Decoding the Vulture Stone _ The Pillar 43 Mystery at Göbekli Tepe _ JJ Ainsworth _ Megalithomania

First up we've got JJ Ainsworth. Today she's going to focus on a slightly different but interesting interpretation of Pillar 43. Please give a warm welcome to JJ Ainsworth. So I'm going to discuss a bit of astronomy first. The ecliptic is the invisible plane containing the earth's orbit around the sun and from the view of an observer on earth the sun's movement around the celestial sphere over the course of a year and that marks out a path along the ecliptic against a background of stars. Eventually you will see that the ecliptic passes through constellations of the zodiac. The moon and planets also travel close along the virtual line of the ecliptic. The path of the sun passes through 13 background constellations which are called the ecliptic constellations. 12 of them except for Ophiuchus are also called the zodiac constellations. The ancients were able to predict when eclipses would occur by paying attention to the movement of bodies along the ecliptic. They tracked the sun across the sky marking its northern and southern most points in addition to the equinox and with this information and tools they could accurately predict solstices, seasons, dates, weather, possible weather events and they use this information to build calendars like Stonehenge. The ancient Greeks believe that the souls reside in the Milky Way between incarnations and that there were two gates on the Milky Way. The intersection between Scorpio and Sagittarius where Ophiuchus resides is known as the Golden Gate or Sagittarius Gate. They believe this is where the souls ascend. The Silver Gate is in the intersection between Taurus and Gemini near the constellation of Orion and where souls would descend after traveling through the Milky Way. I think this belief of golden and silver gates is old, very old in fact. They were called different things of course back then but more than 10,000 years ago people were looking to the same exact areas of the sky with purpose. At Gobekli Tepe enclosure D the ancients were pinpointing the Silver Gate in Taurus and Gemini and here's why. If you were at Gobekli Tepe at about 9600 BC and you were standing between the central pillars of enclosure D staring south the same way the pillars are facing in the night sky you would see where the virtual ecliptic line passes through the and Pleiades meaning you will see over time all the planets sun and moon orbiting along with it and with Orion and his three-star belt that makes this an eye-catching astronomical observation point and it's very important. So I'm going to jump over to Gobekli Tepe the symbolism in enclosure D. So the pendant on pillar 18 seems to show two beings holding hands and I postulate this is constellation of Gemini since all planets as well as the moon and the sun which is shown below Gemini always move very close along the virtual line of the ecliptic. All these orbiting bodies are regularly passing through a special asterism and I'll speak about that momentarily momentarily and which the builders of Gobekli Tepe seem to know about which is remarkable. In the crook of the arm the pillar holds a canid so let's look at what is next to Gemini in the night sky. It's canis minor which easily could have been seen as a fox during the time of Gobekli as the foxes are canids too and I thought about this for a while but however there's also the possibility that it could be representing canis major, Sirius, the dog star, the brightest star in our night sky. More study needs to be done about this but I really now think that that canid in the crook of the arm is canis major or Sirius. The symbolism found at the bottom of the same pillar shows seven birds or chicks of some sort. These may represent the Pleiades. The Pleiades star cluster is known to be the seven sisters, the seven chicks and almost always female and one of the oldest known stories about the Pleiades comes from the aboriginal Australians which some speculate the story is over 50,000 years old and there too they were known as the seven sisters. So hopefully the symbolism on that pillar sort of makes sense relating to the constellations. So it's pointing actually in the symbolism is pointing to this area in the night sky and here's how the Milky Way goes through the Gemini, canis minor, Orion, Taurus constellations because the Milky Way was a very important part of the belief system of many ancient cultures. The other central pillar in enclosure D is pillar 31 and on its pendant is a bull and I think this t-shaped pillar is representing Orion the mighty hunter and Taurus the bull. So these two central pillars might be just telling us look here see the gateway the entry point to ascend and descend. To the north the ascension journey of the soul through the golden gate look to the south to the gate of man the silver gate and be reborn. So enclosure D the symbolism shows the full cycle of life death and rebirth of the soul and the area of the sky to find it to where it would happen. I think these pillars were not only pointing out where to look in the night sky to see the soul's journey they were showing what we know today as the golden gate of the ecliptic. The golden gate of the ecliptic is an asterism in the constellation of Taurus that's been known for several thousand years. The constellation is built by two eye-catching open star clusters of the Pleiades and Hyades that form two posts of a virtual gate at the two sides of the ecliptic line that goes through many constellations that include Gemini. Because the ecliptic line is marked by the golden gate of the ecliptic asterism over time when observing you will see the planet sun and moon orbiting along with it and Orion makes it very noticeable as well. Okay so this is another example of the ancients marking the golden gate of the ecliptic. This limestone tablet was found at a site in Malta called Talcadi. It's about 4,500 years old. The top image is the Talcadi sky tablet matched to the starry sky with ecliptic lines showing Taurus prominently and the below image is an example of how the Talcadi sky tablet may have been used to measure the ecliptical latitude of the moon and planets. So what's also interesting is they use the H symbol on altars in ancient Maltese temples just like in Gobekli Tepe. This Maltese temple is called Hagar Khem and stated to 5600 BC. There's speculation that it could be older. I'm sorry that I'm jumping between sides but it's grabbing the symbolism from it. Perhaps the H is representing the path that souls have to travel after dying, a bridge of sorts. On one end the golden gate of the H, the pathway through the Milky Way and the other end the silver gate. In one Greek tale Ophiuchus tramples on Scorpio at the golden gate and having received the elixir of life from the serpent restores Orion to the life at the silver gate and they are at the opposite ends. So 180 degrees from the silver gate you'll find the golden gate. Okay so I'm going to jump back to the pillar 43. This section of pillar 43 shows a headless person perhaps taking part in the excarnation ritual with the vulture whom devours the dead. Along with the venomous scorpion are all symbols relating to death. Now on the other side to the left are some animals that we can't recognize so I can't really try to pick and you know say what these are so I'll just go with what's available. The ancient Egyptians were influenced by the legacy of the Taj Teplar people. They knew the scorpion and its toxicity and venerated it since pre-dynastic era. They used the scorpion as a symbol to their goddess Serket that protects the body and the viscera of the dead and accompanies them in the journey to the afterlife. So the next section of the pillar may be showing the life cycle from being born from an egg and developing through the stages of life until death overtakes you and your soul departs. The vulture then takes your soul to the heavens and the imagery in the back there behind the big vulture the sort of triangle shapes I was always trying to figure out what that was but maybe it's representing a bridge the cross from death back over to life. Some people speculate that it's grasses wild grasses bunched together but we really don't know. The top section of this pillar is really interesting. So the ancient Mesopotamians from the same area regarded the sky as a series of domes usually three but sometimes seven covering the flat earth. Each dome was made of a different kind of precious stone. The lowest dome of the heavens was the home of the stars. The middle dome of the heaven was the abode of the Igigi. The highest and outermost dome of the heavens was personified as An, the god of the sky. Ordinary mortals could not go to the heavens because it was the abode of the gods alone. Instead after a person died his or her soul went to Ker, a dark shadowy underworld located deep below the surface of the earth. This is interesting as at the top of pillar 43 we see three structures that consist of a flat rectangle structure with a dome above each just like the Mesopotamians discussed in their mythology. So is the pillar showing a long ago predecessor to the ancient Mesopotamian myth? Please also note the animals near the dome seemingly heading down towards the flat earth and possibly from there heading down into a the mystery mysterious and shadowy underworld later Mesopotamians called Ker. It also could be it's speculated it could be a symbol of rebirth coming back to earth. So still regarding pillar 43 I need to talk about Kayanu-Tepesi dated to around 8630 BC. It's a Neolithic settlement in southeastern Turkey. It's located in the Diyarbakir province. It's about 40 kilometers northwest of Diyarbakir. It's located at the foot of the Taurus Mountains. It's a settlement that presents one of the clearest examples of the transition from foraging to actual food production in southwest Asia. It's evidence that these people were domesticating wheat as well as pigs and also the beginning of metallurgy was found at this site. So this is a so-called skull building from Kayanu-Tepesi and I've been researching this thoroughly. In the skull building about 90 skulls were unearthed in the small antechambers. Research centered on residue from the skull building where the blood of the extinct progenitor of modern cattle, sheep and goat were found in addition to human blood. The combination of animal and human blood in the building where more than 90 skulls along with complete and partial skeletons were interred suggests sometimes some type of death ritual. The main room in the skull building contained a cut and polished stone block or altar weighing about one ton and a large flint knife. Microscopic analysis of the altar stone surface revealed residue of human and animal blood radiocarbon dated to about 9,000 years ago. The extreme similarities and design of the dome figures on pillar 43 to the skull building especially with the death rituals happening inside that building meant I had to at least consider the possibility that the design of the structures were somehow related and were intentional designs for the top of the pillar 43. So luckily myself Hugh and Andrew visited the site of Kayanu and we got to visit the skull building. We were really lucky because we encountered an archaeologist there that gave us so much information and on our tour coming up we'll be visiting this site again. So I apologize for the black and white photo you can't really get excellent photos of some of the pillars because when you go to Gobekli Tepe you're kind of up high and you don't get to get near them. So I found this image or Hugh found this image and gave it to me from Klaus Schmidt's book who I really recommend you get his book about Gobekli Tepe. So on the side of pillar 43 there seems to be an arm reaching down along with a feline figure facing the same downward direction maybe pointing down to some sort of underworld but I know it's kind of hard to see but this right here would be like the shoulder and it starts at the very edge of this and here's the hand and then this is the feline and this is some insect and we're not sure exactly. Recently a life-size statue located next to pillar 43 was found. It's a life-size boar and this doesn't really surprise me at all as boars have been important to death from time immemorial. Boars were important to cultures all around the world and often were related to death and destruction. Figurines of boars were found among sacrificial goods with burials under shrine floors at Catalhoyuk which is about 9,000 years old and with they were with where the areas where skeletal burials were interred so it's important and actually some of the earliest symbolic rituals may have been brought to us by way of Neanderthals. Mount Carmel Israel isn't there's a Neanderthal burial and it's buried with a large boar jaw placed right by the hand of the adult male and there are several other examples of this you just have to really search to find them. This boar bone placing continued on into many other places and even into the UK where boar jaws were intentionally buried in and around ancient mounds like at Hedy Pegler's Tomb and many others. Okay so I want to kind of look at the Say Birch panel which is about 11,000 years old which we got to visit as well and it's quite amazing. So I think the Say Birch panel is showing the myth of the creation of the world from the Indo-European mythology. At my origins talk I read that out but I can't do that here because of the the timing. This particular myth from the Indo-Europeans is over 20,000 years old and it involves slaying of the bull for the fertility of the earth and all living things and this needed to be done to keep the order the cosmos in order. So the sill at the top is from the Indus Valley and it's about 3,300 years old or so and it's showing the same type of symbolism so that that is a long time for that type of symbolism to last over culture so it must have been very important. I also believe the Say Birch panel has an astronomical meaning and it's pointing us to look to the area again of the golden gate of the ecliptic. This panel shows Orion slaying Taurus the bull of heaven and the twin feline figures on either side may represent Gemini and the gentleman being disorderly may represent fertility in life. Okay so the Indo-European myth I was speaking about is spread across the world and it lasted for millennia. It's over 20,000 years old and it's spread across the world and this is an example of it in Mithraism. So the creation of the world is the central episode of Mithraic mythology. According to myths the sun god sent his messenger the raven to Mithra and ordered him to sacrifice the bull. Mithra executed the order reluctantly but at the very moment of the death of the bull a great miracle happened. The white bull was metamorphosed into the moon. The cloak of Mithra was transformed into the vault of the sky with the shining planets and fixed stars. From the tail of the bull and from his blood sprang the first ears of grain and the grape and from the genitals of the animal ran the holy seed which was received by a mixing bowl. The plants and the trees were created. Day and night began to alternate. The moon started her monthly cycle. The seasons took up their round dance through the year and thus time was created. But awakened by the sudden light the creatures of the dark emerged from earth. A serpent licked the bull's blood. A scorpion tried to suck the holy seed from the genitals. On the release a lion often is seen. With the bull's death and the creation of the world the struggle between good and evil began. Thus is the condition of all human life. So the four elements air, fire, earth, and water came into being and from them all things were created. So this is just a such an accurate and close retelling of that Indo-European myth which came down to Anatolia from the Russian steppes and I think it's just really important that everybody not just dismiss myths because they're telling you stories and they're like I said telling you where to look in the sky they're teaching you things and a storytelling back then was a way to teach like in ancient sacred memory spaces. I also wanted to point out the Bernie plaque also known as the Queen of the Dead or the Queen of the Night from Mesopotamia. It's now in the British Museum and academics think it's representing Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Dead. Please note her horned crown and the pot shown on either side of this plaque was found at the 9,000 year old site of Çatalhöyük in Anatolia and it's also wearing a horned crown. So could this horned pot show the faint rumblings the beginning of the Mesopotamian gods? So Çatalhöyük is a 9,000 year old site. To me that's you know it's just amazing the traditions can carry on like that. So these ancient goddesses most likely represent the progression of the same being with only minor attributes changing over time but the symbolism of each figure hasn't changed too much because it was important including the felines at the sides of each of the human figures. They may have different names but they are the same deity just transforming a bit through different cultures. And again the Çatalhöyük seated figure is 8,000 years old and it was actually found at the site in a grain bin which also lends to it being a fertility sort of deity. And that's the end of mine. So thank you guys for listening.