The Vulture

Feeding vultures. Arindam Aditya, Wikicommons

The vulture was a highly revered bird to the people of Göbekli Tepe and other cultures across the prehistoric Middle East. Human bodies were typically excarnated – left for vultures and other carrion eaters to devour – before the bones were buried or deposited in caves, rivers or other locations. Bodies were often placed on raised platforms, indicating it was important that birds, rather than foxes or other animals, did the work, and the vulture, which can spot a carcass from six miles away, is characterised for its devouring of all carrion of any species.

Vultures devouring human bodies in a mural from Çatalhöyuk in central Turkey, c6500BC

People would have rapidly made the connection between contact with dead and decaying bodies and illness in the living, and in a time before any understanding of bacteria and contagion, the logical explanation would be the angry or vengeful spirit of the deceased still clinging to its body and seeking recompense. Probably every culture worldwide has some sort of appeasement or funeral ceremony to honour the deceased.

People would also have rapidly realised that the carcasses picked clean by vultures, leaving no decaying flesh, posed no health risk. I believe the vultures were seen as guiding the spirits of the dead into the next world as they recycled their bodies in this world. As above, so below. In many European cultures which originated in the ancient Middle East, birds such as swans and geese are still believed to carry souls to the next world.

Pillar 43 in Göbekli Tepe’s Enclosure D. 

Over 50% of the animal bones excavated at Göbekli Tepe are carrion-eating birds, the majority of these vultures. They may have been attracted to the site through the exposure of human bodies or animal remains from feasting, or were perhaps hunted for ritual purposes. Pillar 43 in Enclosure D, called The Enduring in Broken Skies, is engraved with a vulture holding what is believed to be a human head balanced on its wing. The head is commonly believed the location of the spirit, and this scene may represent a vulture guiding a spirit into the afterlife. Several stone ‘totem poles’ from the site also depict a human head clutched in the talons of a bird.

Pillar 12 in Enclosure C. The base of Pillar 18 in Enclosure D.

A hatchling vulture

Seven squatting flightless birds are depicted around the base of Pillar 18 in the centre of Enclosure D, and similar birds are seen on other pillars. They’ve been interpreted as many things from ducks to dodos, but I feel they represent hatchling vultures. If vultures guided spirits to the afterlife, it would be a reasonable supposition that their young guided the spirits of newborn children back again. Even today it is a common tradition that birds, such as storks, bring a newborn spirit into the world. As above, as below. This is the line I’ve taken in Broken Skies. And how this reflects in the greater cosmology will be covered next week.

Cappadocia and the Underground Cities

Cappadocia is a unique land, rich in history and folklore. As well as its thousands of fairy chimneys I talked about last week, it is also famous for its underground cities. These were carved from the uniquely soft rock and comprise vast numbers of tunnels, chambers, air shafts and other structures, spread over a dozen or more levels and reaching a depth of close to a hundred metres, potentially housing thousands of people. Some are well known; others have been discovered in recent times and many more no doubt remain to be found. None of the labyrinthine structures, which can extend for several kilometres, have been fully explored. 

Ozkonak underground city

Their date of construction is an enigma. Many are believed to date from the Christian era, when persecuted groups were forced into hiding. Underground chapels are common in many of the cities. Others are thought to derive from the Hittite period, 2000 years earlier, and built for the same purpose. Cappadocia’s name may derive from the Hittite ‘Katta-Peda’, meaning ‘the land underground’.

Some archaeologists believe they are much older still, and were merely adapted and extended in the later historical periods. The higher and therefore earlier storeys comprise rock which is much harder than the lower levels. The rock hardens during thousands of years of exposure to the air, and the lower, Christian-era structures appear much later in construction. And there is a lack of metal toolmarks on the higher levels. They may have been made far back in prehistory, perhaps even the time of Gobekli Tepe, 12,000 years ago.

One of Cappadocia's rock-cut churches

The Middle Eastern saviour-hero Yima was warned of an imminent catastrophe by the creator-spirit and made a ‘var’ to preserve the lives of people, animals, birds and plants. The world then became a wasteland with ten months of winter each year and plagues and fires which destroyed what little survived. The people remained in the var for many generations before it was safe to return to the outside world. ‘Var’ has the same root as ‘ark’, and the story of Noah’s Ark is a variation of this. It has long been suggested that the var, and Ark, refers to one or several of the underground cities of Cappadocia. 

                          Noah's Ark

I’ve already talked about the global devastation caused by a comet crashing into earth around 13,000 years ago. Yima’s catastrophe has eerily similarities. Were the cities created at this time so people could survive when the planet was plunged back into the Ice Age? That’s the line I’ve taken in Broken Skies. And when the world eventually began to recover, the people moved east to the fertile plains around Harran and began the first steps towards creating civilisation as we know it today.

An ancient rock-cut town, still occupied today.

T-shaped Pillars and Standing Stones

One of Gobekli Tepe’s defining features is the T-shaped stone pillars which are portrayed with belts, necklaces and human hands, and are obviously intended to represent human-like spirit-forms. These characteristics were copied in later buildings in the area, such as at Nevali Cori, built around 1000 years after Gobekli Tepe, and are also seen in human statues such as the Urfa Man.

The ‘heads’ of the pillars show no features, as if this part of the human form was too sacred or too dangerous to represent visually. The depiction of the hands and lower bodies is almost like a teaser to give the viewer just a hint of the unexpected power these pillars hold. They certainly had that effect when archaeologists first discovered them!

Historians have long debated what inspired this form. My theory was inspired by Cappadocia, 500 miles from Gobekli Tepe. Here, the soft volcanic rock has been eroded to form vast valleys filled with pillars of stone, known in local lore as fairy chimneys and long believed to be the home of supernatural beings called the Peri. Cappadocia is an important place in Turkish myth, linked to the birthplace of the world and also the birthplace of the legendary dragon-killer Saint George.

The fairy chimneys have long been linked to various animals and birds which are reflected in their shapes, and walking beneath them with their faces looking down from far above, I felt a presence which seemed familiar. There is a distinct resemblance to the pillars of Gobekli Tepe. I wonder if these fairy chimneys, whose spiritual associations date back thousands of years, were the original prototype for the crafted pillars at Gobekli Tepe.

Aside from its unique geology, Cappadocia also has tales of a lost, underground civilisation, which links to the global devastation caused when a comet smashed into earth, shortly before Gobekli Tepe was built. I will come back to the implications of this next week.

The Urfa Man

The Urfa Man in Sanliurfa Museum

This stone-carved and near life-size statue was found by chance during building work in the old part of Sanliurfa, a few miles from Gobekli Tepe and the location of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic hilltop settlement of Yeni Mahalle, which dates to around 9500BC. The ‘Urfa Man’ dates to this period and is one of the oldest human statues known. Like the pillars of Gobekli Tepe, he stands with his hands clasped in front of his stomach and he has a V-shaped stole or collar around his neck, the only ornamentation present.

The statue was dismissed as unimportant and spent twenty years in a store room before European archaeologists were asked for their opinion. Today he has pride of place in the city museum, and he has the eeriest sense of presence I’ve ever felt in an inanimate object. His gleaming obsidian eyes seem to watch you and there is a definite sense of a very sinister intelligence to him. I would not like to spend a night in his presence!

This effect may be entirely due to the skill of the craftsperson. Obsidian was deliberately used for eye-pieces in historic times because the light reflects from its dozens of angles to reflect the movement and light in living eyes, and gives the impression of a living presence. It’s very subtle, but its effect on viewers can be near terrifying.

A Hittite sphinx with obsidian eyes, which guarded the Hattusa city entrance around 2000BC.

This ‘spirit-presence’ was used to great effect by Hittite craftspeople in later Turkey, who created huge statues of lions and sphinxes to guard the gateways into their cities. Walking past their watching eyes would have had a profound effect on visitors and emphasised the city’s physical and spiritual power.

I feel the Urfa Man had a similar role. In Broken Skies, he is the guardian of the five spirit houses of Duku  or Gobekli Tepe, and all those who wished to gain entry had to submit to his assessment. Archaeologists have found the remains of a stone pool on the site, and here I placed the guardian whose granting of passage I linked to the ritual cleansing and washing which many spiritual practices require.

Sanliurfa

So how did he end up in Yeni Mahalle? This site was contemporary to Gobekli Tepe, and I named it KharsagVillage in Broken Skies, the home of the Irin or Watchers. When Gobekli Tepe was eventually decommissioned and buried, its guardian was removed and placed here for safe keeping, where it remained until its chance discovery, over 10,000 years later.