Wolfstone: Obsidian

Obsidian spearheads with finely worked serrated edges, found at Göbekli Tepe.

Obsidian is a volcanic glass, usually black but occasionally a range of colours, which can be knapped like flint into blades and other tools of surgical sharpness. In the later prehistoric Middle East, it was also polished into mirrors and elaborate jewellery and even today it has near mythical associations.

Obsidian is found in mountainous regions of volcanic origin, and only a few sources are useable for craftwork. In the Middle East, these are focused around Bingöl and Lake Van in eastern Turkey and in Armenia. These are precisely the same regions linked to the paradisiacal land of Eden or Dilmun, home of the advanced people known variously as the Anunnaki, the Irin and the Peri.

Mountainside obsidian deposit. James St John, Wikicommons.

Obsidian from Bingöl and nearby areas was traded across the Taurus Mountains as far as Iraq and the Levant, a remarkable distance of up to 1000km, from as early as 14,000BC. This predates the earliest known dates for Göbekli Tepe by over 4000 years, indicating that an advanced and long-distance social network existed long before any known established civilisation, and long before the Younger Dryas or Thousand Year Winter which near devastated global populations. Following this cold period, obsidian trade increased and continued into the historic period.

At sites such as Göbekli Tepe, dating to 9600BC and associated with the dawn of civilisation, obsidian formed a small percentage of the tools used, and its acquisition was strictly controlled by and for a select few. Only those deemed worthy could possess it.

The Bingöl Mountains. Izzettin Ekinci, Wikicommons

Interestingly, the obsidian trade routes precisely mirror the spread of domesticated cereal plants across the Middle East from their origin in south-eastern Turkey, and indicates that the people who controlled the obsidian trade were also the first to develop agriculture. And these routes also mirror the locations of the legends of an advanced people who long ago educated and subjugated humankind.

Folklore in Turkey and Armenia also refers to the obsidian mountains. In eastern Turkey, once part of Armenia, a region of mountains was known as Gaylaxaz-ut, meaning ‘abounding in wolf’s stone’. ‘Wolf’s stone’ can refer to both flint and obsidian, but only obsidian is sourced in this region.

In Armenian tradition the Wolf Stone Mountains, revered for thousands of years, were linked with powerful people known in modern Christian lore as the ‘servants of Satan’ who were linked with wolves and snakes. Were these the powerful people who once controlled the obsidian trade across the Middle East, who inspired the legends of the Peri and other superhuman people?

This is the basis for the Anunnaki in Broken Skies, who live among the mountains of Dilmun and are known as the Wolf People who terrorise the clanspeople living on the plains.