Friday 13 March 2020

Göbekli Tepe: Stars and Wild Beasts, Part 2


Following on from the last two weeks’ posts, I will now look at the constellations of autumn and winter and how they link to the pillars of Göbekli Tepe’s Enclosure D, known as The Enduring in Broken Skies.

In September, the sun was in Aquarius, the water-carrier. This association is found on the earliest star-maps, but the constellation also has associations with an eagle. Aquarius is associated with the Greek boy Ganymede, who Zeus carried off to Olympus in the form of an eagle. It was one of the four constellations which house the sun at the solstice and equinox points, and these are found in various cosmologies as the four pillars of the skies, represented by a lion, a bull, a serpent and a man or an eagle. So I have made this sky-sign an eagle, represented by Pillar 41. No artwork has so far been found on this pillar, other than a snake sliding down its head.


                                Pillar 38


In October, the sun was in Pisces. I have made this a boar, represented by Pillar 38. This pillar so far has a bull on its head, and a fox, a boar and two cranes on its body. Large animals were hunted in autumn, after the breeding season where it was typically taboo to hunt pregnant or nursing animals. In the cold months where little fruit or greenery was available, people relied heavily on the hunt to survive, and the wild boar was one of the most dangerous creatures to tackle. It was also one of the most important creatures of  Göbekli Tepe. This is why I have linked it to this month.


Some of the carved boars found at Göbekli Tepe


In November, the sun was in Aries, which I have made a hyena. This scavenger, once common in ancient Turkey, would like all creatures be growing hungry at this time of year, and they are known to attack sleeping or sick people.

This sky-sign is represented by the broken pillar which as I said last week I have exchanged with Pillar 33 which represents the snake. Several of the pillars are known to have been moved in antiquity.

This broken pillar, which once stood between Pillars 30 and 43 and was broken when the enclosures were buried, is decorated with a hyena, a vulture, and a long-legged and five-fingered quadruped of unknown identity.




In December the sun was in Taurus. The bull is possibly one of the oldest asterisms, linked to Palaeolithic cave paintings in France over 15,000 years old, so I have kept it as a bull, which like the boar, was hunted at great risk during the winter months. This is represented by Pillar 32, on which as yet has no reliefs have been revealed.

In January the sun was in Gemini, which I have identified as a leopard. This is represented by Pillar 19, which has no identified artwork so far.

In February the sun was in Cancer. I have made this a reed-wolf or jackal, represented by Pillar 20, which has a snake sliding down its front towards a bull and a fox, and two possible foxes on one side. No other artwork has been uncovered.

Overall view of Enclosure D


As time and ecology changed, many of these constellations lost their meanings, and new asterisms grew in their place. But many retained their ancient links, now surviving only in myths, and as new cultures grew up these myths took on a new life of their own. We will come back to that in the future.






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