(ORDO NEWS) — Gobekli Tepe is located in Turkey, close to the Syrian border and Harran, the traditional homeland of Abraham.
Like some other sites in the area, it is estimated to be about 11,000 years old – more than twice as old as the pyramids and Stonehenge.
The complex is located on top of a hill, away from running water and any signs of human habitation.
Gobekli Tepe consists of at least 20 adjacent stone circles with a diameter of 10 to 30 meters, of which only four have been excavated to date.
Archaeologists suggest that this and other similar complexes in the area were the earliest temples in the world, but this does not explain their primary purpose.
Round pits vary in size and detail. One feature that is common to all four slightly elongated circles is a pair of large T-shaped pillars that stand opposite each other in the center of each circle.
These large pillars, up to five meters high, supported wooden platforms about three by one meter in size.
Corpses were placed on these platforms, inviting vultures and other meat-eating birds to gnaw on the bodies. Some ancient cultures believed that soaring birds carried the flesh of the dead to heaven.
Wooden decks led up to the central platforms, connecting them to a circle of wooden lintels supported by a dozen stone pillars shaped like an inverted L, which allowed the lintels to overhang slightly over the round pits, thus providing shelter and some shade for the mourners who sat on the low benches made of small stones attached to the inner walls of the pit.
The walls were also lined with smaller dry stone between the pillars. These L-shaped pillars were sculpted in a quasi-human form as the keepers of the pit.
Presumably they represented either ancestors or deities there was little separation between the two categories in the mind of prehistoric man.
- Re-enactment of a dramatic funeral at Gobekli Tepe
With a little imagination, we can recreate the drama of the funeral at Gobekli Tepe 11,000 years later. The mourners descend a short staircase of eight stone steps into the round pit of the temple.
They enter through a rectangular doorway cut into a large stone three meters square. They sit around the walls of the pit on stone benches.
The deceased is brought along with them and seated in a place of honor to take part with the mourners in the “last supper”, usually consisting of bread and gazelle meat.
The corpse does not eat anything despite being offered food, and so at the end of the feast, the mourners conclude that it is ready to pass into the spirit world.
It is possible that ritual cannibalism was also practiced in Gobekli Tepe.
Partially charred human bones with cut marks suggest decapitation, and bowls found at the site may have been used to collect blood, which was then drunk so that family members could inherit the deceased’s life energy.
Unwanted babies could also be eaten in this manner, as was later done by the Carpocratians.
Such rituals were not uncommon in ancient cultures and are symbolically preserved to this day in the Christian communion ceremony.
However, cannibalism at Gobekli Tepe is unclear as it was not part of the subsequent Zoroastrian tradition.
If the corpse was not eaten, it was taken out to the central platform at a height of three meters above the floor, where it was gnawed by vultures. Eventually the corpse disintegrated and fell back into the pit.
As the mourners left the pit, their front door was closed and at the same time another nearby rectangular doorway in the large entrance boulder was opened (top left).
This gave access to the outer passage, which contained predators. Then they entered the pit and ate what was left of the corpse.
Another portal stone (upper right) was located low in the wall at Gobekli Tepe.
Its size, shape and location, and animal carvings, clearly indicate that this was an entrance intended for use by four-legged creatures and could easily be blocked to contain them.
The fact that a circular ring of lintels hung over the pits helped to ensure that the animals could not escape.
Vultures, snakes, scorpions and several species of four-legged predators with prominent teeth are carved on pillars in Gobelki Tepe.
Bone-crushing hyenas consume 95% of their prey and have been known to gnaw through human corpses. Foxes, jackals, hyenas, lions, and wild boars were kept in pits to feed on decaying corpses and bones.
These predators became totem animals that were considered unclean and were not eaten by their owners. To date, only fragments of human bones have been found in Gobekli Tepe.
Sixty percent of the bone fragments belonged to the goitered gazelle, which was presumably eaten by the mourners during the funeral feasts.
130 obsidian knives were found in Gobekli Tepe. Perhaps they were used for modeling and inscriptions on stones, or, conversely, for butchering gazelles and corpses.
Obsidian was found to have come from several volcanoes spread over a wide area, so it seems likely that Gobekli Tepe served the burial needs of a wide area.
Many round pits indicate that a large number of corpses could need to be buried at the same time.
Just a few miles away is the village of Navali Kori, which was contemporary with Gobekli Tepe but is now flooded after the construction of a dam.
Human skulls and incomplete skeletons have been found in some houses.
It seems likely that these relics were saved for domestic veneration after the corpses were exposed to vultures and scavengers in the “temples” of Gobekli Tepe. A bas-relief with a severed head was found in Gobekli Tepe.
Sky burials are still practiced in Tibet and Mongolia, as well as among the Parsis of Iran and India, whose religion is derived from Zoroastrianism.
The same methods were used by North American Indians in prehistoric times, suggesting that the practice is very ancient.
- Gobekli Tepe in the Book of Daniel?
The pits at Gobekli Tepe were probably also used for sacrificing unwanted babies, executing criminals and enemies, and getting rid of those who died of natural causes.
Perhaps it was in this place that the prophet Daniel had his famous intimate meeting in the lions’ den. The book of the prophet Daniel tells this story.
King Darius came to power in Mediah around 522 BC. and gradually created the expanding Persian Empire by defeating many of the local kings.
His empire, which was divided into parts and ruled by about twenty satraps or local rulers, included the former Assyrian Empire, as well as the territory of present-day Syria, Turkey and Iran.
The prophet Daniel may have been one of the Hebrew children taken into captivity in Babylon. He achieved a privileged position as a senior ruler in the Persian Empire, probably in the province of Mediah.
The historian Herodotus, writing around 450 BC, pointed out that Mediah was considered the highest-ranking state in the empire.
Media appears to be poorly defined, but it roughly included upper Mesopotamia, where Gobekli Tepe is located.
The lesser rulers set a trap for Daniel, who continued to worship the outlawed god of Israel. Darius forbade the worship of this deity and decreed that anyone worshiping him should be “thrown into the lions’ den.”
The king was obliged by his decree to carry out this sentence when jealous rulers reported to him about the religious rites of Daniel:
“And the king gave an order, and they brought Daniel and threw him into the lions’ den. The king said to Daniel: “May your God save you, Whom you constantly serve!”
They brought a stone and laid it at the mouth of the lair, and the king sealed it with his ring and the rings of his nobles, so that Daniel’s position would not change.
The king then returned to his palace and spent the night without eating or offering him any entertainment. And he couldn’t sleep.
With the first rays of dawn, the king got up and hurried to the lions’ den.
Approaching the lair, he turned to Daniel with the words: “Daniel, the servant of the living God, could your God, whom you constantly serve, save you from the lions?”
Daniel replied: “May the king live forever! My God sent his angel, and he stopped the mouths of the lions. They did not harm me, because I was found innocent in His sight. And I never did evil before you, your majesty.”
The king was delighted and ordered Daniel to be taken out of the lair. And when Daniel was pulled out of the lair, not a single wound was found on him, because he trusted in his God.
By order of the king, the people who falsely accused Daniel were brought in and thrown into the lions’ den along with their wives and children.
And before they reached the bottom of the lair, the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones…
Thus did Daniel prosper in the reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian.” (Daniel 6, New International Version)
Thanks to the layout of Gobekli Tepe, it was possible to lower Daniel into the central pit while the lions were still held back in the outer passage.
It seems likely that Darius devised a plan whereby he fulfilled the letter of his law without risking the life of his valuable servant.
When it appeared that Daniel “miraculously” survived the night in the “lions’ den”, Darius obtained the necessary justification to approve of Daniel’s god and throw Daniel’s rivals into the central pit, where they were immediately eaten by hungry lions.
- Links to ritual impact: Disposal of corpses in Gobekli Tepe
It is known that Darius the Great was a worshiper of Ahura Mazda, the supreme deity of Zoroastrianism, and this points us to the Parsi, whose geographical origin was connected with Persia and whose religious root is also Zoroastrianism.
The earliest reference to Zoroastrian ritual exposure is in the History of Herodotus (c. 450 BC), who described the rite as secret, but vaguely indicated that the corpse was dragged behind a dog or bird as part of the process.
The Byzantine historian Agathios described a Zoroastrian funeral in Mtskheta (Georgia) in 555 AD. Sasanian commander Mihr-Mihroy:
“The attendants of Mermeros took his body and carried it out to a place outside the city and laid it there as it was, alone and uncovered, according to their traditional custom, like dog dregs and a terrible carion.”
In the Parsi tradition, round towers or dakhmas were used until recently for the burial of corpses. These round towers were built on the tops of hills or low mountains in desert places far from settlements.
In the Zoroastrian tradition, a dead body is considered unclean, so there are rules to dispose of corpses as safely as possible.
To exclude pollution of the earth or fire, the bodies of the dead are placed on top of the dakhma and exposed to the sun and carrion of birds. In this way, decay, with all its attendant dangers, is most effectively prevented.
Dakhmas have an almost flat roof, the perimeter of which is slightly higher than the center. The roof is divided into three concentric rings.
The bodies of men are located around the outer ring, women – in the second, and children – in the innermost.
After the bones are discolored by the sun and wind, which can take a whole year, they are collected in the ossuary in the center of the tower, where, under the influence of lime, they gradually disintegrate.
The similarity between the Parsi tradition and the physical evidence at Gobekli Tepe is so striking that it cannot be accidental. In both cases we have:
– A place on top of a hill, remote from human habitation.
– A circular complex consisting of three concentric rings.
– Central hole.
– Signs of a central elevated platform.
– Participation of vultures and predators.
There is no doubt that the main purpose of the complex at Gobekli Tepe and others like it was to dispose of corpses in a hygienic and environmentally friendly way.
The layout of this prehistoric dakhma and the funerary practices associated with it have been preserved virtually unchanged for over 10,000 years in the Parsi tradition.
Archaeologists and explorers do not seem to have considered the possibility that a carnivorous zoo was kept in the round pits of Gobekli Tepe for the disposal of corpses.
The pits at Gobekli Tepe were filled with rubble a very long time ago, perhaps at a later stage of construction or when other methods of disposing of corpses became more popular.
The era when Gobekli Tepe first began to operate was an era when people themselves were mostly carnivores.
It was replaced by an era when agriculture arose and began to dominate, involving the annual reproduction of seeds.
This, in turn, led to the veneration of cereal deities and therefore to the belief in reincarnation or resurrection, prompting people to bury their dead in the hope that their corpses would in the future come back to life like grain seeds.
Ancient people seem to have believed that a person’s soul moves into the body of a creature that eats his corpse.
This explains the widespread depiction of people with animal or bird heads that we find revered in Egyptian and other ancient traditions.
The Buddhist notion that people can transform into animals or other beings is rooted in the same idea.
A stone totem pole two meters high was found in Gobekli Tepe. It is damaged, but appears to show several organically related creatures emerging from each other.
The topmost creature is possibly feline, but there are two or three pairs of human hands, and the bottommost humanoid either gives birth or holds a skull.
The configuration of this totem pole from Gobekli Tepe can symbolize the connection with ancestors or the evolution of a person from an infant, through adulthood, to deification in the form of an animal.
Serpents are carved on the pillar, which probably symbolize the transmigration of the soul, as snakes shed their skin as they grow.
The statue points to the essential unity and ecological interdependence of all forms of life, prevailing over the death of the individual – an existential fact that humanity is currently rediscovering.
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