Giacobni-Zinner. That respondent stated that just because the brightness magnitude of Giacobini-Zinner today fell outside what could be seen with the naked eye, does not mean it was not visible at the time of the construction of GT. I understand that Comet brightness can be variable. In 1946, the Comet had a brightness magnitude of 5, briefly, which meant it could just be seen with the naked eye.

But, left unanswered is how do we know that the brightness at the time of GT's construction was bright enough to be seen? It seemed like the respondent who felt it was, and the monument was so aligned, simply assumed it was. I never did learn how we know this has to have been the case. I don't really want to resurrect that now closed discussion here, but a brief description of how we can know with certainty that the Comet was clearly much brighter at the time of GT's construction would not hurt.

At any rate, I did feel the astronomical alignment interpretation was premature, given how very little can actually be known at this early date in the research being done at Gobekli Tepe. And best of luck to all serious researchers working at the site, since at present it is awfully close to the forces of ISIS.

"One of the respondents" here -

From the existence of the Draconid meteor stream, we can safely assert that
1) Comet Giacobini Zinner has disintegrated over the years,
2) it had an Earth intersecting orbit.

Thus as today we are observing its remnant:
3) it was much brighter to man in ancient times.

I share your view that it is too early for firm linkage to Comet Encke specifically.
Not only was Comet Giacobini Zinner brighter, but the comets which are the sources for all of today's meteor showers were brighter as well,
and one would have to check all of their orbits.
That will take detailed analysis of precession, nutation, and PERTURBATION ( which will require some heavy duty computation ),
and for refinement geological shifts in the orientation of the site.

I feel sure that the Government of Turkey will not allow ISIS to deter research or tourism;
the Kurds hold no hatred for tourists to the region,
but getting caught up in that confict as it exists now will be of concern to visitors.
Thank you to your links to phytolith studies and the civil conversations.
Captain Oblivious here is now clearly of no use.

[Tiompan]

Another evasion of the most recent points concerning the made up comments about Henges and Thom's "hypothesis " related to them .

Back to the points about comet ; what is being evaded are the points below and also that there is no reputable source that will tell you that Zinner
was visible to the builders of GT .
Plus what has been mentioned many times and ignored even if it was possible to see the comet " you thought that the Comet was observed in the North ,probably because it spawned the meteors but the comet is observed in the south not the north . " This is encapsulated in your comment “Collins has been trying to find a reason for Gobleki Tepe's alignment to celestial north.
The reason for that is straight forward:that is where Comet Giacobini Zimmer approached the Earth from: “
The earlier points that are still being evaded . 1) The comet was moving and covered a large section of the horizon 2) The “alignments” consisted of two pillars , a common feature in many monuments but two pillars alone do not make an alignment . 3) Even if you accept that two pillars make an alignment , how is to be perceived , throught the pillars ? , if so where do you stand ? Behind them , in between them , looking across them ? Whichever it maybe there is no accuracy e.g. the need for an indication like a back sicksight the pre-requisite of an astro alignment is missing . 4)The pillars are roughly 5m apart and the furthest you can get from within the enclosures is about 7m which means there is a still a very wide visualgap , not the stuff of alignments 5) There are various pairs of pillars at GT and all face different parts of the horizon . 6) The pairs are all in the north side of their various enclosures and if anything the assumption is that they would be facing north , which is problematic enough for sightings as it looking uphill , but the comet is seen in the south . 7) There are no precedents for alignments to comets in prehistoric monuments .

[E.P. Grondine]

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/sbag/findings/i ... ml#jan2017

Space-based Asteroid Survey
SBAG supports NASA's decision to provide continued Phase A funding for the NEOCam mission proposal, but is concerned that no plan for fully funding NEOCam, or any other space-based NEO survey telescope, currently exists. In previous findings, SBAG has noted that NASA has asteroid-based activities across multiple directorates, serving as a cornerstone of future objectives for human exploration, planetary defense, resource utilization, and science, and that a space-based NEO survey telescope would be a foundational asset to most efficiently achieve the goals of NASA's Asteroid Initiative. Specifically, simulations indicate that currently operational ground-based facilities alone cannot achieve the Congressional mandate of discovering >90% of NEOs >140 m; a space-based facility with thermal imaging capability is ideally suited to accomplish this task. SBAG urges NASA to consider a means to conduct a space-based NEO survey mission given its cross-cutting foundational importance to the agency at large.

[E.P. Grondine]

Hark! methinks I hear the passing of the wind.

Yes, tiompan, undoubtedly Stonehenge was built in a circle so that
the ancient aliens would know where to park their flying saucers.

[Tiompan]

Yes ,all we get is wind from you EP , no content , a complete inability to respond meaningfully to errors raised directly from your quotes .
Here are some examples i.e. quotes , of how you confuse henges with stone circles followed by the correct defintion of the term ,but it never sinks in .

Nearly 7 years ago you were mistaken and as confused then as you are now . Here is what you were told ; a henge “is a monument that is roughly circular with an internal ditch and outer bank with 1-4 "entrances " usually dated to the late Neolithic (approx. 3000-2000 BC ) .From that description it can be seen that Stonehenge is not a typical henge in that it has inner bank .Some henges did have timber circles as part of the monument ,usually predating the later henge .”

See . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henge
Scroll down :
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visi ... t-version/
Henge : a Neolithic or Bronze Age monument of the British Isles, consisting of a circular bank or ditch enclosing, variously, stone or timber uprights, burial pits, etc. New World College Dictionary, 4th Edition.
Henge :a circular area, often containing a circle of stones or sometimes wooden posts, dating from the Neolithic and Bronze Ages .Collins English Dictionary.
http://www.digitaldigging.net/henges-or ... ice-versa/ Points out the common error , the same one you have been yoked to for years despite being told often enough where you are getting it wrong .
“And what they are not. A common mistake (and an understandable one given the origins of the term) is to confuse a henge monument with the stone or timber circles they sometimes contain (or once contained). Woodhenge, for example, has a henge (Class I), and used to have a timber structure inside the henge. Whether this structure had lintels like Stonehenge is unprovable, but it certainly consisted of thick upright timbers which formed a monument much closer to Stonehenge in character than the enclosing bank and ditch could ever be. It is still not a henge, regardless of how much more appropriate the name is for such a structure. Interestingly it has become commonplace to illustrate timber monuments as having lintels, though there is only one monument in the entirety of the British Isles known to be constructed with this addition.”

But still you persisted with this nonsense E.P. Said “There is a henge in Africa (Nakbe?) 8,000 BCE, built by Sahara River descendants, the same folk who crossed to Pedra Furada ca 35,000 BCE, and who later moved north across the Caribbean (Clovis). “ . Then informed of your mistake .” .EP. I think your'e probably thinking of Nabta Playa , it's a stone circle not a henge .”
http://archaeologica.boardbot.com/viewt ... enge#p6224
There is no shortage of other examples of you continuing with the confusion , including the most recent nonsense about Thom and his fantasy hypothesis about them , the hypothesis that couldn't manage to find , would you like more quotes .

Has it sunk in yet ? If past experience is anything to go on , I doubt it .

[E.P. Grondine]

Well, tiompan, we colonials disagree with your definition that limits henges to Britain.
See the "Woodhenge" at Cahokia for example.
I am pretty certain that as time progresses, your colleagues in Europe will be disagreeing as well.
I myself certainly welcome you to your effort, and look forward to you continuing it with vigor and intensity.
But don't be surprised if the rest of the world just gets on with it.