Part 2: 12,000-Year-Old Gobekli Tepe - Was It A Soul Recycling Machine Linked to Deneb in the Cygnus Constellation?
Source: earthfiles.com
“Gobekli Tepe is a place of death; a place of re-birth.
... people who would enter into those enclosures ... and stand in between
those two monoliths ... would quite literally be then
projected out into the sky.”
- Andrew Collins, Author, The Cygnus Mystery
Return to Part 1.
March 29, 2013 Gobekli Tepe 8 miles northeast of Sanliurfa, Turkey - Even though Gobekli Tepe is carbon dated to 12,000 years ago, there is one excavated stone pillar that has what looks like a bird with outstretched wings and a circular object that provokes comparison to the shen symbol of Egypt seven thousand years later.
12,000-year-old carved limestone pillar of layered symbols at
Gobekli Tepe excavation. Photo by Klaus Schmidt, Ph.D.
Gobekli Tepe excavation. Photo by Klaus Schmidt, Ph.D.
Vulture and Eternal Disc?
The bird-like figure holding the disc might relate to the much later Nekhbet, white vulture, who was usually depicted with her wings spread frequently clutching a shen symbol (circle with tangent on one side) in both of her claws. Shen derives its name from the ancient Egyptian word, shenu, “to encircle.”
Egyptian Goddess Nekhbet photographed in the unusual
double temple of Kom Ombo from 305 B.C. to 30 B.C.
Photo taken by Hajor, Dec.2001.
double temple of Kom Ombo from 305 B.C. to 30 B.C.
Photo taken by Hajor, Dec.2001.
The shen is a symbol for eternity, infinity and protection, which is why it evolved as a cartouche to surround names. In ancient Egypt, it was believed that without a name, a person was incomplete and when a person was incomplete, they could not pass into the afterlife successfully. Royal names had to be protected for all eternity and thus, the shen came to surround names, to protect them for all time.
Andrew Collins, Author, The Cygnus Mystery © 2009, Essex County, England: “At a very early stage during the Paleolithic Period, the idea that scavenger birds de-fleshed the bodies of humans or other animals was taken to be a part of the religion of the Cult of the Dead.
[ Paleolithic: Old Stone Age, a prehistoric period of human history in which primitive stone tools have been discovered. One rich source of Paleolithic artifacts has been the Euphrates river valley in Turkey.
Cult of the Dead: Egyptians made great efforts to ensure the survival of their souls after death, providing tombs, grave goods, and offerings to preserve the bodies and spirits of the deceased. The religion had its roots in Egypt’s prehistory and lasted for more than 3,000 years. ]
Bodies would be elevated on platforms to be de-fleshed. It’s a process known as excarnation. This was a very efficient way of disposing of the human body. Afterwards, the bones and the skulls would be collected up and interred, either within domestic buildings or within the enclosures, possibly within the walls, possibly within the benches found at Gobekli Tepe.”
[ Editor’s Note: Excarnation: In archaeology and anthropology, the term excarnation, or de-fleshing, refers to the burial practice of removing the flesh and organs of the dead, leaving only the bones. Excarnation may be done through natural means, leaving a body exposed for vultures and animals to scavenge, or the corpse can be purposefully cut up by hand. ]
In Turkey’s ancient excavated city of Catalhoyuk, there is a fresco (sketch above) showing vultures perched atop tall wooden-framed towers, open-topped roofs linked to stairways traveling down to the ground. On one tower, two vultures lie poised with curled wings over a sole human head. Next to that tower, another similar tower, a headless match stick man hanging upside down over it, a vulture on either side, ready to attack. Two figures depart the stair ways at the bottom, wearing knee-length kilts and triangular-shaped high shoulder-pad vests.
A number of scholars speculate that the murals detail a long held tradition among Zoroastrians, local Kurdish peoples in parts of the Middle-east and minorities in India for the funerary ritual of excarnation. Excarnation involves laying out the body, usually in a circular stone tower called a Dakhma, to be denuded of flesh by carrion birds. The high wooden towers on the Catalhoyuk shrine murals probably are an even earlier version of the Dakhmas, called Towers of Silence, that first began to see widespread use with Zoroastrian Persians over 2000 years ago.
The solitary head (upper right) probably represents the soul’s departure from the body to begin its journey to the Otherworld under the protection, the wing, of the noble vulture.
[...]
For the rest of the fascinating article regarding Gobekli Tepe by Linda Moulton Howe, please visit Earthfiles.com
You can find Part 1: 12,000-Year-Old Gobekli Tepe - Is It Linked to the Star Deneb in the Cygnus Constellation? by Linda Moulton Howe.
© 2013 by Linda Moulton Howe, www.earthfiles.com
