Everyone's familiar with Gobekli Tepe, the astonishingly ancient megalithic temple in Turkey originally excavated by Klaus Schmidt from 1995-2014. But we're less familiar with Karahan Tepe, 46 km south east of Gobekli Tepe and equally ancient, being some 11,500 years old, maybe older.
Both sites are remarkable for their extreme age, being built at the end end of the Younger Dryas and the dawning of the Holocene Age, at a time archeologists assumed humans were hunter gatherers and incapable of monumental architecture.
It's a fair assumption. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, what were humans doing beyond drawing pictograms on cave walls, gnawing bark, collecting roots, berries and, if they were lucky, driving the odd bison off a cliff. They were like, so the theory went, North American Indians or their equivalents in Africa.
Gobekli Tepe and now Karahan Tepe change all that. These prehistoric humans were well capable of monumental architecture and art, to say nothing of astronomy. They were clearly much more advanced than supposed. For that matter, were they, in fact, hunter gatherers who came together to build and then settled in one place with agriculture and civic life rising in the wake, or the other way around or both?
We don't know, but we do know this. The larger sculpted stones of the "T-Builders" at Gobleki Tepe weighed around 15 tons and these are the earliest, dating to approximately 9,500 BC, apparently the same holds true for Karahan Tepe. Later structures at both sites are smaller, with older construction being back-filled and replaced by lesser architecture. What does this suggest?
Shockingly, that the earlier builders were more advanced as a civilization than their descendants. They initiated the building and did so massively, later generations didn't. This implies a civilization in decline, for whatever reason, and begs the question, who were the original builders and what did they come from?
It's tempting to imagine an architectural people, and all that goes with it, somehow surviving the Younger Dryas glacial period and emerging in diminished form in what we now call Turkey as the climate mercifully warmed.
But again, we don't know, and with apologies to Graham Hancock, there's precious little evidence. That said, wouldn't it be strange if humanity, whose origins keep getting pushed back into the mists of prehistory, weren't able in hundreds and thousands of years to move beyond rock chucking and grubbing for roots to something better? An antedeluvian megalithic civilization of which little if anything remains, except their heirs in Anatolia around 11,500 BC.
Well, that's as maybe. Perhaps there's a parable in Gobekli Tepe and its twin at Karahan. Viz. They devolved.
Antedeluvia Forever,
LSP
13 comments:
Shockingly, that the earlier builders were more advanced as a civilization than their descendants.
That is true of some other places. South America has some really tight, big stonework that is the base for further rock stacking that is not even close to the challenging earliest work. YouTube has more information than all of what they tried to tell us in school.
It has been written that "we" are incapable of sending people to the moon, as "we" did in 1969. Any time a historian or archaeologist says, "We know without a doubt'''" I wait for the dissenting voice, "Hold my trowel."
Sure the ancients may have been more advanced than we thought but let's just see them try and do a PowerPoint presentation!
There is a lot of knowledge that was lost beneath the sands of time. We can discuss these things forever and they are worth discussing IMHO.
Most definitely, Justin, and worth a post of its own.
I feel we're off in our reckoning and perhaps thrown that way by a lingering Darwinian orthodoxy. You know, a gradual ascent upwards into ever increasing progress.
Gobekli and Karahan argue against that, along with sites in South America and elsewhere, maybe the Giza plateau itself.
That's a very good point, Sgt., and I'm with you.
Exactly, Infidel.
Where's your laptop, so-called Delphic "Oracle"? Don't have one? Thought not.
Most definitely, LL.
Let's continue the conversation as time permits. Fascinating.
Hours of YouTube videos showing the precision of the work makes it impossible to believe Copper Chisels were what they used. Pieces laying around outside of the pyramids show the end,edges is more accurate, of some work. The only way to have done that is with some kind of tool, not a Chisel. There are cuts in stone that, had they been created using a copper blade with sand for an abrasive, as They want to say, would have taken hours or days. When a cut takes that long you don't cut six inches accidentally.
The inside work found in the black boxes inside the pyramids is accurate to a degree that is beyond what anyone I know could hope to accomplish. The bottom corners, where the wall corner meets the floor, is a ninety degree cut in all three places. No radius. The walls are parallel. And the tools that were used are nowhere to be found. IDK where it is but there is a room carved into a rock, like a quonset hut. The material removed isn't in a pile outside. Nowhere to be seen. And a video shows a guy standing inside the door, opening? And the sun is shining in on him and the wall is so smooth that his reflection is very clear. In Stone. Yeah, Teach, tell me more about that copper Chisel.
Like so many other things in life, IDK what the truth is, but I'm damned certain it Ain't what They are telling me it is.
YouTube has loads of videos that show up close ,clear easy to see images that should leave people with a sense of Awe and curiosity. Seems like a lot of people need to have an opinion instead of being able to say
Dayumm,, I don't Know!
https://www.ancient-origins.net/opinion-guest-authors/forgotten-stones-baalbek-lebanon-001865
I would enjoy a thread about the ancient works around the world. There is so much to consider. And the Explanations from the Experts are so lacking. Sometimes not being able to sleep isn't such a lousy thing.
Ya realize what all this symbolizes and was/is its use.
Right with you, Ritchie and I find it fascinating. The precision of the work at parts of Giza, to name just one place, is remarkable and surely not copper chisel meets sand. Engineers know this and comment, only to be ignored and laughed at by archeologists who, notoriously aren't engineers.
Tell you what, I'll do a series of posts. Nice link.
GenX, I know nothing, though apparently water was a feature.
There is a new YouTube video on Karahan. I couldn't watch the whole thing. Looks interesting. A few shots showed the lay of the land. The gently rolling stuff, and then there is the edge. Outside the excavated area contrasted with exposed stonework. And then they show the unexplored part again. It's Gonna be decades of methodical work to peel the layers away.
The obvious question is why didn't I watch it all.
The guys voice is just irritating.
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