Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
This is what people mean by speculative fiction. As opposed to archaeology.
How to miss the point
I am giving you the precise opinions of the professional archaeologists at Karahan/Gobekli Tepe
These theories aren’t mine, they are the theories of the experts digging up the sites
Yes, shooting the breeze with you. They are speculations nonetheless, as a glance at the Wikipedia page also makes pretty clear: ..Expanding on Schmidt's interpretation that round enclosures could represent sanctuaries, Gheorghiu's semiotic interpretation reads the Göbekli Tepe iconography as a cosmogonic map that would have related the local community to the surrounding landscape and the cosmos. The assumption that the site was strictly cultic in purpose and not inhabited has been challenged as well by the suggestion that the structures served as large communal houses..
They really have very little idea of what went on there, I think.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
It does also back up his theory about there being a "forgotten" civilisation from about that time period
There would inevitably be forgotten civilisations all over the word from about that time, so that isn't saying much.
Talk us through “inevitably”. Because what you claim is “inevitable” is regarded as mad fringe archaeology by many if not most archaeologists. Where are these “inevitable” lost civilisations from 12,000+ years ago? Bolivia? Alaska? Antarctica?
The entire reason Gobekli Tepe (and the new associated sites) is so unexpected, explosive and revolutionary is because it completely overturns the established consensus that agriculture came first (around 8,000 BC in west Eurasia, maybe a little earlier in east Asia) and only THEN could civilisations develop
That really depends how you describe civilisation.
Granted the recent finds are unpredicted, and impressive - but in the absence of writing, or primitive mathematics, or metallurgy (which would be genuinely remarkable discoveries), are they really the development of civilisation ?
I'd include any mass construction as being indicative of civilisation. Example of large scale organisation and complexity.
12-30 stone built temple towns (or more) with complex sacred/domestic architecture and piped water, etc, certainly fit the bill
Also they had massive vats for brewing beer. In 10,000 BC. I’m calling that a “civilisation”
“From this evidence, researchers conclude that Göbekli Tepe was a vast festival site where Stone Age men and women came to feast and to drink beer by the trough-load.”
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
It is an ancient prophecy.
The room was called Common Tawree.
12,000 years from now, they were saying, there will be a room full of Common Tawrees, and they will all be massive dicks.
No, it's a prophecy of a time where sages will gather to drink a herbal brew and commune in silence. The Staff Common Room, they will call it.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Liquid blood to half fill that space - how many cubic meters would that be? That would be a massive amount of food material to employ for any purpose
I agree. Personally, I don’t believe it. I’m simply relating the opinion of one pro archaeologist at the site, given to me during my last visit
On the other hand it could be true simply because the Tas Tepeler keep surprising on the upside. Just when you think it can’t get any weirder - it gets weirder
There's been some quite funny experiments in getting archaeologists to interpret things, as a test, that they don't know what they are for. But other people know the function.
Reminds me of the gag that future civilizations would assume the kellogs logo or McDonalds arch had great religious significance, or that football stadiums were temples.
I recall one post apocalypse fantasy novel where a future church used what were clearly meant to be (non functioning) mobile phones as holy artefacts as they knew people used them to communicate with unseen forces so assumed they were about talking to the divine.
Football stadiums are temples! Go once a week to a landmark location with blind faith against reason to worship idols and sing communal songs.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Liquid blood to half fill that space - how many cubic meters would that be? That would be a massive amount of food material to employ for any purpose
I agree. Personally, I don’t believe it. I’m simply relating the opinion of one pro archaeologist at the site, given to me during my last visit
On the other hand it could be true simply because the Tas Tepeler keep surprising on the upside. Just when you think it can’t get any weirder - it gets weirder
There's been some quite funny experiments in getting archaeologists to interpret things, as a test, that they don't know what they are for. But other people know the function.
Reminds me of the gag that future civilizations would assume the kellogs logo or McDonalds arch had great religious significance, or that football stadiums were temples.
I recall one post apocalypse fantasy novel where a future church used what were clearly meant to be (non functioning) mobile phones as holy artefacts as they knew people used them to communicate with unseen forces so assumes they were about talking to the divine.
It tends to be the default in ancient history, too (where there's massively more evidence than for archaeological prehistory) to ascribe a religious or ritual motive for anything which can't otherwise be readily explained.
A kind of archaeological God of the gaps, mirroring that in science.
I can see the logic based on our more recent history. The most sturdy, solid and long lasting structures in the last 2,000 years have tended to be religious: cathedrals, mosques, temples. Followed by social: amphitheatres, chariot tracks. But we know even from the Romans that secular and domestic structures can be built to last too, so long as there is stone around to carve or build from.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Water tank? Why does everything unexplained have to be for 'rituals' of some bizarre kind?
A neolithic wooden trackway was discovered here in the Flatlands - it had been preserved in the peat. Quite a remarkable find really but as it was in a forgotten corner of the country not a lot was made of it.
Apparently - despite the lack of any artifacts - archaeologists say it must have been a route to a 'ritual platform'. Not the rather obvious purpose of a track to get to the other side of a wet area...
Most archaeologists agree that the Tas Tepeler are sacred sites. Stone circles, after all
There is near-zero evidence of human habitation at Gobekli Tepe (there is evidence at the other Tas Tepeler). Why build it? It is surely a temple; it is also, it seems, aligned astronomically
Some kind of penis worshipping hunter-warrior cult (with human sacrifice?) is the best guess at the moment
I admit to knowing almost nothing about these sites other than that they exist.
But how do you build a temple without living there, at least for some of the time?
And if you know how to build things, why not build houses?
The archaeology changes every year as they find amazing new stuff (which is one reason it’s so exciting)
For many years it was thought Gobekli Tepe was a singular miracle. A temple complex built by remarkably gifted cavemen who lived in temporary tents/shelters during the building season
Now at the other Tas Tepeler they have found permanent homes - besides the ritual shrines and cultic chambers. So it looks more and more like a civilisation, from 10,000 BC (or even earlier)
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Liquid blood to half fill that space - how many cubic meters would that be? That would be a massive amount of food material to employ for any purpose
I agree. Personally, I don’t believe it. I’m simply relating the opinion of one pro archaeologist at the site, given to me during my last visit
On the other hand it could be true simply because the Tas Tepeler keep surprising on the upside. Just when you think it can’t get any weirder - it gets weirder
There's been some quite funny experiments in getting archaeologists to interpret things, as a test, that they don't know what they are for. But other people know the function.
Reminds me of the gag that future civilizations would assume the kellogs logo or McDonalds arch had great religious significance, or that football stadiums were temples.
I recall one post apocalypse fantasy novel where a future church used what were clearly meant to be (non functioning) mobile phones as holy artefacts as they knew people used them to communicate with unseen forces so assumed they were about talking to the divine.
Football stadiums are temples! Go once a week to a landmark location with blind faith against reason to worship idols and sing communal songs.
People from several cultures have liked my explanation that cricket is actually a rain dance.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
It does also back up his theory about there being a "forgotten" civilisation from about that time period
There would inevitably be forgotten civilisations all over the word from about that time, so that isn't saying much.
Talk us through “inevitably”. Because what you claim is “inevitable” is regarded as mad fringe archaeology by many if not most archaeologists. Where are these “inevitable” lost civilisations from 12,000+ years ago? Bolivia? Alaska? Antarctica?
The entire reason Gobekli Tepe (and the new associated sites) is so unexpected, explosive and revolutionary is because it completely overturns the established consensus that agriculture came first (around 8,000 BC in west Eurasia, maybe a little earlier in east Asia) and only THEN could civilisations develop
That really depends how you describe civilisation.
Granted the recent finds are unpredicted, and impressive - but in the absence of writing, or primitive mathematics, or metallurgy (which would be genuinely remarkable discoveries), are they really the development of civilisation ?
I'd include any mass construction as being indicative of civilisation. Example of large scale organisation and complexity.
12-30 stone built temple towns (or more) with complex sacred/domestic architecture and piped water, etc, certainly fit the bill
Also they had massive vats for brewing beer. In 10,000 BC. I’m calling that a “civilisation”
“From this evidence, researchers conclude that Göbekli Tepe was a vast festival site where Stone Age men and women came to feast and to drink beer by the trough-load.”
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
It does also back up his theory about there being a "forgotten" civilisation from about that time period
There would inevitably be forgotten civilisations all over the word from about that time, so that isn't saying much.
Talk us through “inevitably”. Because what you claim is “inevitable” is regarded as mad fringe archaeology by many if not most archaeologists. Where are these “inevitable” lost civilisations from 12,000+ years ago? Bolivia? Alaska? Antarctica?
The entire reason Gobekli Tepe (and the new associated sites) is so unexpected, explosive and revolutionary is because it completely overturns the established consensus that agriculture came first (around 8,000 BC in west Eurasia, maybe a little earlier in east Asia) and only THEN could civilisations develop
That really depends how you describe civilisation.
Granted the recent finds are unpredicted, and impressive - but in the absence of writing, or primitive mathematics, or metallurgy (which would be genuinely remarkable discoveries), are they really the development of civilisation ?
I'd include any mass construction as being indicative of civilisation. Example of large scale organisation and complexity.
12-30 stone built temple towns (or more) with complex sacred/domestic architecture and piped water, etc, certainly fit the bill
Also they had massive vats for brewing beer. In 10,000 BC. I’m calling that a “civilisation”
“From this evidence, researchers conclude that Göbekli Tepe was a vast festival site where Stone Age men and women came to feast and to drink beer by the trough-load.”
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
This is what people mean by speculative fiction. As opposed to archaeology.
How to miss the point
I am giving you the precise opinions of the professional archaeologists at Karahan/Gobekli Tepe
These theories aren’t mine, they are the theories of the experts digging up the sites
Yes, shooting the breeze with you. They are speculations nonetheless, as a glance at the Wikipedia page also makes pretty clear: ..Expanding on Schmidt's interpretation that round enclosures could represent sanctuaries, Gheorghiu's semiotic interpretation reads the Göbekli Tepe iconography as a cosmogonic map that would have related the local community to the surrounding landscape and the cosmos. The assumption that the site was strictly cultic in purpose and not inhabited has been challenged as well by the suggestion that the structures served as large communal houses..
They really have very little idea of what went on there, I think.
Perhaps, but they probably have a better idea than you?
On the other hand I tend to agree with you. The Tas Tepeler are so bewilderingly strange and unique and mysterious an informed outsider, who goes and sees and investigates, can make as good a guess as an archaeologist. Because no one KNOWS for sure, it is so outside preconceptions and accepted timelines
Shocking footage shows the moment a police officer pepper sprayed a reveller in the face then shoved him to the ground.
Thames Valley Police initially refused a request by the Oxford Mail for the footage, which was played to jurors at Oxford Crown Court, to be released.
The force later withdrew its opposition after a formal application was made to the judge for video to be put in the public domain.
At the end of the trial, jurors took the exceptional step of hitting out at the plight of the Oxford reveller who was shoved, pepper sprayed in the face without warning then taken to the ground by the police.
Footage from the police officers’ body-worn cameras showed the moment Daniel James was sprayed by PC Lewis Quarterman in Cornmarket in the early hours of June 5 last year.
A panel of 12 jurors convicted 45-year-old James, of Welford Road, Abingdon, of common assault of a different police officer. But cleared him of biting the leather boot and shin of another constable.
In a rare note to the judge telling him of their unanimous verdicts, the jury wrote: “The way Mr James was treated in the build up to these events felt very heavy-handed and appear very provocative.
“We empathise with Mr James’ sense of injustice at being sprayed and taken to the floor.”
Their view was echoed by Judge Ian Pringle KC, who took what he described as an ‘exceptional’ course and imposed a two year conditional discharge when he sentenced James on Friday (August 25).
He said he saw ‘no good reason’ for the defendant to have been sprayed in the face with Captor by PC Quarterman.
“I don’t think there was any necessity for you to be treated in the way that you were in the initial part of this episode,” he said, although he added that spitting at a police officer was 'behaviour we can't accept'.
And after reading the jury’s statement, Judge Pringle added: “It seems that my view of this case was not isolated.”
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
It does also back up his theory about there being a "forgotten" civilisation from about that time period
There would inevitably be forgotten civilisations all over the word from about that time, so that isn't saying much.
Talk us through “inevitably”. Because what you claim is “inevitable” is regarded as mad fringe archaeology by many if not most archaeologists. Where are these “inevitable” lost civilisations from 12,000+ years ago? Bolivia? Alaska? Antarctica?
The entire reason Gobekli Tepe (and the new associated sites) is so unexpected, explosive and revolutionary is because it completely overturns the established consensus that agriculture came first (around 8,000 BC in west Eurasia, maybe a little earlier in east Asia) and only THEN could civilisations develop
That really depends how you describe civilisation.
Granted the recent finds are unpredicted, and impressive - but in the absence of writing, or primitive mathematics, or metallurgy (which would be genuinely remarkable discoveries), are they really the development of civilisation ?
I'd include any mass construction as being indicative of civilisation. Example of large scale organisation and complexity.
But repeated, for many thousands of years, without (apparently) any further development. It's not a civilisation in the sense of the early ones which developed written language, agriculture, and improving technologies.
It's pure speculation, indeed, as to whether the constructions provided any input into later civilisations, or were just a dead end.
An interesting question is whether Trump would go on the ballot in States with Democratic contol.
Constitution 14th Amendment, Section 3, has been pointed out:
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
The way that reads, he needs a double 2/3 majority in Congress to get on the ballot.
Firstly, that doesn't actually bar anyone from being President following insurrection. It refers to (i) Senators; (ii) Representatives; and (iii) ELECTORS OF President or VP - that is the electoral college. So this is about members of Congress seating other members of Congress and accepting electoral college voters (a rather hot topic). It very much does not cover the executive arm itself (President and VP).
Secondly, it doesn't refer to getting on the ballot. So take a candidate for Senator who had committed some kind of treason offence. Absent anything in a state constitution, she could be on the ballot for Senate... it's just when it comes to being seated by Congress the following January if elected.
So the first issue (aside from whether he took part in an insurrection) is whether the president is an "officer of the United States" which seems to be controversial.
On the second issue, whether you have to satisfy the eligibility requirements to be on the ballot is decided by each state independently, but I think their laws generally say that you do?
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Liquid blood to half fill that space - how many cubic meters would that be? That would be a massive amount of food material to employ for any purpose
If this was indeed a "penis chamber" surely another bodily fluid would have been a more obvious choice. Perhaps they established education institutions housing adolescent males - precursors of our great public schools - as a means of providing the necessary liquid in sufficient volumes.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Liquid blood to half fill that space - how many cubic meters would that be? That would be a massive amount of food material to employ for any purpose
I agree. Personally, I don’t believe it. I’m simply relating the opinion of one pro archaeologist at the site, given to me during my last visit
On the other hand it could be true simply because the Tas Tepeler keep surprising on the upside. Just when you think it can’t get any weirder - it gets weirder
There's been some quite funny experiments in getting archaeologists to interpret things, as a test, that they don't know what they are for. But other people know the function.
Reminds me of the gag that future civilizations would assume the kellogs logo or McDonalds arch had great religious significance, or that football stadiums were temples.
I recall one post apocalypse fantasy novel where a future church used what were clearly meant to be (non functioning) mobile phones as holy artefacts as they knew people used them to communicate with unseen forces so assumes they were about talking to the divine.
It tends to be the default in ancient history, too (where there's massively more evidence than for archaeological prehistory) to ascribe a religious or ritual motive for anything which can't otherwise be readily explained.
A kind of archaeological God of the gaps, mirroring that in science.
I can see the logic based on our more recent history. The most sturdy, solid and long lasting structures in the last 2,000 years have tended to be religious: cathedrals, mosques, temples. Followed by social: amphitheatres, chariot tracks. But we know even from the Romans that secular and domestic structures can be built to last too, so long as there is stone around to carve or build from.
However, virtually all (all?) the oldest surviving structures on earth are religious in nature. Stonehenge, the Pyramids, Teotihuacan, ggantija, Carnac
When mankind REALLY builds something significant, he generally does it on behalf of something greater than himself: a god
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
It does also back up his theory about there being a "forgotten" civilisation from about that time period
There would inevitably be forgotten civilisations all over the word from about that time, so that isn't saying much.
Talk us through “inevitably”. Because what you claim is “inevitable” is regarded as mad fringe archaeology by many if not most archaeologists. Where are these “inevitable” lost civilisations from 12,000+ years ago? Bolivia? Alaska? Antarctica?
The entire reason Gobekli Tepe (and the new associated sites) is so unexpected, explosive and revolutionary is because it completely overturns the established consensus that agriculture came first (around 8,000 BC in west Eurasia, maybe a little earlier in east Asia) and only THEN could civilisations develop
That really depends how you describe civilisation.
Granted the recent finds are unpredicted, and impressive - but in the absence of writing, or primitive mathematics, or metallurgy (which would be genuinely remarkable discoveries), are they really the development of civilisation ?
I'd include any mass construction as being indicative of civilisation. Example of large scale organisation and complexity.
But repeated, for many thousands of years, without (apparently) any further development. It's not a civilisation in the sense of the early ones which developed written language, agriculture, and improving technologies.
It's pure speculation, indeed, as to whether the constructions provided any input into later civilisations, or were just a dead end.
You absolutely know nothing about this. You’ve just glanced at the Wikipedia page haven’t you?
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
It does also back up his theory about there being a "forgotten" civilisation from about that time period
There would inevitably be forgotten civilisations all over the word from about that time, so that isn't saying much.
Talk us through “inevitably”. Because what you claim is “inevitable” is regarded as mad fringe archaeology by many if not most archaeologists. Where are these “inevitable” lost civilisations from 12,000+ years ago? Bolivia? Alaska? Antarctica?
The entire reason Gobekli Tepe (and the new associated sites) is so unexpected, explosive and revolutionary is because it completely overturns the established consensus that agriculture came first (around 8,000 BC in west Eurasia, maybe a little earlier in east Asia) and only THEN could civilisations develop
That really depends how you describe civilisation.
Granted the recent finds are unpredicted, and impressive - but in the absence of writing, or primitive mathematics, or metallurgy (which would be genuinely remarkable discoveries), are they really the development of civilisation ?
I'd include any mass construction as being indicative of civilisation. Example of large scale organisation and complexity.
12-30 stone built temple towns (or more) with complex sacred/domestic architecture and piped water, etc, certainly fit the bill
Also they had massive vats for brewing beer. In 10,000 BC. I’m calling that a “civilisation”
“From this evidence, researchers conclude that Göbekli Tepe was a vast festival site where Stone Age men and women came to feast and to drink beer by the trough-load.”
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Liquid blood to half fill that space - how many cubic meters would that be? That would be a massive amount of food material to employ for any purpose
I agree. Personally, I don’t believe it. I’m simply relating the opinion of one pro archaeologist at the site, given to me during my last visit
On the other hand it could be true simply because the Tas Tepeler keep surprising on the upside. Just when you think it can’t get any weirder - it gets weirder
There's been some quite funny experiments in getting archaeologists to interpret things, as a test, that they don't know what they are for. But other people know the function.
Reminds me of the gag that future civilizations would assume the kellogs logo or McDonalds arch had great religious significance, or that football stadiums were temples.
I recall one post apocalypse fantasy novel where a future church used what were clearly meant to be (non functioning) mobile phones as holy artefacts as they knew people used them to communicate with unseen forces so assumes they were about talking to the divine.
It tends to be the default in ancient history, too (where there's massively more evidence than for archaeological prehistory) to ascribe a religious or ritual motive for anything which can't otherwise be readily explained.
A kind of archaeological God of the gaps, mirroring that in science.
I can see the logic based on our more recent history. The most sturdy, solid and long lasting structures in the last 2,000 years have tended to be religious: cathedrals, mosques, temples. Followed by social: amphitheatres, chariot tracks. But we know even from the Romans that secular and domestic structures can be built to last too, so long as there is stone around to carve or build from.
However, virtually all (all?) the oldest surviving structures on earth are religious in nature. Stonehenge, the Pyramids, Teotihuacan, ggantija, Carnac
When mankind REALLY builds something significant, he generally does it on behalf of something greater than himself: a god
Pyramids not really for gods. And Great Wall of China?
Shocking footage shows the moment a police officer pepper sprayed a reveller in the face then shoved him to the ground.
Thames Valley Police initially refused a request by the Oxford Mail for the footage, which was played to jurors at Oxford Crown Court, to be released.
The force later withdrew its opposition after a formal application was made to the judge for video to be put in the public domain.
At the end of the trial, jurors took the exceptional step of hitting out at the plight of the Oxford reveller who was shoved, pepper sprayed in the face without warning then taken to the ground by the police.
Footage from the police officers’ body-worn cameras showed the moment Daniel James was sprayed by PC Lewis Quarterman in Cornmarket in the early hours of June 5 last year.
A panel of 12 jurors convicted 45-year-old James, of Welford Road, Abingdon, of common assault of a different police officer. But cleared him of biting the leather boot and shin of another constable.
In a rare note to the judge telling him of their unanimous verdicts, the jury wrote: “The way Mr James was treated in the build up to these events felt very heavy-handed and appear very provocative.
“We empathise with Mr James’ sense of injustice at being sprayed and taken to the floor.”
Their view was echoed by Judge Ian Pringle KC, who took what he described as an ‘exceptional’ course and imposed a two year conditional discharge when he sentenced James on Friday (August 25).
He said he saw ‘no good reason’ for the defendant to have been sprayed in the face with Captor by PC Quarterman.
“I don’t think there was any necessity for you to be treated in the way that you were in the initial part of this episode,” he said, although he added that spitting at a police officer was 'behaviour we can't accept'.
And after reading the jury’s statement, Judge Pringle added: “It seems that my view of this case was not isolated.”
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Liquid blood to half fill that space - how many cubic meters would that be? That would be a massive amount of food material to employ for any purpose
I agree. Personally, I don’t believe it. I’m simply relating the opinion of one pro archaeologist at the site, given to me during my last visit
On the other hand it could be true simply because the Tas Tepeler keep surprising on the upside. Just when you think it can’t get any weirder - it gets weirder
There's been some quite funny experiments in getting archaeologists to interpret things, as a test, that they don't know what they are for. But other people know the function.
Reminds me of the gag that future civilizations would assume the kellogs logo or McDonalds arch had great religious significance, or that football stadiums were temples.
I recall one post apocalypse fantasy novel where a future church used what were clearly meant to be (non functioning) mobile phones as holy artefacts as they knew people used them to communicate with unseen forces so assumes they were about talking to the divine.
It tends to be the default in ancient history, too (where there's massively more evidence than for archaeological prehistory) to ascribe a religious or ritual motive for anything which can't otherwise be readily explained.
A kind of archaeological God of the gaps, mirroring that in science.
I can see the logic based on our more recent history. The most sturdy, solid and long lasting structures in the last 2,000 years have tended to be religious: cathedrals, mosques, temples. Followed by social: amphitheatres, chariot tracks. But we know even from the Romans that secular and domestic structures can be built to last too, so long as there is stone around to carve or build from.
However, virtually all (all?) the oldest surviving structures on earth are religious in nature. Stonehenge, the Pyramids, Teotihuacan, ggantija, Carnac
When mankind REALLY builds something significant, he generally does it on behalf of something greater than himself: a god
Pyramids not really for gods. And Great Wall of China?
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Liquid blood to half fill that space - how many cubic meters would that be? That would be a massive amount of food material to employ for any purpose
I agree. Personally, I don’t believe it. I’m simply relating the opinion of one pro archaeologist at the site, given to me during my last visit
On the other hand it could be true simply because the Tas Tepeler keep surprising on the upside. Just when you think it can’t get any weirder - it gets weirder
There's been some quite funny experiments in getting archaeologists to interpret things, as a test, that they don't know what they are for. But other people know the function.
Reminds me of the gag that future civilizations would assume the kellogs logo or McDonalds arch had great religious significance, or that football stadiums were temples.
I recall one post apocalypse fantasy novel where a future church used what were clearly meant to be (non functioning) mobile phones as holy artefacts as they knew people used them to communicate with unseen forces so assumes they were about talking to the divine.
It tends to be the default in ancient history, too (where there's massively more evidence than for archaeological prehistory) to ascribe a religious or ritual motive for anything which can't otherwise be readily explained.
A kind of archaeological God of the gaps, mirroring that in science.
I can see the logic based on our more recent history. The most sturdy, solid and long lasting structures in the last 2,000 years have tended to be religious: cathedrals, mosques, temples. Followed by social: amphitheatres, chariot tracks. But we know even from the Romans that secular and domestic structures can be built to last too, so long as there is stone around to carve or build from.
However, virtually all (all?) the oldest surviving structures on earth are religious in nature. Stonehenge, the Pyramids, Teotihuacan, ggantija, Carnac
When mankind REALLY builds something significant, he generally does it on behalf of something greater than himself: a god
Pyramids not really for gods. And Great Wall of China?
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Water tank? Why does everything unexplained have to be for 'rituals' of some bizarre kind?
A neolithic wooden trackway was discovered here in the Flatlands - it had been preserved in the peat. Quite a remarkable find really but as it was in a forgotten corner of the country not a lot was made of it.
Apparently - despite the lack of any artifacts - archaeologists say it must have been a route to a 'ritual platform'. Not the rather obvious purpose of a track to get to the other side of a wet area...
Most archaeologists agree that the Tas Tepeler are sacred sites. Stone circles, after all
There is near-zero evidence of human habitation at Gobekli Tepe (there is evidence at the other Tas Tepeler). Why build it? It is surely a temple; it is also, it seems, aligned astronomically
Some kind of penis worshipping hunter-warrior cult (with human sacrifice?) is the best guess at the moment
I admit to knowing almost nothing about these sites other than that they exist.
But how do you build a temple without living there, at least for some of the time?
And if you know how to build things, why not build houses?
The archaeology changes every year as they find amazing new stuff (which is one reason it’s so exciting)
For many years it was thought Gobekli Tepe was a singular miracle. A temple complex built by remarkably gifted cavemen who lived in temporary tents/shelters during the building season
Now at the other Tas Tepeler they have found permanent homes - besides the ritual shrines and cultic chambers. So it looks more and more like a civilisation, from 10,000 BC (or even earlier)
Worth pointing out that by the definition of 'civilisation' in that case it is not much different to the early pre-ceramic Neolithic of Northern Syria. The only big difference is the presence of temples. Jericho as a settlement dates back to 10,000 BC and the walled town dates to around 8,500 BC (and that wall is VERY impressive).
Even that is not the oldest structures in the area. Tell Qaramel has 5 towers dating back to around 10,000 BC and shows continuous occupation throughout the whole of the proto-Neolithic and pre-pottery Neolithic A & B (from around 10,500 to 9,000BC). These sites have been known since the 1970s.
The temples are, certainly, something else. But as I said before, this is not the revolutionary news that Hancock and others would have you believe.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Liquid blood to half fill that space - how many cubic meters would that be? That would be a massive amount of food material to employ for any purpose
If this was indeed a "penis chamber" surely another bodily fluid would have been a more obvious choice. Perhaps they established education institutions housing adolescent males - precursors of our great public schools - as a means of providing the necessary liquid in sufficient volumes.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Liquid blood to half fill that space - how many cubic meters would that be? That would be a massive amount of food material to employ for any purpose
I agree. Personally, I don’t believe it. I’m simply relating the opinion of one pro archaeologist at the site, given to me during my last visit
On the other hand it could be true simply because the Tas Tepeler keep surprising on the upside. Just when you think it can’t get any weirder - it gets weirder
There's been some quite funny experiments in getting archaeologists to interpret things, as a test, that they don't know what they are for. But other people know the function.
Reminds me of the gag that future civilizations would assume the kellogs logo or McDonalds arch had great religious significance, or that football stadiums were temples.
I recall one post apocalypse fantasy novel where a future church used what were clearly meant to be (non functioning) mobile phones as holy artefacts as they knew people used them to communicate with unseen forces so assumes they were about talking to the divine.
It tends to be the default in ancient history, too (where there's massively more evidence than for archaeological prehistory) to ascribe a religious or ritual motive for anything which can't otherwise be readily explained.
A kind of archaeological God of the gaps, mirroring that in science.
I can see the logic based on our more recent history. The most sturdy, solid and long lasting structures in the last 2,000 years have tended to be religious: cathedrals, mosques, temples. Followed by social: amphitheatres, chariot tracks. But we know even from the Romans that secular and domestic structures can be built to last too, so long as there is stone around to carve or build from.
However, virtually all (all?) the oldest surviving structures on earth are religious in nature. Stonehenge, the Pyramids, Teotihuacan, ggantija, Carnac
When mankind REALLY builds something significant, he generally does it on behalf of something greater than himself: a god
Pyramids not really for gods. And Great Wall of China?
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
It does also back up his theory about there being a "forgotten" civilisation from about that time period
There would inevitably be forgotten civilisations all over the word from about that time, so that isn't saying much.
Talk us through “inevitably”. Because what you claim is “inevitable” is regarded as mad fringe archaeology by many if not most archaeologists. Where are these “inevitable” lost civilisations from 12,000+ years ago? Bolivia? Alaska? Antarctica?
The entire reason Gobekli Tepe (and the new associated sites) is so unexpected, explosive and revolutionary is because it completely overturns the established consensus that agriculture came first (around 8,000 BC in west Eurasia, maybe a little earlier in east Asia) and only THEN could civilisations develop
That really depends how you describe civilisation.
Granted the recent finds are unpredicted, and impressive - but in the absence of writing, or primitive mathematics, or metallurgy (which would be genuinely remarkable discoveries), are they really the development of civilisation ?
I'd include any mass construction as being indicative of civilisation. Example of large scale organisation and complexity.
12-30 stone built temple towns (or more) with complex sacred/domestic architecture and piped water, etc, certainly fit the bill
Also they had massive vats for brewing beer. In 10,000 BC. I’m calling that a “civilisation”
“From this evidence, researchers conclude that Göbekli Tepe was a vast festival site where Stone Age men and women came to feast and to drink beer by the trough-load.”
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Water tank? Why does everything unexplained have to be for 'rituals' of some bizarre kind?
A neolithic wooden trackway was discovered here in the Flatlands - it had been preserved in the peat. Quite a remarkable find really but as it was in a forgotten corner of the country not a lot was made of it.
Apparently - despite the lack of any artifacts - archaeologists say it must have been a route to a 'ritual platform'. Not the rather obvious purpose of a track to get to the other side of a wet area...
If you are talking about Flag Fen then there are masses of artefacts. Including large numbers of ritually broken artefacts 'placed' into the water around the causeway - which itself leads to a large artificial island again with lots of artefacts. Archaeologists like to joke about everything being 'ritiual' but in that case it is pretty damn obvious.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Liquid blood to half fill that space - how many cubic meters would that be? That would be a massive amount of food material to employ for any purpose
I agree. Personally, I don’t believe it. I’m simply relating the opinion of one pro archaeologist at the site, given to me during my last visit
On the other hand it could be true simply because the Tas Tepeler keep surprising on the upside. Just when you think it can’t get any weirder - it gets weirder
There's been some quite funny experiments in getting archaeologists to interpret things, as a test, that they don't know what they are for. But other people know the function.
Reminds me of the gag that future civilizations would assume the kellogs logo or McDonalds arch had great religious significance, or that football stadiums were temples.
I recall one post apocalypse fantasy novel where a future church used what were clearly meant to be (non functioning) mobile phones as holy artefacts as they knew people used them to communicate with unseen forces so assumes they were about talking to the divine.
It tends to be the default in ancient history, too (where there's massively more evidence than for archaeological prehistory) to ascribe a religious or ritual motive for anything which can't otherwise be readily explained.
A kind of archaeological God of the gaps, mirroring that in science.
I can see the logic based on our more recent history. The most sturdy, solid and long lasting structures in the last 2,000 years have tended to be religious: cathedrals, mosques, temples. Followed by social: amphitheatres, chariot tracks. But we know even from the Romans that secular and domestic structures can be built to last too, so long as there is stone around to carve or build from.
However, virtually all (all?) the oldest surviving structures on earth are religious in nature. Stonehenge, the Pyramids, Teotihuacan, ggantija, Carnac
When mankind REALLY builds something significant, he generally does it on behalf of something greater than himself: a god
Pyramids not really for gods. And Great Wall of China?
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Water tank? Why does everything unexplained have to be for 'rituals' of some bizarre kind?
A neolithic wooden trackway was discovered here in the Flatlands - it had been preserved in the peat. Quite a remarkable find really but as it was in a forgotten corner of the country not a lot was made of it.
Apparently - despite the lack of any artifacts - archaeologists say it must have been a route to a 'ritual platform'. Not the rather obvious purpose of a track to get to the other side of a wet area...
Most archaeologists agree that the Tas Tepeler are sacred sites. Stone circles, after all
There is near-zero evidence of human habitation at Gobekli Tepe (there is evidence at the other Tas Tepeler). Why build it? It is surely a temple; it is also, it seems, aligned astronomically
Some kind of penis worshipping hunter-warrior cult (with human sacrifice?) is the best guess at the moment
I admit to knowing almost nothing about these sites other than that they exist.
But how do you build a temple without living there, at least for some of the time?
And if you know how to build things, why not build houses?
The archaeology changes every year as they find amazing new stuff (which is one reason it’s so exciting)
For many years it was thought Gobekli Tepe was a singular miracle. A temple complex built by remarkably gifted cavemen who lived in temporary tents/shelters during the building season
Now at the other Tas Tepeler they have found permanent homes - besides the ritual shrines and cultic chambers. So it looks more and more like a civilisation, from 10,000 BC (or even earlier)
Worth pointing out that by the definition of 'civilisation' in that case it is not much different to the early pre-ceramic Neolithic of Northern Syria. The only big difference is the presence of temples. Jericho as a settlement dates back to 10,000 BC and the walled town dates to around 8,500 BC (and that wall is VERY impressive).
Even that is not the oldest structures in the area. Tell Qaramel has 5 towers dating back to around 10,000 BC and shows continuous occupation throughout the whole of the proto-Neolithic and pre-pottery Neolithic A & B (from around 10,500 to 9,000BC). These sites have been known since the 1970s.
The temples are, certainly, something else. But as I said before, this is not the revolutionary news that Hancock and others would have you believe.
Ian Hodder of Stanford Uni disagrees with you:
‘Gobekli Tepe changes everything.’
As an amateur archeologist with an interest in Syria, you’ll have heard of him
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
It does also back up his theory about there being a "forgotten" civilisation from about that time period
There would inevitably be forgotten civilisations all over the word from about that time, so that isn't saying much.
Talk us through “inevitably”. Because what you claim is “inevitable” is regarded as mad fringe archaeology by many if not most archaeologists. Where are these “inevitable” lost civilisations from 12,000+ years ago? Bolivia? Alaska? Antarctica?
The entire reason Gobekli Tepe (and the new associated sites) is so unexpected, explosive and revolutionary is because it completely overturns the established consensus that agriculture came first (around 8,000 BC in west Eurasia, maybe a little earlier in east Asia) and only THEN could civilisations develop
That really depends how you describe civilisation.
Granted the recent finds are unpredicted, and impressive - but in the absence of writing, or primitive mathematics, or metallurgy (which would be genuinely remarkable discoveries), are they really the development of civilisation ?
I'd include any mass construction as being indicative of civilisation. Example of large scale organisation and complexity.
12-30 stone built temple towns (or more) with complex sacred/domestic architecture and piped water, etc, certainly fit the bill
Also they had massive vats for brewing beer. In 10,000 BC. I’m calling that a “civilisation”
“From this evidence, researchers conclude that Göbekli Tepe was a vast festival site where Stone Age men and women came to feast and to drink beer by the trough-load.”
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
It does also back up his theory about there being a "forgotten" civilisation from about that time period
There would inevitably be forgotten civilisations all over the word from about that time, so that isn't saying much.
Talk us through “inevitably”. Because what you claim is “inevitable” is regarded as mad fringe archaeology by many if not most archaeologists. Where are these “inevitable” lost civilisations from 12,000+ years ago? Bolivia? Alaska? Antarctica?
The entire reason Gobekli Tepe (and the new associated sites) is so unexpected, explosive and revolutionary is because it completely overturns the established consensus that agriculture came first (around 8,000 BC in west Eurasia, maybe a little earlier in east Asia) and only THEN could civilisations develop
That really depends how you describe civilisation.
Granted the recent finds are unpredicted, and impressive - but in the absence of writing, or primitive mathematics, or metallurgy (which would be genuinely remarkable discoveries), are they really the development of civilisation ?
I'd include any mass construction as being indicative of civilisation. Example of large scale organisation and complexity.
12-30 stone built temple towns (or more) with complex sacred/domestic architecture and piped water, etc, certainly fit the bill
Also they had massive vats for brewing beer. In 10,000 BC. I’m calling that a “civilisation”
“From this evidence, researchers conclude that Göbekli Tepe was a vast festival site where Stone Age men and women came to feast and to drink beer by the trough-load.”
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Water tank? Why does everything unexplained have to be for 'rituals' of some bizarre kind?
A neolithic wooden trackway was discovered here in the Flatlands - it had been preserved in the peat. Quite a remarkable find really but as it was in a forgotten corner of the country not a lot was made of it.
Apparently - despite the lack of any artifacts - archaeologists say it must have been a route to a 'ritual platform'. Not the rather obvious purpose of a track to get to the other side of a wet area...
If you are talking about Flag Fen then there are masses of artefacts. Including large numbers of ritually broken artefacts 'placed' into the water around the causeway - which itself leads to a large artificial island again with lots of artefacts. Archaeologists like to joke about everything being 'ritiual' but in that case it is pretty damn obvious.
There's talk of a platform and some perspective effect but that's pretty thin evidence. The person who discovered it doesn't believe the archaeologists either.
Could do with getting some radar scans of where we suspect it remains buried, but nobody seems interested. Might be difficult as I don't think the techniques work well in wet peat.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Liquid blood to half fill that space - how many cubic meters would that be? That would be a massive amount of food material to employ for any purpose
I agree. Personally, I don’t believe it. I’m simply relating the opinion of one pro archaeologist at the site, given to me during my last visit
On the other hand it could be true simply because the Tas Tepeler keep surprising on the upside. Just when you think it can’t get any weirder - it gets weirder
There's been some quite funny experiments in getting archaeologists to interpret things, as a test, that they don't know what they are for. But other people know the function.
Reminds me of the gag that future civilizations would assume the kellogs logo or McDonalds arch had great religious significance, or that football stadiums were temples.
I recall one post apocalypse fantasy novel where a future church used what were clearly meant to be (non functioning) mobile phones as holy artefacts as they knew people used them to communicate with unseen forces so assumes they were about talking to the divine.
It tends to be the default in ancient history, too (where there's massively more evidence than for archaeological prehistory) to ascribe a religious or ritual motive for anything which can't otherwise be readily explained.
A kind of archaeological God of the gaps, mirroring that in science.
I can see the logic based on our more recent history. The most sturdy, solid and long lasting structures in the last 2,000 years have tended to be religious: cathedrals, mosques, temples. Followed by social: amphitheatres, chariot tracks. But we know even from the Romans that secular and domestic structures can be built to last too, so long as there is stone around to carve or build from.
However, virtually all (all?) the oldest surviving structures on earth are religious in nature. Stonehenge, the Pyramids, Teotihuacan, ggantija, Carnac
When mankind REALLY builds something significant, he generally does it on behalf of something greater than himself: a god
Pyramids not really for gods. And Great Wall of China?
Er, the pharaohs WERE gods
Err, no, they weren’t.
They really were. But also human at the same time. Intermediaries
“Egyptologists have long debated the degree to which the pharaoh was considered a god. It seems most likely that the Egyptians viewed royal authority itself as a divine force. Therefore, although the Egyptians recognized that the pharaoh was human and subject to human weakness, they simultaneously viewed him as a god, because the divine power of kingship was incarnated in him. “
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Water tank? Why does everything unexplained have to be for 'rituals' of some bizarre kind?
A neolithic wooden trackway was discovered here in the Flatlands - it had been preserved in the peat. Quite a remarkable find really but as it was in a forgotten corner of the country not a lot was made of it.
Apparently - despite the lack of any artifacts - archaeologists say it must have been a route to a 'ritual platform'. Not the rather obvious purpose of a track to get to the other side of a wet area...
Most archaeologists agree that the Tas Tepeler are sacred sites. Stone circles, after all
There is near-zero evidence of human habitation at Gobekli Tepe (there is evidence at the other Tas Tepeler). Why build it? It is surely a temple; it is also, it seems, aligned astronomically
Some kind of penis worshipping hunter-warrior cult (with human sacrifice?) is the best guess at the moment
I admit to knowing almost nothing about these sites other than that they exist.
But how do you build a temple without living there, at least for some of the time?
And if you know how to build things, why not build houses?
The archaeology changes every year as they find amazing new stuff (which is one reason it’s so exciting)
For many years it was thought Gobekli Tepe was a singular miracle. A temple complex built by remarkably gifted cavemen who lived in temporary tents/shelters during the building season
Now at the other Tas Tepeler they have found permanent homes - besides the ritual shrines and cultic chambers. So it looks more and more like a civilisation, from 10,000 BC (or even earlier)
Worth pointing out that by the definition of 'civilisation' in that case it is not much different to the early pre-ceramic Neolithic of Northern Syria. The only big difference is the presence of temples. Jericho as a settlement dates back to 10,000 BC and the walled town dates to around 8,500 BC (and that wall is VERY impressive).
Even that is not the oldest structures in the area. Tell Qaramel has 5 towers dating back to around 10,000 BC and shows continuous occupation throughout the whole of the proto-Neolithic and pre-pottery Neolithic A & B (from around 10,500 to 9,000BC). These sites have been known since the 1970s.
The temples are, certainly, something else. But as I said before, this is not the revolutionary news that Hancock and others would have you believe.
Ian Hodder of Stanford Uni disagrees with you:
‘Gobekli Tepe changes everything.’
As an amateur archeologist with an interest in Syria, you’ll have heard of him
'Changes everything' is one of those phrases that can mean anything to anyone. Yes it is spectacular. No it does not mean an ancient 'civilisation' in Hancockian terms any more than the discovery of the Northern Syrian villages did.
That does not at all detract from the sites, nor does it mean the temples are not amazing. But when we have Sunil of this parish writing articles about Atlantis you have to stop and take a sniff of the smelling salts.
GT and the other sites push back the dates for large scale man made structures by a few hundred years. Not the 15,000 or so Hancock is regularly heard to claim.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
It does also back up his theory about there being a "forgotten" civilisation from about that time period
There would inevitably be forgotten civilisations all over the word from about that time, so that isn't saying much.
Talk us through “inevitably”. Because what you claim is “inevitable” is regarded as mad fringe archaeology by many if not most archaeologists. Where are these “inevitable” lost civilisations from 12,000+ years ago? Bolivia? Alaska? Antarctica?
The entire reason Gobekli Tepe (and the new associated sites) is so unexpected, explosive and revolutionary is because it completely overturns the established consensus that agriculture came first (around 8,000 BC in west Eurasia, maybe a little earlier in east Asia) and only THEN could civilisations develop
That really depends how you describe civilisation.
Granted the recent finds are unpredicted, and impressive - but in the absence of writing, or primitive mathematics, or metallurgy (which would be genuinely remarkable discoveries), are they really the development of civilisation ?
I'd include any mass construction as being indicative of civilisation. Example of large scale organisation and complexity.
12-30 stone built temple towns (or more) with complex sacred/domestic architecture and piped water, etc, certainly fit the bill
Also they had massive vats for brewing beer. In 10,000 BC. I’m calling that a “civilisation”
“From this evidence, researchers conclude that Göbekli Tepe was a vast festival site where Stone Age men and women came to feast and to drink beer by the trough-load.”
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Water tank? Why does everything unexplained have to be for 'rituals' of some bizarre kind?
A neolithic wooden trackway was discovered here in the Flatlands - it had been preserved in the peat. Quite a remarkable find really but as it was in a forgotten corner of the country not a lot was made of it.
Apparently - despite the lack of any artifacts - archaeologists say it must have been a route to a 'ritual platform'. Not the rather obvious purpose of a track to get to the other side of a wet area...
If you are talking about Flag Fen then there are masses of artefacts. Including large numbers of ritually broken artefacts 'placed' into the water around the causeway - which itself leads to a large artificial island again with lots of artefacts. Archaeologists like to joke about everything being 'ritiual' but in that case it is pretty damn obvious.
Apologies I didn't know where you lived and assumed it was the fens from your byline.
I agree. This is one of those examples where it is too easy to jump on the ritual bandwagon. The Sweet Track in Somereset is part of a large set of trackways across the levels and they are clearly just ways to get from A to B - or islamnd to islnd in that case.
Leon lecturing us about history and archaeology is a bit like being lectured about physics by a three year old.
I imagine I am the only person on this site who has visited Gobekli Tepe and the Tas Tepeler multiple times, and interviewed all the main archaeologists (and other scientists), and seen them at work, and simply hung out with them
I am one of the very few PEOPLE that have seen the extraordinary site of Sayburc (only discovered in 2021) so I’m afraid on this subject you will have to suffer my lecturing. Because I know what I’m talking about
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
It does also back up his theory about there being a "forgotten" civilisation from about that time period
There would inevitably be forgotten civilisations all over the word from about that time, so that isn't saying much.
Talk us through “inevitably”. Because what you claim is “inevitable” is regarded as mad fringe archaeology by many if not most archaeologists. Where are these “inevitable” lost civilisations from 12,000+ years ago? Bolivia? Alaska? Antarctica?
The entire reason Gobekli Tepe (and the new associated sites) is so unexpected, explosive and revolutionary is because it completely overturns the established consensus that agriculture came first (around 8,000 BC in west Eurasia, maybe a little earlier in east Asia) and only THEN could civilisations develop
That really depends how you describe civilisation.
Granted the recent finds are unpredicted, and impressive - but in the absence of writing, or primitive mathematics, or metallurgy (which would be genuinely remarkable discoveries), are they really the development of civilisation ?
I'd include any mass construction as being indicative of civilisation. Example of large scale organisation and complexity.
12-30 stone built temple towns (or more) with complex sacred/domestic architecture and piped water, etc, certainly fit the bill
Also they had massive vats for brewing beer. In 10,000 BC. I’m calling that a “civilisation”
“From this evidence, researchers conclude that Göbekli Tepe was a vast festival site where Stone Age men and women came to feast and to drink beer by the trough-load.”
Leon lecturing us about history and archaeology is a bit like being lectured about physics by a three year old.
I imagine I am the only person on this site who has visited Gobekli Tepe and the Tas Tepeler multiple times, and interviewed all the main archaeologists (and other scientists), and seen them at work, and simply hung out with them
I am one of the very few PEOPLE that have seen the extraordinary site of Sayburc (only discovered in 2021) so I’m afraid on this subject you will have to suffer my lecturing. Because I know what I’m talking about
I've also been to a hospital, doesn't make me a doctor.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
It does also back up his theory about there being a "forgotten" civilisation from about that time period
There would inevitably be forgotten civilisations all over the word from about that time, so that isn't saying much.
Talk us through “inevitably”. Because what you claim is “inevitable” is regarded as mad fringe archaeology by many if not most archaeologists. Where are these “inevitable” lost civilisations from 12,000+ years ago? Bolivia? Alaska? Antarctica?
The entire reason Gobekli Tepe (and the new associated sites) is so unexpected, explosive and revolutionary is because it completely overturns the established consensus that agriculture came first (around 8,000 BC in west Eurasia, maybe a little earlier in east Asia) and only THEN could civilisations develop
That really depends how you describe civilisation.
Granted the recent finds are unpredicted, and impressive - but in the absence of writing, or primitive mathematics, or metallurgy (which would be genuinely remarkable discoveries), are they really the development of civilisation ?
I'd include any mass construction as being indicative of civilisation. Example of large scale organisation and complexity.
12-30 stone built temple towns (or more) with complex sacred/domestic architecture and piped water, etc, certainly fit the bill
Also they had massive vats for brewing beer. In 10,000 BC. I’m calling that a “civilisation”
“From this evidence, researchers conclude that Göbekli Tepe was a vast festival site where Stone Age men and women came to feast and to drink beer by the trough-load.”
Leon lecturing us about history and archaeology is a bit like being lectured about physics by a three year old.
I imagine I am the only person on this site who has visited Gobekli Tepe and the Tas Tepeler multiple times, and interviewed all the main archaeologists (and other scientists), and seen them at work, and simply hung out with them
I am one of the very few PEOPLE that have seen the extraordinary site of Sayburc (only discovered in 2021) so I’m afraid on this subject you will have to suffer my lecturing. Because I know what I’m talking about
Yes, you are a very special boy. Would you like a pat on the head?
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Water tank? Why does everything unexplained have to be for 'rituals' of some bizarre kind?
A neolithic wooden trackway was discovered here in the Flatlands - it had been preserved in the peat. Quite a remarkable find really but as it was in a forgotten corner of the country not a lot was made of it.
Apparently - despite the lack of any artifacts - archaeologists say it must have been a route to a 'ritual platform'. Not the rather obvious purpose of a track to get to the other side of a wet area...
Most archaeologists agree that the Tas Tepeler are sacred sites. Stone circles, after all
There is near-zero evidence of human habitation at Gobekli Tepe (there is evidence at the other Tas Tepeler). Why build it? It is surely a temple; it is also, it seems, aligned astronomically
Some kind of penis worshipping hunter-warrior cult (with human sacrifice?) is the best guess at the moment
I admit to knowing almost nothing about these sites other than that they exist.
But how do you build a temple without living there, at least for some of the time?
And if you know how to build things, why not build houses?
The archaeology changes every year as they find amazing new stuff (which is one reason it’s so exciting)
For many years it was thought Gobekli Tepe was a singular miracle. A temple complex built by remarkably gifted cavemen who lived in temporary tents/shelters during the building season
Now at the other Tas Tepeler they have found permanent homes - besides the ritual shrines and cultic chambers. So it looks more and more like a civilisation, from 10,000 BC (or even earlier)
Worth pointing out that by the definition of 'civilisation' in that case it is not much different to the early pre-ceramic Neolithic of Northern Syria. The only big difference is the presence of temples. Jericho as a settlement dates back to 10,000 BC and the walled town dates to around 8,500 BC (and that wall is VERY impressive).
Even that is not the oldest structures in the area. Tell Qaramel has 5 towers dating back to around 10,000 BC and shows continuous occupation throughout the whole of the proto-Neolithic and pre-pottery Neolithic A & B (from around 10,500 to 9,000BC). These sites have been known since the 1970s.
The temples are, certainly, something else. But as I said before, this is not the revolutionary news that Hancock and others would have you believe.
Ian Hodder of Stanford Uni disagrees with you:
‘Gobekli Tepe changes everything.’
As an amateur archeologist with an interest in Syria, you’ll have heard of him
'Changes everything' is one of those phrases that can mean anything to anyone. Yes it is spectacular. No it does not mean an ancient 'civilisation' in Hancockian terms any more than the discovery of the Northern Syrian villages did.
That does not at all detract from the sites, nor does it mean the temples are not amazing. But when we have Sunil of this parish writing articles about Atlantis you have to stop and take a sniff of the smelling salts.
GT and the other sites push back the dates for large scale man made structures by a few hundred years. Not the 15,000 or so Hancock is regularly heard to claim.
I’m not batting for Hancock, you misconstrue me. I will indeed say that the Tas Tepeler are absolutely revolutionary, coz it is the case
Incidentally if you are interested in this stuff - and you obviously are - why don’t you go have a look? Seriously. See for yourself
These days Gobekli Tepe is now walled off and sheltered and gets a million visitors a year and that miraculous quality has largely gone (tho it is still a gob smacking site). When I first went I was the only non archaeologist there and we could wander between the stones drinking tea!
But at a site like Karahan Tepe you can still do that. Simply rock up. Wander about. You might be alone - or you can watch the archaeologists digging
Go on, do it! It would make an amazing holiday (combine it with a beach). Blow your mind!
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Liquid blood to half fill that space - how many cubic meters would that be? That would be a massive amount of food material to employ for any purpose
I agree. Personally, I don’t believe it. I’m simply relating the opinion of one pro archaeologist at the site, given to me during my last visit
On the other hand it could be true simply because the Tas Tepeler keep surprising on the upside. Just when you think it can’t get any weirder - it gets weirder
There's been some quite funny experiments in getting archaeologists to interpret things, as a test, that they don't know what they are for. But other people know the function.
Reminds me of the gag that future civilizations would assume the kellogs logo or McDonalds arch had great religious significance, or that football stadiums were temples.
I recall one post apocalypse fantasy novel where a future church used what were clearly meant to be (non functioning) mobile phones as holy artefacts as they knew people used them to communicate with unseen forces so assumes they were about talking to the divine.
It tends to be the default in ancient history, too (where there's massively more evidence than for archaeological prehistory) to ascribe a religious or ritual motive for anything which can't otherwise be readily explained.
A kind of archaeological God of the gaps, mirroring that in science.
I can see the logic based on our more recent history. The most sturdy, solid and long lasting structures in the last 2,000 years have tended to be religious: cathedrals, mosques, temples. Followed by social: amphitheatres, chariot tracks. But we know even from the Romans that secular and domestic structures can be built to last too, so long as there is stone around to carve or build from.
However, virtually all (all?) the oldest surviving structures on earth are religious in nature. Stonehenge, the Pyramids, Teotihuacan, ggantija, Carnac
When mankind REALLY builds something significant, he generally does it on behalf of something greater than himself: a god
I would probably agree with you but there is an element of assumption there.
We really don't know why Stonehenge was built and much of our perception of it has been through the lens of Victorian and early 20th century writers. Saying with certainty that it was a religious site when we know absolutely nothing about it - and particularly when it was used by at least two completely different peoples with, in all likelihood, completely different belief systems (the Neolithic builders having been completely wiped out with the arrival of the Beaker Peoples) - is probably a step too far for many.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Liquid blood to half fill that space - how many cubic meters would that be? That would be a massive amount of food material to employ for any purpose
I agree. Personally, I don’t believe it. I’m simply relating the opinion of one pro archaeologist at the site, given to me during my last visit
On the other hand it could be true simply because the Tas Tepeler keep surprising on the upside. Just when you think it can’t get any weirder - it gets weirder
There's been some quite funny experiments in getting archaeologists to interpret things, as a test, that they don't know what they are for. But other people know the function.
Reminds me of the gag that future civilizations would assume the kellogs logo or McDonalds arch had great religious significance, or that football stadiums were temples.
I recall one post apocalypse fantasy novel where a future church used what were clearly meant to be (non functioning) mobile phones as holy artefacts as they knew people used them to communicate with unseen forces so assumes they were about talking to the divine.
It tends to be the default in ancient history, too (where there's massively more evidence than for archaeological prehistory) to ascribe a religious or ritual motive for anything which can't otherwise be readily explained.
A kind of archaeological God of the gaps, mirroring that in science.
I can see the logic based on our more recent history. The most sturdy, solid and long lasting structures in the last 2,000 years have tended to be religious: cathedrals, mosques, temples. Followed by social: amphitheatres, chariot tracks. But we know even from the Romans that secular and domestic structures can be built to last too, so long as there is stone around to carve or build from.
However, virtually all (all?) the oldest surviving structures on earth are religious in nature. Stonehenge, the Pyramids, Teotihuacan, ggantija, Carnac
When mankind REALLY builds something significant, he generally does it on behalf of something greater than himself: a god
I would probably agree with you but there is an element of assumption there.
We really don't know why Stonehenge was built and much of our perception of it has been through the lens of Victorian and early 20th century writers. Saying with certainty that it was a religious site when we know absolutely nothing about it - and particularly when it was used by at least two completely different peoples with, in all likelihood, completely different belief systems (the Neolithic builders having been completely wiped out with the arrival of the Beaker Peoples) - is probably a step too far for many.
Did you go to the recent Stonehenge exhibition at the BM? It didn’t leave much room for doubt. It’s a sacred circle in a sacred site. People used to make pilgrimages there from mainland Europe. They were ritually buried there - etc
Plus the astronomical alignments and so on
I agree we cannot know the exact details of the rituals enacted. That’s the fun part. That’s where we can enjoyably speculate
Human sacrifice has always seemed likely to me. But others don’t want to talk about it. Too dark
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Water tank? Why does everything unexplained have to be for 'rituals' of some bizarre kind?
A neolithic wooden trackway was discovered here in the Flatlands - it had been preserved in the peat. Quite a remarkable find really but as it was in a forgotten corner of the country not a lot was made of it.
Apparently - despite the lack of any artifacts - archaeologists say it must have been a route to a 'ritual platform'. Not the rather obvious purpose of a track to get to the other side of a wet area...
If you are talking about Flag Fen then there are masses of artefacts. Including large numbers of ritually broken artefacts 'placed' into the water around the causeway - which itself leads to a large artificial island again with lots of artefacts. Archaeologists like to joke about everything being 'ritiual' but in that case it is pretty damn obvious.
Apologies I didn't know where you lived and assumed it was the fens from your byline.
I agree. This is one of those examples where it is too easy to jump on the ritual bandwagon. The Sweet Track in Somereset is part of a large set of trackways across the levels and they are clearly just ways to get from A to B - or islamnd to islnd in that case.
Sorry, yes, the Humberhead Levels are my 'Flatlands', not the Fens. A bit of deliberate ambiguity originally.
Our trackway does stretch north from an island, although presumably it must date from the beginning of the wetter climate and wouldn't have been crossing a complete peat bog at the time.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Liquid blood to half fill that space - how many cubic meters would that be? That would be a massive amount of food material to employ for any purpose
I agree. Personally, I don’t believe it. I’m simply relating the opinion of one pro archaeologist at the site, given to me during my last visit
On the other hand it could be true simply because the Tas Tepeler keep surprising on the upside. Just when you think it can’t get any weirder - it gets weirder
There's been some quite funny experiments in getting archaeologists to interpret things, as a test, that they don't know what they are for. But other people know the function.
Reminds me of the gag that future civilizations would assume the kellogs logo or McDonalds arch had great religious significance, or that football stadiums were temples.
I recall one post apocalypse fantasy novel where a future church used what were clearly meant to be (non functioning) mobile phones as holy artefacts as they knew people used them to communicate with unseen forces so assumes they were about talking to the divine.
It tends to be the default in ancient history, too (where there's massively more evidence than for archaeological prehistory) to ascribe a religious or ritual motive for anything which can't otherwise be readily explained.
A kind of archaeological God of the gaps, mirroring that in science.
I can see the logic based on our more recent history. The most sturdy, solid and long lasting structures in the last 2,000 years have tended to be religious: cathedrals, mosques, temples. Followed by social: amphitheatres, chariot tracks. But we know even from the Romans that secular and domestic structures can be built to last too, so long as there is stone around to carve or build from.
However, virtually all (all?) the oldest surviving structures on earth are religious in nature. Stonehenge, the Pyramids, Teotihuacan, ggantija, Carnac
When mankind REALLY builds something significant, he generally does it on behalf of something greater than himself: a god
Pyramids not really for gods. And Great Wall of China?
Er, the pharaohs WERE gods
Err, no, they weren’t.
They really were. But also human at the same time. Intermediaries
“Egyptologists have long debated the degree to which the pharaoh was considered a god. It seems most likely that the Egyptians viewed royal authority itself as a divine force. Therefore, although the Egyptians recognized that the pharaoh was human and subject to human weakness, they simultaneously viewed him as a god, because the divine power of kingship was incarnated in him. “
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Liquid blood to half fill that space - how many cubic meters would that be? That would be a massive amount of food material to employ for any purpose
I agree. Personally, I don’t believe it. I’m simply relating the opinion of one pro archaeologist at the site, given to me during my last visit
On the other hand it could be true simply because the Tas Tepeler keep surprising on the upside. Just when you think it can’t get any weirder - it gets weirder
There's been some quite funny experiments in getting archaeologists to interpret things, as a test, that they don't know what they are for. But other people know the function.
Reminds me of the gag that future civilizations would assume the kellogs logo or McDonalds arch had great religious significance, or that football stadiums were temples.
I recall one post apocalypse fantasy novel where a future church used what were clearly meant to be (non functioning) mobile phones as holy artefacts as they knew people used them to communicate with unseen forces so assumes they were about talking to the divine.
It tends to be the default in ancient history, too (where there's massively more evidence than for archaeological prehistory) to ascribe a religious or ritual motive for anything which can't otherwise be readily explained.
A kind of archaeological God of the gaps, mirroring that in science.
I can see the logic based on our more recent history. The most sturdy, solid and long lasting structures in the last 2,000 years have tended to be religious: cathedrals, mosques, temples. Followed by social: amphitheatres, chariot tracks. But we know even from the Romans that secular and domestic structures can be built to last too, so long as there is stone around to carve or build from.
However, virtually all (all?) the oldest surviving structures on earth are religious in nature. Stonehenge, the Pyramids, Teotihuacan, ggantija, Carnac
When mankind REALLY builds something significant, he generally does it on behalf of something greater than himself: a god
Pyramids not really for gods. And Great Wall of China?
Er, the pharaohs WERE gods
Err, no, they weren’t.
They really were. But also human at the same time. Intermediaries
“Egyptologists have long debated the degree to which the pharaoh was considered a god. It seems most likely that the Egyptians viewed royal authority itself as a divine force. Therefore, although the Egyptians recognized that the pharaoh was human and subject to human weakness, they simultaneously viewed him as a god, because the divine power of kingship was incarnated in him. “
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
This is what people mean by speculative fiction. As opposed to archaeology.
How to miss the point
I am giving you the precise opinions of the professional archaeologists at Karahan/Gobekli Tepe
These theories aren’t mine, they are the theories of the experts digging up the sites
Yes, shooting the breeze with you. They are speculations nonetheless, as a glance at the Wikipedia page also makes pretty clear: ..Expanding on Schmidt's interpretation that round enclosures could represent sanctuaries, Gheorghiu's semiotic interpretation reads the Göbekli Tepe iconography as a cosmogonic map that would have related the local community to the surrounding landscape and the cosmos. The assumption that the site was strictly cultic in purpose and not inhabited has been challenged as well by the suggestion that the structures served as large communal houses..
They really have very little idea of what went on there, I think.
Perhaps, but they probably have a better idea than you?
On the other hand I tend to agree with you. The Tas Tepeler are so bewilderingly strange and unique and mysterious an informed outsider, who goes and sees and investigates, can make as good a guess as an archaeologist. Because no one KNOWS for sure, it is so outside preconceptions and accepted timelines
In that case, my guess is it was a civilisation started by aliens that died out because of too much Woke.
Speaking of wikipedia I was just reading up on the CIA's fake vaccination program in Abbottabad when they were trying to verify that Osama Bin Laden was there by getting DNA from his kids and it turns out the CIA did all kinds of other bad stuff as well:
Yes and mostly no. Labour has more than one objective, and these do not perfectly align. It needs to win an election, it needs the wealth/job creating establishment on its side, it needs the market makers, movers and shakers to allow it the width it did not give Truss, and it needs the real support and votes of the middle class and above who are centre left, have fashionable views but are also fond of their position and status. This last group is massively represented among the talking heads of society.
'No wealth tax' is aimed at all four groups. Few ordinary voters will shift their vote to LD or Tory on account of there being no wealth tax. The other groups will, privately, find it most acceptable.
Meanwhile Labour turns into a noiseless and personality free version of Blair. The good news is that this lot is less likely to invade middle eastern countries than their more excitable predecessors.
Labour will, however need to find ways of taxing wealth. Local taxation of housing would be the optimal means. The gap between the Accrington terrace and the Mayfair mansion is too small.
Most of all it needs to join EFTA/EEA or go Swiss. As this aligns with the Brexit vote the detail can be kept until after the election.
As a man who has just turned 80*, I can speak from personal experience about Biden's age, and the changes in him. He was not well qualified to be president 20 years ago, and he is a little less qualified, now. Just as I am not as sharp as I was 20 years ago.
Nonetheless, after the terrible Afghanistan fiasco, he has conducted our foreign policy reasonably well. (He and Trump combined to screw up Afghanistan, so he doesn't bear the entire responsibility for that.)
And there has been an improvement in the general health of those over 60 in the US, in the last 20 years, so simple age comparisons to previous presidents need some qualifications.
As for Kamala Harris, she ticks too many identity boxes to be dropped from the ticket in today's Democratic Party: black, of Indian descent, Hindu, Baptist, married to a secular Jew (and a Hollywood lawyer), educated partly in Canada, had a fling with a married man, helped protect the Brown dynasty in California, et cetera, et cetera.
There are competent Democratic politicians Biden could have chosen, Klobuchar and Booker, for example, but none that I can think of that tick that many boxes.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Water tank? Why does everything unexplained have to be for 'rituals' of some bizarre kind?
A neolithic wooden trackway was discovered here in the Flatlands - it had been preserved in the peat. Quite a remarkable find really but as it was in a forgotten corner of the country not a lot was made of it.
Apparently - despite the lack of any artifacts - archaeologists say it must have been a route to a 'ritual platform'. Not the rather obvious purpose of a track to get to the other side of a wet area...
Most archaeologists agree that the Tas Tepeler are sacred sites. Stone circles, after all
There is near-zero evidence of human habitation at Gobekli Tepe (there is evidence at the other Tas Tepeler). Why build it? It is surely a temple; it is also, it seems, aligned astronomically
Some kind of penis worshipping hunter-warrior cult (with human sacrifice?) is the best guess at the moment
I admit to knowing almost nothing about these sites other than that they exist.
But how do you build a temple without living there, at least for some of the time?
And if you know how to build things, why not build houses?
The archaeology changes every year as they find amazing new stuff (which is one reason it’s so exciting)
For many years it was thought Gobekli Tepe was a singular miracle. A temple complex built by remarkably gifted cavemen who lived in temporary tents/shelters during the building season
Now at the other Tas Tepeler they have found permanent homes - besides the ritual shrines and cultic chambers. So it looks more and more like a civilisation, from 10,000 BC (or even earlier)
Worth pointing out that by the definition of 'civilisation' in that case it is not much different to the early pre-ceramic Neolithic of Northern Syria. The only big difference is the presence of temples. Jericho as a settlement dates back to 10,000 BC and the walled town dates to around 8,500 BC (and that wall is VERY impressive).
Even that is not the oldest structures in the area. Tell Qaramel has 5 towers dating back to around 10,000 BC and shows continuous occupation throughout the whole of the proto-Neolithic and pre-pottery Neolithic A & B (from around 10,500 to 9,000BC). These sites have been known since the 1970s.
The temples are, certainly, something else. But as I said before, this is not the revolutionary news that Hancock and others would have you believe.
Ian Hodder of Stanford Uni disagrees with you:
‘Gobekli Tepe changes everything.’
As an amateur archeologist with an interest in Syria, you’ll have heard of him
'Changes everything' is one of those phrases that can mean anything to anyone. Yes it is spectacular. No it does not mean an ancient 'civilisation' in Hancockian terms any more than the discovery of the Northern Syrian villages did.
That does not at all detract from the sites, nor does it mean the temples are not amazing. But when we have Sunil of this parish writing articles about Atlantis you have to stop and take a sniff of the smelling salts.
GT and the other sites push back the dates for large scale man made structures by a few hundred years. Not the 15,000 or so Hancock is regularly heard to claim.
I’m not batting for Hancock, you misconstrue me. I will indeed say that the Tas Tepeler are absolutely revolutionary, coz it is the case
Incidentally if you are interested in this stuff - and you obviously are - why don’t you go have a look? Seriously. See for yourself
These days Gobekli Tepe is now walled off and sheltered and gets a million visitors a year and that miraculous quality has largely gone (tho it is still a gob smacking site). When I first went I was the only non archaeologist there and we could wander between the stones drinking tea!
But at a site like Karahan Tepe you can still do that. Simply rock up. Wander about. You might be alone - or you can watch the archaeologists digging
Go on, do it! It would make an amazing holiday (combine it with a beach). Blow your mind!
If you want details on how to do it, DM me
It is definetely on my list. Along with various sites around Lake Van and in Kurdistan. My problem is time. I have had one 3 week holiday in 10 years. The joys of consultancy. I am hoping to do a bit more travelling again for pleasure rather than work but as always it is mañana.
Yes and mostly no. Labour has more than one objective, and these do not perfectly align. It needs to win an election, it needs the wealth/job creating establishment on its side, it needs the market makers, movers and shakers to allow it the width it did not give Truss, and it needs the real support and votes of the middle class and above who are centre left, have fashionable views but are also fond of their position and status. This last group is massively represented among the talking heads of society.
'No wealth tax' is aimed at all four groups. Few ordinary voters will shift their vote to LD or Tory on account of there being no wealth tax. The other groups will, privately, find it most acceptable.
Meanwhile Labour turns into a noiseless and personality free version of Blair. The good news is that this lot is less likely to invade middle eastern countries than their more excitable predecessors.
Labour will, however need to find ways of taxing wealth. Local taxation of housing would be the optimal means. The gap between the Accrington terrace and the Mayfair mansion is too small.
Most of all it needs to join EFTA/EEA or go Swiss. As this aligns with the Brexit vote the detail can be kept until after the election.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Water tank? Why does everything unexplained have to be for 'rituals' of some bizarre kind?
A neolithic wooden trackway was discovered here in the Flatlands - it had been preserved in the peat. Quite a remarkable find really but as it was in a forgotten corner of the country not a lot was made of it.
Apparently - despite the lack of any artifacts - archaeologists say it must have been a route to a 'ritual platform'. Not the rather obvious purpose of a track to get to the other side of a wet area...
Most archaeologists agree that the Tas Tepeler are sacred sites. Stone circles, after all
There is near-zero evidence of human habitation at Gobekli Tepe (there is evidence at the other Tas Tepeler). Why build it? It is surely a temple; it is also, it seems, aligned astronomically
Some kind of penis worshipping hunter-warrior cult (with human sacrifice?) is the best guess at the moment
I admit to knowing almost nothing about these sites other than that they exist.
But how do you build a temple without living there, at least for some of the time?
And if you know how to build things, why not build houses?
The archaeology changes every year as they find amazing new stuff (which is one reason it’s so exciting)
For many years it was thought Gobekli Tepe was a singular miracle. A temple complex built by remarkably gifted cavemen who lived in temporary tents/shelters during the building season
Now at the other Tas Tepeler they have found permanent homes - besides the ritual shrines and cultic chambers. So it looks more and more like a civilisation, from 10,000 BC (or even earlier)
Worth pointing out that by the definition of 'civilisation' in that case it is not much different to the early pre-ceramic Neolithic of Northern Syria. The only big difference is the presence of temples. Jericho as a settlement dates back to 10,000 BC and the walled town dates to around 8,500 BC (and that wall is VERY impressive).
Even that is not the oldest structures in the area. Tell Qaramel has 5 towers dating back to around 10,000 BC and shows continuous occupation throughout the whole of the proto-Neolithic and pre-pottery Neolithic A & B (from around 10,500 to 9,000BC). These sites have been known since the 1970s.
The temples are, certainly, something else. But as I said before, this is not the revolutionary news that Hancock and others would have you believe.
Ian Hodder of Stanford Uni disagrees with you:
‘Gobekli Tepe changes everything.’
As an amateur archeologist with an interest in Syria, you’ll have heard of him
'Changes everything' is one of those phrases that can mean anything to anyone. Yes it is spectacular. No it does not mean an ancient 'civilisation' in Hancockian terms any more than the discovery of the Northern Syrian villages did.
That does not at all detract from the sites, nor does it mean the temples are not amazing. But when we have Sunil of this parish writing articles about Atlantis you have to stop and take a sniff of the smelling salts.
GT and the other sites push back the dates for large scale man made structures by a few hundred years. Not the 15,000 or so Hancock is regularly heard to claim.
I’m not batting for Hancock, you misconstrue me. I will indeed say that the Tas Tepeler are absolutely revolutionary, coz it is the case
Incidentally if you are interested in this stuff - and you obviously are - why don’t you go have a look? Seriously. See for yourself
These days Gobekli Tepe is now walled off and sheltered and gets a million visitors a year and that miraculous quality has largely gone (tho it is still a gob smacking site). When I first went I was the only non archaeologist there and we could wander between the stones drinking tea!
But at a site like Karahan Tepe you can still do that. Simply rock up. Wander about. You might be alone - or you can watch the archaeologists digging
Go on, do it! It would make an amazing holiday (combine it with a beach). Blow your mind!
If you want details on how to do it, DM me
It is definetely on my list. Along with various sites around Lake Van and in Kurdistan. My problem is time. I have had one 3 week holiday in 10 years. The joys of consultancy. I am hoping to do a bit more travelling again for pleasure rather than work but as always it is mañana.
3 weeks.... in ten years?!
That's insane. Life is for living, not working. Find the time before you keel over
Leon lecturing us about history and archaeology is a bit like being lectured about physics by a three year old.
I imagine I am the only person on this site who has visited Gobekli Tepe and the Tas Tepeler multiple times, and interviewed all the main archaeologists (and other scientists), and seen them at work, and simply hung out with them
I am one of the very few PEOPLE that have seen the extraordinary site of Sayburc (only discovered in 2021) so I’m afraid on this subject you will have to suffer my lecturing. Because I know what I’m talking about
Yes, you are a very special boy. Would you like a pat on the head?
Good to see @Leon re-emerge. I do agree with the sentiment though that this website is turning in to an echo chamber with an increasingly limited acceptable range of opinion. It is reading like a forum for widespread agreement on progressive talking points. Ironically when I started reading the comments on this website, perhaps 8 years ago, it was to try and challenge my own 'left/liberal' beliefs as many (but by no means all) of the commentators were taking an informed 'right wing', pro Brexit perspective. It is mostly now just evidence of the problem of progressive groupthink. The problem with those who have succumbed to this viewpoint is that there will be things that happen in the future in politics that go against your worldview and you have no way of explaining, because you have lost the ability to understand the other side of the argument.
Some examples of what you mean? The clearest example I can think of of an "unacceptable" (if you mean swiftly condemned) opinion on here is someone suggesting something like the West should force Ukraine to accept a ceasefire and negotiated peace. But I'm not sure that is an example of progressive groupthink.
I think rather it's about the widely held view that minor assaults on women are not something to be taken notice of.
Darkage is right to say that there's a strong consensus here against that viewpoint. But it's wrong to say I don't understand that viewpoint, when I argue against it. I just think it's quite wrong.
On this you overlooked my point (that the BBC was being one sided in its coverage of a story which I thought was inappropriate given its status as a public service broadcaster) and went on to have a different discussion where you agreed with each other that the perspective offered by the BBC is correct. It is quite a good example of my point about being in a progressive echo chamber.
Anyway... on with the rest of the day.
Please state the 'other side' of this story; one that paints Rubiales' actions in a positive light.
There isn't any way of painting his actions in a positive light and I would agree that his response has been a PR disaster. But I think he is essentially saying that it was consensual. I'd suggest that he deserves a fair hearing - particularly from the BBC - as would anyone in this position.
What forms a "fair hearing"?
Typically you'd suggest asking the other party if it was consensual. If they say yes, it was, if they say no, it wasn't.
Its only consensual if she consents. She says she didn't.
Both claims have been reported, what more do you want the BBC to say on the matter?
Good to see @Leon re-emerge. I do agree with the sentiment though that this website is turning in to an echo chamber with an increasingly limited acceptable range of opinion. It is reading like a forum for widespread agreement on progressive talking points. Ironically when I started reading the comments on this website, perhaps 8 years ago, it was to try and challenge my own 'left/liberal' beliefs as many (but by no means all) of the commentators were taking an informed 'right wing', pro Brexit perspective. It is mostly now just evidence of the problem of progressive groupthink. The problem with those who have succumbed to this viewpoint is that there will be things that happen in the future in politics that go against your worldview and you have no way of explaining, because you have lost the ability to understand the other side of the argument.
Some examples of what you mean? The clearest example I can think of of an "unacceptable" (if you mean swiftly condemned) opinion on here is someone suggesting something like the West should force Ukraine to accept a ceasefire and negotiated peace. But I'm not sure that is an example of progressive groupthink.
I think rather it's about the widely held view that minor assaults on women are not something to be taken notice of.
Darkage is right to say that there's a strong consensus here against that viewpoint. But it's wrong to say I don't understand that viewpoint, when I argue against it. I just think it's quite wrong.
On this you overlooked my point (that the BBC was being one sided in its coverage of a story which I thought was inappropriate given its status as a public service broadcaster) and went on to have a different discussion where you agreed with each other that the perspective offered by the BBC is correct. It is quite a good example of my point about being in a progressive echo chamber.
Anyway... on with the rest of the day.
The BBC is not being one-sided in its coverage; it has covered the responses from Rubiales and the Spanish FA.
What it is guilty of is excessive coverage of what is, in the scheme of things, a medium-level foreign domestic story. It is not the sort of issue that should be leading the news.
It's absolute core Wokery though, and is just the sort of the thing the BBC and its staff thinks it should be campaigning on, which is why it's stayed up for so long.
What is "woke" about saying women have the right to say no? How is it "woke" to report that a man kissed a woman who says she didn't consent? When rather than apologising, that man who happens to be her employer then threatens that woman with legal action for saying that she didn't consent, then how is reporting that "woke"?
I have two daughters. When they grow up I'd hope they can go to work without being kissed by their employer, without their consent. And if they object to their employer kissing them without their consent, then I'd hope it wouldn't be them first threatened with legal action, for objecting.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
This is what people mean by speculative fiction. As opposed to archaeology.
How to miss the point
I am giving you the precise opinions of the professional archaeologists at Karahan/Gobekli Tepe
These theories aren’t mine, they are the theories of the experts digging up the sites
Yes, shooting the breeze with you. They are speculations nonetheless, as a glance at the Wikipedia page also makes pretty clear: ..Expanding on Schmidt's interpretation that round enclosures could represent sanctuaries, Gheorghiu's semiotic interpretation reads the Göbekli Tepe iconography as a cosmogonic map that would have related the local community to the surrounding landscape and the cosmos. The assumption that the site was strictly cultic in purpose and not inhabited has been challenged as well by the suggestion that the structures served as large communal houses..
They really have very little idea of what went on there, I think.
Perhaps, but they probably have a better idea than you?
On the other hand I tend to agree with you. The Tas Tepeler are so bewilderingly strange and unique and mysterious an informed outsider, who goes and sees and investigates, can make as good a guess as an archaeologist. Because no one KNOWS for sure, it is so outside preconceptions and accepted timelines
Oh, I'm sure they do. But I'm equally sure that, as archaeologists, they will attach little weight to their personal speculations.
Good to see @Leon re-emerge. I do agree with the sentiment though that this website is turning in to an echo chamber with an increasingly limited acceptable range of opinion. It is reading like a forum for widespread agreement on progressive talking points. Ironically when I started reading the comments on this website, perhaps 8 years ago, it was to try and challenge my own 'left/liberal' beliefs as many (but by no means all) of the commentators were taking an informed 'right wing', pro Brexit perspective. It is mostly now just evidence of the problem of progressive groupthink. The problem with those who have succumbed to this viewpoint is that there will be things that happen in the future in politics that go against your worldview and you have no way of explaining, because you have lost the ability to understand the other side of the argument.
Some examples of what you mean? The clearest example I can think of of an "unacceptable" (if you mean swiftly condemned) opinion on here is someone suggesting something like the West should force Ukraine to accept a ceasefire and negotiated peace. But I'm not sure that is an example of progressive groupthink.
I think rather it's about the widely held view that minor assaults on women are not something to be taken notice of.
Darkage is right to say that there's a strong consensus here against that viewpoint. But it's wrong to say I don't understand that viewpoint, when I argue against it. I just think it's quite wrong.
On this you overlooked my point (that the BBC was being one sided in its coverage of a story which I thought was inappropriate given its status as a public service broadcaster) and went on to have a different discussion where you agreed with each other that the perspective offered by the BBC is correct. It is quite a good example of my point about being in a progressive echo chamber.
Anyway... on with the rest of the day.
Please state the 'other side' of this story; one that paints Rubiales' actions in a positive light.
There isn't any way of painting his actions in a positive light and I would agree that his response has been a PR disaster. But I think he is essentially saying that it was consensual. I'd suggest that he deserves a fair hearing - particularly from the BBC - as would anyone in this position.
What forms a "fair hearing"?
Typically you'd suggest asking the other party if it was consensual. If they say yes, it was, if they say no, it wasn't.
Its only consensual if she consents. She says she didn't.
Both claims have been reported, what more do you want the BBC to say on the matter?
Good to see @Leon re-emerge. I do agree with the sentiment though that this website is turning in to an echo chamber with an increasingly limited acceptable range of opinion. It is reading like a forum for widespread agreement on progressive talking points. Ironically when I started reading the comments on this website, perhaps 8 years ago, it was to try and challenge my own 'left/liberal' beliefs as many (but by no means all) of the commentators were taking an informed 'right wing', pro Brexit perspective. It is mostly now just evidence of the problem of progressive groupthink. The problem with those who have succumbed to this viewpoint is that there will be things that happen in the future in politics that go against your worldview and you have no way of explaining, because you have lost the ability to understand the other side of the argument.
Some examples of what you mean? The clearest example I can think of of an "unacceptable" (if you mean swiftly condemned) opinion on here is someone suggesting something like the West should force Ukraine to accept a ceasefire and negotiated peace. But I'm not sure that is an example of progressive groupthink.
I think rather it's about the widely held view that minor assaults on women are not something to be taken notice of.
Darkage is right to say that there's a strong consensus here against that viewpoint. But it's wrong to say I don't understand that viewpoint, when I argue against it. I just think it's quite wrong.
On this you overlooked my point (that the BBC was being one sided in its coverage of a story which I thought was inappropriate given its status as a public service broadcaster) and went on to have a different discussion where you agreed with each other that the perspective offered by the BBC is correct. It is quite a good example of my point about being in a progressive echo chamber.
Anyway... on with the rest of the day.
The BBC is not being one-sided in its coverage; it has covered the responses from Rubiales and the Spanish FA.
What it is guilty of is excessive coverage of what is, in the scheme of things, a medium-level foreign domestic story. It is not the sort of issue that should be leading the news.
It's absolute core Wokery though, and is just the sort of the thing the BBC and its staff thinks it should be campaigning on, which is why it's stayed up for so long.
What is "woke" about saying women have the right to say no? How is it "woke" to report that a man kissed a woman who says she didn't consent? When rather than apologising, that man who happens to be her employer then threatens that woman with legal action for saying that she didn't consent, then how is reporting that "woke"?
I have two daughters. When they grow up I'd hope they can go to work without being kissed by their employer, without their consent. And if they object to their employer kissing them without their consent, then I'd hope it wouldn't be them first threatened with legal action, for objecting.
As a man who has just turned 80*, I can speak from personal experience about Biden's age, and the changes in him. He was not well qualified to be president 20 years ago, and he is a little less qualified, now. Just as I am not as sharp as I was 20 years ago.
Nonetheless, after the terrible Afghanistan fiasco, he has conducted our foreign policy reasonably well. (He and Trump combined to screw up Afghanistan, so he doesn't bear the entire responsibility for that.)
And there has been an improvement in the general health of those over 60 in the US, in the last 20 years, so simple age comparisons to previous presidents need some qualifications.
As for Kamala Harris, she ticks too many identity boxes to be dropped from the ticket in today's Democratic Party: black, of Indian descent, Hindu, Baptist, married to a secular Jew (and a Hollywood lawyer), educated partly in Canada, had a fling with a married man, helped protect the Brown dynasty in California, et cetera, et cetera.
There are competent Democratic politicians Biden could have chosen, Klobuchar and Booker, for example, but none that I can think of that tick that many boxes.
(*I celebrated by getting carded. Intentionally.)
She's perfectly competent - just not very popular.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Liquid blood to half fill that space - how many cubic meters would that be? That would be a massive amount of food material to employ for any purpose
I agree. Personally, I don’t believe it. I’m simply relating the opinion of one pro archaeologist at the site, given to me during my last visit
On the other hand it could be true simply because the Tas Tepeler keep surprising on the upside. Just when you think it can’t get any weirder - it gets weirder
There's been some quite funny experiments in getting archaeologists to interpret things, as a test, that they don't know what they are for. But other people know the function.
Reminds me of the gag that future civilizations would assume the kellogs logo or McDonalds arch had great religious significance, or that football stadiums were temples.
I recall one post apocalypse fantasy novel where a future church used what were clearly meant to be (non functioning) mobile phones as holy artefacts as they knew people used them to communicate with unseen forces so assumes they were about talking to the divine.
It tends to be the default in ancient history, too (where there's massively more evidence than for archaeological prehistory) to ascribe a religious or ritual motive for anything which can't otherwise be readily explained.
A kind of archaeological God of the gaps, mirroring that in science.
I can see the logic based on our more recent history. The most sturdy, solid and long lasting structures in the last 2,000 years have tended to be religious: cathedrals, mosques, temples. Followed by social: amphitheatres, chariot tracks. But we know even from the Romans that secular and domestic structures can be built to last too, so long as there is stone around to carve or build from.
However, virtually all (all?) the oldest surviving structures on earth are religious in nature. Stonehenge, the Pyramids, Teotihuacan, ggantija, Carnac
When mankind REALLY builds something significant, he generally does it on behalf of something greater than himself: a god
Pyramids not really for gods. And Great Wall of China?
Er, the pharaohs WERE gods
Err, no, they weren’t.
They really were. But also human at the same time. Intermediaries
“Egyptologists have long debated the degree to which the pharaoh was considered a god. It seems most likely that the Egyptians viewed royal authority itself as a divine force. Therefore, although the Egyptians recognized that the pharaoh was human and subject to human weakness, they simultaneously viewed him as a god, because the divine power of kingship was incarnated in him. “
It’s really quite an unusual stretch to claim that the Pyramids are “not religious”. Have you ever been?
Didn't you just criticize Nigelb for using Wikipedia?
Nothing wrong with Wikipedia.
And FWIW, I was using it for illustrative purposes, not for a definitive argument - the point being that there is, of course, no definitive opinion on the explanation for the various sites in Turkey.
Good to see @Leon re-emerge. I do agree with the sentiment though that this website is turning in to an echo chamber with an increasingly limited acceptable range of opinion. It is reading like a forum for widespread agreement on progressive talking points. Ironically when I started reading the comments on this website, perhaps 8 years ago, it was to try and challenge my own 'left/liberal' beliefs as many (but by no means all) of the commentators were taking an informed 'right wing', pro Brexit perspective. It is mostly now just evidence of the problem of progressive groupthink. The problem with those who have succumbed to this viewpoint is that there will be things that happen in the future in politics that go against your worldview and you have no way of explaining, because you have lost the ability to understand the other side of the argument.
Some examples of what you mean? The clearest example I can think of of an "unacceptable" (if you mean swiftly condemned) opinion on here is someone suggesting something like the West should force Ukraine to accept a ceasefire and negotiated peace. But I'm not sure that is an example of progressive groupthink.
I think rather it's about the widely held view that minor assaults on women are not something to be taken notice of.
Darkage is right to say that there's a strong consensus here against that viewpoint. But it's wrong to say I don't understand that viewpoint, when I argue against it. I just think it's quite wrong.
On this you overlooked my point (that the BBC was being one sided in its coverage of a story which I thought was inappropriate given its status as a public service broadcaster) and went on to have a different discussion where you agreed with each other that the perspective offered by the BBC is correct. It is quite a good example of my point about being in a progressive echo chamber.
Anyway... on with the rest of the day.
Please state the 'other side' of this story; one that paints Rubiales' actions in a positive light.
There isn't any way of painting his actions in a positive light and I would agree that his response has been a PR disaster. But I think he is essentially saying that it was consensual. I'd suggest that he deserves a fair hearing - particularly from the BBC - as would anyone in this position.
What forms a "fair hearing"?
Typically you'd suggest asking the other party if it was consensual. If they say yes, it was, if they say no, it wasn't.
Its only consensual if she consents. She says she didn't.
Both claims have been reported, what more do you want the BBC to say on the matter?
Good to see @Leon re-emerge. I do agree with the sentiment though that this website is turning in to an echo chamber with an increasingly limited acceptable range of opinion. It is reading like a forum for widespread agreement on progressive talking points. Ironically when I started reading the comments on this website, perhaps 8 years ago, it was to try and challenge my own 'left/liberal' beliefs as many (but by no means all) of the commentators were taking an informed 'right wing', pro Brexit perspective. It is mostly now just evidence of the problem of progressive groupthink. The problem with those who have succumbed to this viewpoint is that there will be things that happen in the future in politics that go against your worldview and you have no way of explaining, because you have lost the ability to understand the other side of the argument.
Some examples of what you mean? The clearest example I can think of of an "unacceptable" (if you mean swiftly condemned) opinion on here is someone suggesting something like the West should force Ukraine to accept a ceasefire and negotiated peace. But I'm not sure that is an example of progressive groupthink.
I think rather it's about the widely held view that minor assaults on women are not something to be taken notice of.
Darkage is right to say that there's a strong consensus here against that viewpoint. But it's wrong to say I don't understand that viewpoint, when I argue against it. I just think it's quite wrong.
On this you overlooked my point (that the BBC was being one sided in its coverage of a story which I thought was inappropriate given its status as a public service broadcaster) and went on to have a different discussion where you agreed with each other that the perspective offered by the BBC is correct. It is quite a good example of my point about being in a progressive echo chamber.
Anyway... on with the rest of the day.
The BBC is not being one-sided in its coverage; it has covered the responses from Rubiales and the Spanish FA.
What it is guilty of is excessive coverage of what is, in the scheme of things, a medium-level foreign domestic story. It is not the sort of issue that should be leading the news.
It's absolute core Wokery though, and is just the sort of the thing the BBC and its staff thinks it should be campaigning on, which is why it's stayed up for so long.
What is "woke" about saying women have the right to say no? How is it "woke" to report that a man kissed a woman who says she didn't consent? When rather than apologising, that man who happens to be her employer then threatens that woman with legal action for saying that she didn't consent, then how is reporting that "woke"?
I have two daughters. When they grow up I'd hope they can go to work without being kissed by their employer, without their consent. And if they object to their employer kissing them without their consent, then I'd hope it wouldn't be them first threatened with legal action, for objecting.
That is an absolutely brilliant video. Its not the first time I have come across it but it really explains consent more clearly than anything else I have seen. I really hope it is shown in schools.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Water tank? Why does everything unexplained have to be for 'rituals' of some bizarre kind?
A neolithic wooden trackway was discovered here in the Flatlands - it had been preserved in the peat. Quite a remarkable find really but as it was in a forgotten corner of the country not a lot was made of it.
Apparently - despite the lack of any artifacts - archaeologists say it must have been a route to a 'ritual platform'. Not the rather obvious purpose of a track to get to the other side of a wet area...
Most archaeologists agree that the Tas Tepeler are sacred sites. Stone circles, after all
There is near-zero evidence of human habitation at Gobekli Tepe (there is evidence at the other Tas Tepeler). Why build it? It is surely a temple; it is also, it seems, aligned astronomically
Some kind of penis worshipping hunter-warrior cult (with human sacrifice?) is the best guess at the moment
I admit to knowing almost nothing about these sites other than that they exist.
But how do you build a temple without living there, at least for some of the time?
And if you know how to build things, why not build houses?
The archaeology changes every year as they find amazing new stuff (which is one reason it’s so exciting)
For many years it was thought Gobekli Tepe was a singular miracle. A temple complex built by remarkably gifted cavemen who lived in temporary tents/shelters during the building season
Now at the other Tas Tepeler they have found permanent homes - besides the ritual shrines and cultic chambers. So it looks more and more like a civilisation, from 10,000 BC (or even earlier)
Worth pointing out that by the definition of 'civilisation' in that case it is not much different to the early pre-ceramic Neolithic of Northern Syria. The only big difference is the presence of temples. Jericho as a settlement dates back to 10,000 BC and the walled town dates to around 8,500 BC (and that wall is VERY impressive).
Even that is not the oldest structures in the area. Tell Qaramel has 5 towers dating back to around 10,000 BC and shows continuous occupation throughout the whole of the proto-Neolithic and pre-pottery Neolithic A & B (from around 10,500 to 9,000BC). These sites have been known since the 1970s.
The temples are, certainly, something else. But as I said before, this is not the revolutionary news that Hancock and others would have you believe.
Ian Hodder of Stanford Uni disagrees with you:
‘Gobekli Tepe changes everything.’
As an amateur archeologist with an interest in Syria, you’ll have heard of him
'Changes everything' is one of those phrases that can mean anything to anyone. Yes it is spectacular. No it does not mean an ancient 'civilisation' in Hancockian terms any more than the discovery of the Northern Syrian villages did.
That does not at all detract from the sites, nor does it mean the temples are not amazing. But when we have Sunil of this parish writing articles about Atlantis you have to stop and take a sniff of the smelling salts.
GT and the other sites push back the dates for large scale man made structures by a few hundred years. Not the 15,000 or so Hancock is regularly heard to claim.
I’m not batting for Hancock, you misconstrue me. I will indeed say that the Tas Tepeler are absolutely revolutionary, coz it is the case
Incidentally if you are interested in this stuff - and you obviously are - why don’t you go have a look? Seriously. See for yourself
These days Gobekli Tepe is now walled off and sheltered and gets a million visitors a year and that miraculous quality has largely gone (tho it is still a gob smacking site). When I first went I was the only non archaeologist there and we could wander between the stones drinking tea!
But at a site like Karahan Tepe you can still do that. Simply rock up. Wander about. You might be alone - or you can watch the archaeologists digging
Go on, do it! It would make an amazing holiday (combine it with a beach). Blow your mind!
If you want details on how to do it, DM me
It is definetely on my list. Along with various sites around Lake Van and in Kurdistan. My problem is time. I have had one 3 week holiday in 10 years. The joys of consultancy. I am hoping to do a bit more travelling again for pleasure rather than work but as always it is mañana.
3 weeks.... in ten years?!
That's insane. Life is for living, not working. Find the time before you keel over
Oh, for God's sake.
For [A PLURAL NUMBER OF DECADES SINCE 18] I had approx six periods, each a week or less, which could be described as a "holiday". It's only in my new job where they will not let you sell them that I have to take them, which are inevitably taken up with work.
You've never had a full-time job (or, arguably even a job as we would understand it) and you fail to understand the responsibility of people relying on you. Life is not like the movies and holidays are for children, not adults.
As a man who has just turned 80*, I can speak from personal experience about Biden's age, and the changes in him. He was not well qualified to be president 20 years ago, and he is a little less qualified, now. Just as I am not as sharp as I was 20 years ago.
Nonetheless, after the terrible Afghanistan fiasco, he has conducted our foreign policy reasonably well. (He and Trump combined to screw up Afghanistan, so he doesn't bear the entire responsibility for that.)
And there has been an improvement in the general health of those over 60 in the US, in the last 20 years, so simple age comparisons to previous presidents need some qualifications.
As for Kamala Harris, she ticks too many identity boxes to be dropped from the ticket in today's Democratic Party: black, of Indian descent, Hindu, Baptist, married to a secular Jew (and a Hollywood lawyer), educated partly in Canada, had a fling with a married man, helped protect the Brown dynasty in California, et cetera, et cetera.
There are competent Democratic politicians Biden could have chosen, Klobuchar and Booker, for example, but none that I can think of that tick that many boxes.
(*I celebrated by getting carded. Intentionally.)
She's perfectly competent - just not very popular.
As a man who has just turned 80*, I can speak from personal experience about Biden's age, and the changes in him. He was not well qualified to be president 20 years ago, and he is a little less qualified, now. Just as I am not as sharp as I was 20 years ago.
Nonetheless, after the terrible Afghanistan fiasco, he has conducted our foreign policy reasonably well. (He and Trump combined to screw up Afghanistan, so he doesn't bear the entire responsibility for that.)
And there has been an improvement in the general health of those over 60 in the US, in the last 20 years, so simple age comparisons to previous presidents need some qualifications.
As for Kamala Harris, she ticks too many identity boxes to be dropped from the ticket in today's Democratic Party: black, of Indian descent, Hindu, Baptist, married to a secular Jew (and a Hollywood lawyer), educated partly in Canada, had a fling with a married man, helped protect the Brown dynasty in California, et cetera, et cetera.
There are competent Democratic politicians Biden could have chosen, Klobuchar and Booker, for example, but none that I can think of that tick that many boxes.
(*I celebrated by getting carded. Intentionally.)
I'm there with you Jim. My 80th coincided with Sir Mick J But what does it mean to get carded? There is huge variation in the cognitive capabilities of people of our age, as we can see in our family, friends and acquaintances. This is what makes the likely Biden or Trump outcome in 2024 so worrisome. It puts a premium on the quality of the people around them, and neither JB nor DJT are doing well in that regard.
I might be too late for the @Leon@Richard_Tyndall discussion about Graham Hancock - but I remember first reading Fingerprints of the Gods and was first amazed - then went back and read it two or three more times and started to see the cracks. He does make some good points but maybe half of his assertions just dont stand up to the slightest scrutiny. But a good yarn.
Underworld (2002) is a much better yarn, first got me interested in his work. There was even a C4 documentary series.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Water tank? Why does everything unexplained have to be for 'rituals' of some bizarre kind?
A neolithic wooden trackway was discovered here in the Flatlands - it had been preserved in the peat. Quite a remarkable find really but as it was in a forgotten corner of the country not a lot was made of it.
Apparently - despite the lack of any artifacts - archaeologists say it must have been a route to a 'ritual platform'. Not the rather obvious purpose of a track to get to the other side of a wet area...
Most archaeologists agree that the Tas Tepeler are sacred sites. Stone circles, after all
There is near-zero evidence of human habitation at Gobekli Tepe (there is evidence at the other Tas Tepeler). Why build it? It is surely a temple; it is also, it seems, aligned astronomically
Some kind of penis worshipping hunter-warrior cult (with human sacrifice?) is the best guess at the moment
I admit to knowing almost nothing about these sites other than that they exist.
But how do you build a temple without living there, at least for some of the time?
And if you know how to build things, why not build houses?
The archaeology changes every year as they find amazing new stuff (which is one reason it’s so exciting)
For many years it was thought Gobekli Tepe was a singular miracle. A temple complex built by remarkably gifted cavemen who lived in temporary tents/shelters during the building season
Now at the other Tas Tepeler they have found permanent homes - besides the ritual shrines and cultic chambers. So it looks more and more like a civilisation, from 10,000 BC (or even earlier)
Worth pointing out that by the definition of 'civilisation' in that case it is not much different to the early pre-ceramic Neolithic of Northern Syria. The only big difference is the presence of temples. Jericho as a settlement dates back to 10,000 BC and the walled town dates to around 8,500 BC (and that wall is VERY impressive).
Even that is not the oldest structures in the area. Tell Qaramel has 5 towers dating back to around 10,000 BC and shows continuous occupation throughout the whole of the proto-Neolithic and pre-pottery Neolithic A & B (from around 10,500 to 9,000BC). These sites have been known since the 1970s.
The temples are, certainly, something else. But as I said before, this is not the revolutionary news that Hancock and others would have you believe.
Ian Hodder of Stanford Uni disagrees with you:
‘Gobekli Tepe changes everything.’
As an amateur archeologist with an interest in Syria, you’ll have heard of him
'Changes everything' is one of those phrases that can mean anything to anyone. Yes it is spectacular. No it does not mean an ancient 'civilisation' in Hancockian terms any more than the discovery of the Northern Syrian villages did.
That does not at all detract from the sites, nor does it mean the temples are not amazing. But when we have Sunil of this parish writing articles about Atlantis you have to stop and take a sniff of the smelling salts.
GT and the other sites push back the dates for large scale man made structures by a few hundred years. Not the 15,000 or so Hancock is regularly heard to claim.
I’m not batting for Hancock, you misconstrue me. I will indeed say that the Tas Tepeler are absolutely revolutionary, coz it is the case
Incidentally if you are interested in this stuff - and you obviously are - why don’t you go have a look? Seriously. See for yourself
These days Gobekli Tepe is now walled off and sheltered and gets a million visitors a year and that miraculous quality has largely gone (tho it is still a gob smacking site). When I first went I was the only non archaeologist there and we could wander between the stones drinking tea!
But at a site like Karahan Tepe you can still do that. Simply rock up. Wander about. You might be alone - or you can watch the archaeologists digging
Go on, do it! It would make an amazing holiday (combine it with a beach). Blow your mind!
If you want details on how to do it, DM me
It is definetely on my list. Along with various sites around Lake Van and in Kurdistan. My problem is time. I have had one 3 week holiday in 10 years. The joys of consultancy. I am hoping to do a bit more travelling again for pleasure rather than work but as always it is mañana.
3 weeks.... in ten years?!
That's insane. Life is for living, not working. Find the time before you keel over
Oh, for God's sake.
For [A PLURAL NUMBER OF DECADES SINCE 18] I had approx six periods, each a week or less, which could be described as a "holiday". It's only in my new job where they will not let you sell them that I have to take them, which are inevitably taken up with work.
You've never had a full-time job (or, arguably even a job as we would understand it) and you fail to understand the responsibility of people relying on you. Life is not like the movies and holidays are for children, not adults.
Can't tell if you're serious, I kind of hope you're not
I don't deny I have been lucky, but I have also made my own luck, to an extent. Don't let the man take you down
He doesn't strike me as poor, and he seems to be self-employed as a consultant - and therefore able to carve out time. A trip to go see the Tas Tepeler would cost less than £1000, could be done in as little as a week, even five days if you're mad, and would blow your mind - and his mind - like nothing else on this green earth, in terms of archaeology. A spectacular archaeological site, probably the most important on the planet, maybe the most important in all human history (these are some expert opinions, not mine) is happening RIGHT NOW. And you can just drive up and watch them doing it. Mazin!
An interesting question is whether Trump would go on the ballot in States with Democratic contol.
Constitution 14th Amendment, Section 3, has been pointed out:
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
The way that reads, he needs a double 2/3 majority in Congress to get on the ballot.
Firstly, that doesn't actually bar anyone from being President following insurrection. It refers to (i) Senators; (ii) Representatives; and (iii) ELECTORS OF President or VP - that is the electoral college. So this is about members of Congress seating other members of Congress and accepting electoral college voters (a rather hot topic). It very much does not cover the executive arm itself (President and VP).
Secondly, it doesn't refer to getting on the ballot. So take a candidate for Senator who had committed some kind of treason offence. Absent anything in a state constitution, she could be on the ballot for Senate... it's just when it comes to being seated by Congress the following January if elected.
So the first issue (aside from whether he took part in an insurrection) is whether the president is an "officer of the United States" which seems to be controversial.
On the second issue, whether you have to satisfy the eligibility requirements to be on the ballot is decided by each state independently, but I think their laws generally say that you do?
On the first of those point, I think the fact that Senators, Representatives, and electors of the President/VP are specifically named makes it very unlikely that President/VP themselves fall within the catch all of other offices (especially when those specific roles are mentioned elsewhere in the Constitution).
On the second point, which is moot anyway due to the first, this is not a qualification for being President under Article 2 (age 35+, natural born citizen, resident in US for 14 years). If those qualifications are not met, a person cannot be President full stop. Under this provision (assuming I am wrong on the first point) they can still be President... subject to a 2/3rds vote. There's no mechanism (short of a full constitutional amendment) for a 30 year old or a natural born Welshman to become President of the US, for instance, even if Congress was fully behind him.
I'd add it would be insane for a Democrat state to bar Trump from the ballot on these (incredibly flimsy) grounds anyway. Not only would it almost certainly not survive legal challenge, it would only be likely to pass in deep blue states (not the purples that matter), and would rather undermine the moral credibility of Democrat criticism of Trump over trying to use a fig leaf of legality to nakedly attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
The discussion on ancient civilisations, religions etc is interesting. Granddaughter Two wants (or did the last time I discussed it with her) to read History, specifically Ancient Civilisations, starting Jan 2006, at Melbourne. I shall remember this discussion for when I next talk to her.
If, of course, I live that long! (I’m older than Joe Biden!)
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Water tank? Why does everything unexplained have to be for 'rituals' of some bizarre kind?
A neolithic wooden trackway was discovered here in the Flatlands - it had been preserved in the peat. Quite a remarkable find really but as it was in a forgotten corner of the country not a lot was made of it.
Apparently - despite the lack of any artifacts - archaeologists say it must have been a route to a 'ritual platform'. Not the rather obvious purpose of a track to get to the other side of a wet area...
Most archaeologists agree that the Tas Tepeler are sacred sites. Stone circles, after all
There is near-zero evidence of human habitation at Gobekli Tepe (there is evidence at the other Tas Tepeler). Why build it? It is surely a temple; it is also, it seems, aligned astronomically
Some kind of penis worshipping hunter-warrior cult (with human sacrifice?) is the best guess at the moment
I admit to knowing almost nothing about these sites other than that they exist.
But how do you build a temple without living there, at least for some of the time?
And if you know how to build things, why not build houses?
The archaeology changes every year as they find amazing new stuff (which is one reason it’s so exciting)
For many years it was thought Gobekli Tepe was a singular miracle. A temple complex built by remarkably gifted cavemen who lived in temporary tents/shelters during the building season
Now at the other Tas Tepeler they have found permanent homes - besides the ritual shrines and cultic chambers. So it looks more and more like a civilisation, from 10,000 BC (or even earlier)
Worth pointing out that by the definition of 'civilisation' in that case it is not much different to the early pre-ceramic Neolithic of Northern Syria. The only big difference is the presence of temples. Jericho as a settlement dates back to 10,000 BC and the walled town dates to around 8,500 BC (and that wall is VERY impressive).
Even that is not the oldest structures in the area. Tell Qaramel has 5 towers dating back to around 10,000 BC and shows continuous occupation throughout the whole of the proto-Neolithic and pre-pottery Neolithic A & B (from around 10,500 to 9,000BC). These sites have been known since the 1970s.
The temples are, certainly, something else. But as I said before, this is not the revolutionary news that Hancock and others would have you believe.
Ian Hodder of Stanford Uni disagrees with you:
‘Gobekli Tepe changes everything.’
As an amateur archeologist with an interest in Syria, you’ll have heard of him
'Changes everything' is one of those phrases that can mean anything to anyone. Yes it is spectacular. No it does not mean an ancient 'civilisation' in Hancockian terms any more than the discovery of the Northern Syrian villages did.
That does not at all detract from the sites, nor does it mean the temples are not amazing. But when we have Sunil of this parish writing articles about Atlantis you have to stop and take a sniff of the smelling salts.
GT and the other sites push back the dates for large scale man made structures by a few hundred years. Not the 15,000 or so Hancock is regularly heard to claim.
I’m not batting for Hancock, you misconstrue me. I will indeed say that the Tas Tepeler are absolutely revolutionary, coz it is the case
Incidentally if you are interested in this stuff - and you obviously are - why don’t you go have a look? Seriously. See for yourself
These days Gobekli Tepe is now walled off and sheltered and gets a million visitors a year and that miraculous quality has largely gone (tho it is still a gob smacking site). When I first went I was the only non archaeologist there and we could wander between the stones drinking tea!
But at a site like Karahan Tepe you can still do that. Simply rock up. Wander about. You might be alone - or you can watch the archaeologists digging
Go on, do it! It would make an amazing holiday (combine it with a beach). Blow your mind!
If you want details on how to do it, DM me
It is definetely on my list. Along with various sites around Lake Van and in Kurdistan. My problem is time. I have had one 3 week holiday in 10 years. The joys of consultancy. I am hoping to do a bit more travelling again for pleasure rather than work but as always it is mañana.
3 weeks.... in ten years?!
That's insane. Life is for living, not working. Find the time before you keel over
Oh, for God's sake.
For [A PLURAL NUMBER OF DECADES SINCE 18] I had approx six periods, each a week or less, which could be described as a "holiday". It's only in my new job where they will not let you sell them that I have to take them, which are inevitably taken up with work.
You've never had a full-time job (or, arguably even a job as we would understand it) and you fail to understand the responsibility of people relying on you. Life is not like the movies and holidays are for children, not adults.
Can't tell if you're serious, I kind of hope you're not
I don't deny I have been lucky, but I have also made my own luck, to an extent. Don't let the man take you down
He doesn't strike me as poor, and he seems to be self-employed as a consultant - and therefore able to carve out time. A trip to go see the Tas Tepeler would cost less than £1000, could be done in as little as a week, even five days if you're mad, and would blow your mind - and his mind - like nothing else on this green earth, in terms of archaeology. A spectacular archaeological site, probably the most important on the planet, maybe the most important in all human history (these are some expert opinions, not mine) is happening RIGHT NOW. And you can just drive up and watch them doing it. Mazin!
Of course combining work with leisure is a good way to square the circle, but relies on having a job that regularly takes you to exotic and interesting travel destinations. I'm aware there's plenty of oil in Kurdistan to presumably there's some sort of consultancy gig that could land one within striking distance of these sites.
Before Covid I had one of those jobs - lots of short haul and a few long haul trips each year, some to fairly boring places but plenty to cities that were close enough to tack on a couple of days of exploration afterwards. Sadly since the pandemic that's no longer the case. Perhaps 6 or 7 short haul trips a year mainly to European capitals, and one or two long haul to well trodden places like NY or Singapore.
But working for a large organisation has its benefits too. I have 30 days holiday a year. For entrepreneurs and self-employed consultants it's difficult to drag yourself away for that much time. That said I have a good friend who runs a D&I consultancy and he is off on his travels more often than he's in the office. He recently had a honeymoon in Timor Leste and is off to Djibouti and Somaliland in November.
An interesting question is whether Trump would go on the ballot in States with Democratic contol.
Constitution 14th Amendment, Section 3, has been pointed out:
Section 3. .
The way that reads, he needs a double 2/3 majority in Congress to get on the ballot.
Firstly, that doesn't actually bar anyone from being President following insurrection. It refers to (i) Senators; (ii) Representatives; and (iii) ELECTORS OF President or VP - that is the electoral college. So this is about members of Congress seating other members of Congress and accepting electoral college voters (a rather hot topic). It very much does not cover the executive arm itself (President and VP).
Secondly, it doesn't refer to getting on the ballot. So take a candidate for Senator who had committed some kind of treason offence. Absent anything in a state constitution, she could be on the ballot for Senate... it's just when it comes to being seated by Congress the following January if elected.
Firstly I think the general clause amply covers the office of President and the behaviour of Trump.:
No person shall ... hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, ... who, having previously taken an oath, ... as an officer of the United States, ... to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.
Secondly, I think that inability to hold an office has some impact on being on the ballot for that office. The dots and tittles of that one will be Court-fodder, I think.
The discussion on ancient civilisations, religions etc is interesting. Granddaughter Two wants (or did the last time I discussed it with her) to read History, specifically Ancient Civilisations, starting Jan 2006, at Melbourne. I shall remember this discussion for when I next talk to her.
If, of course, I live that long! (I’m older than Joe Biden!)
Jan 2006 isn't that ancient really. I mean, I know it was before Brexit, so it feels a long time ago, but even so.
Comments
They are speculations nonetheless, as a glance at the Wikipedia page also makes pretty clear:
..Expanding on Schmidt's interpretation that round enclosures could represent sanctuaries, Gheorghiu's semiotic interpretation reads the Göbekli Tepe iconography as a cosmogonic map that would have related the local community to the surrounding landscape and the cosmos.
The assumption that the site was strictly cultic in purpose and not inhabited has been challenged as well by the suggestion that the structures served as large communal houses..
They really have very little idea of what went on there, I think.
Warwickshire are being thumped into a million tiny pieces by Hampshire.
I can see the logic based on our more recent history. The most sturdy, solid and long lasting structures in the last 2,000 years have tended to be religious: cathedrals, mosques, temples. Followed by social: amphitheatres, chariot tracks. But we know even from the Romans that secular and domestic structures can be built to last too, so long as there is stone around to carve or build from.
It is time to accept the Hundred is a success and can save red-ball cricket
The ECB should not undermine competition as selling equity in teams can secure huge windfalls for the counties and guarantee their future
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2023/08/29/hundred-success-save-red-ball-county-cricket-ecb-changes/
For many years it was thought Gobekli Tepe was a singular miracle. A temple complex built by remarkably gifted cavemen who lived in temporary tents/shelters during the building season
Now at the other Tas Tepeler they have found permanent homes - besides the ritual shrines and cultic chambers. So it looks more and more like a civilisation, from 10,000 BC (or even earlier)
Oh wait, he wrote Geoff Boycott's autobiography, he already has.
And Bethell's now out.
On the other hand I tend to agree with you. The Tas Tepeler are so bewilderingly strange and unique and mysterious an informed outsider, who goes and sees and investigates, can make as good a guess as an archaeologist. Because no one KNOWS for sure, it is so outside preconceptions and accepted timelines
Thames Valley Police initially refused a request by the Oxford Mail for the footage, which was played to jurors at Oxford Crown Court, to be released.
The force later withdrew its opposition after a formal application was made to the judge for video to be put in the public domain.
At the end of the trial, jurors took the exceptional step of hitting out at the plight of the Oxford reveller who was shoved, pepper sprayed in the face without warning then taken to the ground by the police.
Footage from the police officers’ body-worn cameras showed the moment Daniel James was sprayed by PC Lewis Quarterman in Cornmarket in the early hours of June 5 last year.
A panel of 12 jurors convicted 45-year-old James, of Welford Road, Abingdon, of common assault of a different police officer. But cleared him of biting the leather boot and shin of another constable.
In a rare note to the judge telling him of their unanimous verdicts, the jury wrote: “The way Mr James was treated in the build up to these events felt very heavy-handed and appear very provocative.
“We empathise with Mr James’ sense of injustice at being sprayed and taken to the floor.”
Their view was echoed by Judge Ian Pringle KC, who took what he described as an ‘exceptional’ course and imposed a two year conditional discharge when he sentenced James on Friday (August 25).
He said he saw ‘no good reason’ for the defendant to have been sprayed in the face with Captor by PC Quarterman.
“I don’t think there was any necessity for you to be treated in the way that you were in the initial part of this episode,” he said, although he added that spitting at a police officer was 'behaviour we can't accept'.
And after reading the jury’s statement, Judge Pringle added: “It seems that my view of this case was not isolated.”
https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/movies/watch-shocking-moment-policeman-comes-040000448.html
It's not a civilisation in the sense of the early ones which developed written language, agriculture, and improving technologies.
It's pure speculation, indeed, as to whether the constructions provided any input into later civilisations, or were just a dead end.
On the second issue, whether you have to satisfy the eligibility requirements to be on the ballot is decided by each state independently, but I think their laws generally say that you do?
Manifold: 86%
Polymarket: 75%
Predictit: 71%
Metaculus: 90%
When mankind REALLY builds something significant, he generally does it on behalf of something greater than himself: a god
Or are we assuming it was?
Even that is not the oldest structures in the area. Tell Qaramel has 5 towers dating back to around 10,000 BC and shows continuous occupation throughout the whole of the proto-Neolithic and pre-pottery Neolithic A & B (from around 10,500 to 9,000BC). These sites have been known since the 1970s.
The temples are, certainly, something else. But as I said before, this is not the revolutionary news that Hancock and others would have you believe.
‘Gobekli Tepe changes everything.’
As an amateur archeologist with an interest in Syria, you’ll have heard of him
Far too many concert goers were wearing lycra.
Edit - That's gutting for Dawson. Should have been a hat-trick but one ball missed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatfield_neolithic_trackway
There's talk of a platform and some perspective effect but that's pretty thin evidence. The person who discovered it doesn't believe the archaeologists either.
Could do with getting some radar scans of where we suspect it remains buried, but nobody seems interested. Might be difficult as I don't think the techniques work well in wet peat.
“Egyptologists have long debated the degree to which the pharaoh was considered a god. It seems most likely that the Egyptians viewed royal authority itself as a divine force. Therefore, although the Egyptians recognized that the pharaoh was human and subject to human weakness, they simultaneously viewed him as a god, because the divine power of kingship was incarnated in him. “
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_religion
It’s really quite an unusual stretch to claim that the Pyramids are “not religious”. Have you ever been?
Good afternoon, everyone.
Heck, even Chris Martin wasn't this inept.
That does not at all detract from the sites, nor does it mean the temples are not amazing. But when we have Sunil of this parish writing articles about Atlantis you have to stop and take a sniff of the smelling salts.
GT and the other sites push back the dates for large scale man made structures by a few hundred years. Not the 15,000 or so Hancock is regularly heard to claim.
I agree. This is one of those examples where it is too easy to jump on the ritual bandwagon. The Sweet Track in Somereset is part of a large set of trackways across the levels and they are clearly just ways to get from A to B - or islamnd to islnd in that case.
I am one of the very few PEOPLE that have seen the extraordinary site of Sayburc (only discovered in 2021) so I’m afraid on this subject you will have to suffer my lecturing. Because I know what I’m talking about
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/opinion-labour-shouldn-t-rule-out-wealth-taxes-it-could-regret-it/ar-AA1fVCe1?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=c89bcd00e9aa4d46a65f61c19d3b7afd&ei=12
Incidentally if you are interested in this stuff - and you obviously are - why don’t you go have a look? Seriously. See for yourself
These days Gobekli Tepe is now walled off and sheltered and gets a million visitors a year and that miraculous quality has largely gone (tho it is still a gob smacking site). When I first went I was the only non archaeologist there and we could wander between the stones drinking tea!
But at a site like Karahan Tepe you can still do that. Simply rock up. Wander about. You might be alone - or you can watch the archaeologists digging
Go on, do it! It would make an amazing holiday (combine it with a beach). Blow your mind!
If you want details on how to do it, DM me
We really don't know why Stonehenge was built and much of our perception of it has been through the lens of Victorian and early 20th century writers. Saying with certainty that it was a religious site when we know absolutely nothing about it - and particularly when it was used by at least two completely different peoples with, in all likelihood, completely different belief systems (the Neolithic builders having been completely wiped out with the arrival of the Beaker Peoples) - is probably a step too far for many.
I think we're going to have to change one of your favourite metaphors to 'being hammered like a Warwickshire batting lineup.'
Liam Dawson 7-15, ouch.
Plus the astronomical alignments and so on
I agree we cannot know the exact details of the rituals enacted. That’s the fun part. That’s where we can enjoyably speculate
Human sacrifice has always seemed likely to me. But others don’t want to talk about it. Too dark
Our trackway does stretch north from an island, although presumably it must date from the beginning of the wetter climate and wouldn't have been crossing a complete peat bog at the time.
You’re welcome
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CIA_controversies#Wikipedia_editing
For getting elected, no.
For actually fixing this country's problems, yes.
@GdnPolitics
Tory donor issued with demolition order for hotel where Brexit deal signed
https://twitter.com/GdnPolitics/status/1696461454063685812?s=20
'No wealth tax' is aimed at all four groups. Few ordinary voters will shift their vote to LD or Tory on account of there being no wealth tax. The other groups will, privately, find it most acceptable.
Meanwhile Labour turns into a noiseless and personality free version of Blair. The good news is that this lot is less likely to invade middle eastern countries than their more excitable predecessors.
Labour will, however need to find ways of taxing wealth. Local taxation of housing would be the optimal means. The gap between the Accrington terrace and the Mayfair mansion is too small.
Most of all it needs to join EFTA/EEA or go Swiss. As this aligns with the Brexit vote the detail can be kept until after the election.
Nonetheless, after the terrible Afghanistan fiasco, he has conducted our foreign policy reasonably well. (He and Trump combined to screw up Afghanistan, so he doesn't bear the entire responsibility for that.)
And there has been an improvement in the general health of those over 60 in the US, in the last 20 years, so simple age comparisons to previous presidents need some qualifications.
As for Kamala Harris, she ticks too many identity boxes to be dropped from the ticket in today's Democratic Party: black, of Indian descent, Hindu, Baptist, married to a secular Jew (and a Hollywood lawyer), educated partly in Canada, had a fling with a married man, helped protect the Brown dynasty in California, et cetera, et cetera.
There are competent Democratic politicians Biden could have chosen, Klobuchar and Booker, for example, but none that I can think of that tick that many boxes.
(*I celebrated by getting carded. Intentionally.)
That's insane. Life is for living, not working. Find the time before you keel over
Typically you'd suggest asking the other party if it was consensual. If they say yes, it was, if they say no, it wasn't.
Its only consensual if she consents. She says she didn't.
Both claims have been reported, what more do you want the BBC to say on the matter? What is "woke" about saying women have the right to say no?
How is it "woke" to report that a man kissed a woman who says she didn't consent?
When rather than apologising, that man who happens to be her employer then threatens that woman with legal action for saying that she didn't consent, then how is reporting that "woke"?
I have two daughters. When they grow up I'd hope they can go to work without being kissed by their employer, without their consent. And if they object to their employer kissing them without their consent, then I'd hope it wouldn't be them first threatened with legal action, for objecting.
Sit down, make yourself a cup of tea, then stop and think about what consent means. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZwvrxVavnQ
But I'm equally sure that, as archaeologists, they will attach little weight to their personal speculations.
The sites are certainly *strange* and remarkable.
And FWIW, I was using it for illustrative purposes, not for a definitive argument - the point being that there is, of course, no definitive opinion on the explanation for the various sites in Turkey.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/08/29/luis-rubiales-mother-church-hunger-strike-spain-football/
For [A PLURAL NUMBER OF DECADES SINCE 18] I had approx six periods, each a week or less, which could be described as a "holiday". It's only in my new job where they will not let you sell them that I have to take them, which are inevitably taken up with work.
You've never had a full-time job (or, arguably even a job as we would understand it) and you fail to understand the responsibility of people relying on you. Life is not like the movies and holidays are for children, not adults.
But what does it mean to get carded?
There is huge variation in the cognitive capabilities of people of our age, as we can see in our family, friends and acquaintances. This is what makes the likely Biden or Trump outcome in 2024 so worrisome. It puts a premium on the quality of the people around them, and neither JB nor DJT are doing well in that regard.
It was only a matter of time before Russian state TV blamed the UK for the death of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin
"I am in no doubt that this has the signature of the British on it!" declares Ihor Markov, a former pro-Russian MP in Ukraine, now living in Russia
https://twitter.com/francis_scarr/status/1696221932776042580
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QE2
I don't deny I have been lucky, but I have also made my own luck, to an extent. Don't let the man take you down
Besides, I was addressing @Richard_Tyndall
He doesn't strike me as poor, and he seems to be self-employed as a consultant - and therefore able to carve out time. A trip to go see the Tas Tepeler would cost less than £1000, could be done in as little as a week, even five days if you're mad, and would blow your mind - and his mind - like nothing else on this green earth, in terms of archaeology. A spectacular archaeological site, probably the most important on the planet, maybe the most important in all human history (these are some expert opinions, not mine) is happening RIGHT NOW. And you can just drive up and watch them doing it. Mazin!
On the second point, which is moot anyway due to the first, this is not a qualification for being President under Article 2 (age 35+, natural born citizen, resident in US for 14 years). If those qualifications are not met, a person cannot be President full stop. Under this provision (assuming I am wrong on the first point) they can still be President... subject to a 2/3rds vote. There's no mechanism (short of a full constitutional amendment) for a 30 year old or a natural born Welshman to become President of the US, for instance, even if Congress was fully behind him.
I'd add it would be insane for a Democrat state to bar Trump from the ballot on these (incredibly flimsy) grounds anyway. Not only would it almost certainly not survive legal challenge, it would only be likely to pass in deep blue states (not the purples that matter), and would rather undermine the moral credibility of Democrat criticism of Trump over trying to use a fig leaf of legality to nakedly attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
If, of course, I live that long! (I’m older than Joe Biden!)
Before Covid I had one of those jobs - lots of short haul and a few long haul trips each year, some to fairly boring places but plenty to cities that were close enough to tack on a couple of days of exploration afterwards. Sadly since the pandemic that's no longer the case. Perhaps 6 or 7 short haul trips a year mainly to European capitals, and one or two long haul to well trodden places like NY or Singapore.
But working for a large organisation has its benefits too. I have 30 days holiday a year. For entrepreneurs and self-employed consultants it's difficult to drag yourself away for that much time. That said I have a good friend who runs a D&I consultancy and he is off on his travels more often than he's in the office. He recently had a honeymoon in Timor Leste and is off to Djibouti and Somaliland in November.
No person shall ... hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, ... who, having previously taken an oath, ... as an officer of the United States, ... to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.
Secondly, I think that inability to hold an office has some impact on being on the ballot for that office. The dots and tittles of that one will be Court-fodder, I think.