Gobekli Tepe Page 13

  It is not known whether Halley’s Comet graced our skies in the tenth or eleventh millennium BC, although some sources do suggest that it has been in its current orbit for between sixteen thousand and two hundred thousand years.6 So the likelihood of Göbekli Tepe’s founding elite being able to calculate the return of a short-period comet was therefore pretty high. If they were able to do this, then using this valuable information to their advantage might have been enough to convince the hunter-gathering communities that they had real influence over these fearful celestial objects.

  Such ideas might help explain why Enclosure D’s twin central monoliths wear fox-pelt loincloths, why leaping foxes are present on the inner faces of key central pillars at Göbekli Tepe, and why Joris Peters and Klaus Schmidt considered that “a specific worship of foxes may be reflected here.” These thoughts also perhaps have some bearing on why the large enclosures seem to incorporate symbolism of a clearly celestial and cyclic nature.

  Is it possible that the enclosures embody a belief, offered by the Hooded Ones and, through them, their lineal descendants (responsible perhaps for the continued construction and management of Göbekli Tepe), that by synchronizing the enclosures with cosmic time cycles it would help provide the builders with enough information to control the influence of comets on a supernatural level? Was it these communities’ absolute fear and loathing of comets that motivated them to abandon their old lifestyles to build monumental architecture on such a dramatic scale? More pertinently, how did any of this relate to the apparent alignment of the main enclosures at Göbekli Tepe toward the Milky Way’s Great Rift, marked out in the heavens by the star Deneb? These are matters that must be addressed next.

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  COSMIC TRICKSTER

  It was the Greek Neoplatonist and celebrated philosopher Proclus of Athens (412–485 AD) who warned that “the fox star nibbles continuously at the thong of the yoke which holds together heaven and Earth,”1 with German folklore adding that when the fox succeeds, the world will come to an end.2 Proclus was referring here to the faint binary star Alcor, which in Babylonian star lore was known as MULKA.A, the Fox Star.3 In astronomical terms Alcor is located next to a much brighter quadruple system of binary stars, collectively known under the name Mizar. Together Alcor and Mizar make up the kink in the “handle” of the Plough, or Big Dipper, which forms part of the constellation of Ursa Major, the Great Bear (see figure 13.1).

  Some semblance of Alcor’s mythical origin is revealed in Greek star lore, which tells how the star was once part of the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, the cluster of seven stars located in the proximity of Taurus, the Bull. According to the Greek writer Hyginus (or one of his pupils writing under his name), a Pleiade named Elektra was so distraught at seeing the death of her descendant, King Dardanus, during the fall of Troy, that she withdrew her light and took flight as a “hair star,” a comet, and became Alopex, the Fox, called by the Arabs Al Suha (the “forgotten” or “neglected one”), all names for Alcor.4

  Figure 13.1. The stars of Ursa Major, or the Big Dipper, as the ancient asterism known as the Wain, with Alcor in its role as the Fox Star (after Gavin White).

  TURNING THE HEAVENS

  Even though there are no astronomical explanations behind these puzzling myths featuring the star Alcor, they do reinforce the connection between the fox, as a symbol of the cosmic trickster, and the destruction of the world caused by the intrusion of a comet, or comets in plural. Why should this have been so? The answer seems to lie in the fact that the seven main stars of Ursa Major, which includes the Alcor/Mizar combination, were once universally seen as the plow, yoke, mill, handle, wain, or mechanism that quite literally turned the sky pole or world pillar holding up the heavens. This belief came about because the stars of Ursa Major are seen to revolve around the celestial pole in an unerring fashion, a role played by the constellation in every human age, despite the fact that none of its stars ever occupy the position of Pole Star.

  Proclus’s warning about the Fox Star nibbling “continuously at the thong of the yoke which holds together heaven and Earth” is an allusion to the fox attempting to sabotage the universe’s turning mechanism, which, of course, was seen to have its terrestrial point of origin wherever an axis mundi was established on the ground. The fox, if allowed to carry out its mischievous deeds, would eventually bring about the collapse of the imagined sky pole, and with it would follow the end, not just of the world but also of time itself. The fact that Alcor, or Alopex, the Fox Star, was additionally seen as a comet inbound from the Pleiades is revealing indeed and conjures the idea that as a “hair star” it might have been seen as responsible for this perceived cosmic catastrophe.

  Fox, star, comet, pole, destruction. These are the key elements in this puzzling enigma of ancient Greek star lore, which might easily have had its origins in ancient Mesopotamia, among one of the great civilizations that rose up on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers around 3000 BC. Indeed, it is just possible that certain aspects of this seemingly naïve vision of the cosmos might reflect something of the proposed strategy adopted by the Epipaleolithic hunter-gatherers of southeast Anatolia prior to the construction of Göbekli Tepe. Interestingly, Professor Klaus Schmidt compares the leaping foxes carved on the twin central pillars in the various enclosures at Göbekli Tepe with Reynard the Fox, a trickster of French folklore,5 as well as with the Mesopotamian Fox Star Alcor, which he says belonged to Enlil, the highest god of the Sumerian pantheon, who was patron also of the ancient city of Nipper in Lower Iraq.6

  MAN VERSUS DEVIL

  So if the Fox Star Alcor appears on the inner faces of key central pillars Göbekli Tepe, why are they aligned toward Cygnus, and not Ursa Major? The answer seems to lie in the fact that there was once a close interrelationship between the Fox Star and the power and influence of Cygnus in its role as guardian of the celestial pole.

  It is a relationship brought out in a complex Romanian sky myth that begins with the formation of the earth and heavens and leads into a search by humankind to find the creator. For the journey “the Man” gathers together various tools, objects, and creatures, which are identified with different constellations of the night sky. Among the items taken on the journey are “the Great Cross of the church” and “the Fountain of the Crossroads,” identified, respectively, as Cygnus and the constellation’s bright star Deneb,7 the crossroads being a metaphor for both the axis mundi and the corresponding cosmic axis in the sky.

  Thereafter, the Man sets off on his voyage and eventually reaches “the middle of the Sky’s road,” with the “Sky’s road” being the Milky Way.8 Here the Man encounters “He Who Will Be Killed By The Cross.” This is the Devil, identified as the Fox Star, Alcor, whom the Man fights and eventually defeats.9 The story implies that in Christian times the mischievous sky fox was transformed into the Devil himself.

  RESTORING COSMIC ORDER

  What takes place during the cosmic battle between the Man, as the bearer of the Cross, and the Devil, as the Fox Star, seems to relate to the former regaining control of “the cosmic world axis or world tree of other myths,”10 after the Devil sends the heavens spinning out of control. Thus the story implies that the Devil, that is, Alcor, is “killed” or stopped by the Man wielding the Cross, which is Cygnus in its role as guardian of the “cosmic world axis.”

  This restoration of cosmic order is achieved, however, only after chaos and mayhem have taken place, for we are told that once the “brave Man” began fighting with the Devil, their battle “created a great storm beneath the Sky, called by us on Earth ‘the rabid wind.’”11 There are no indications of what this “great storm” or “rabid wind” might have been, although it clearly implies some sort of mass upheaval in the heavens, which either affected the earth or was witnessed from the ground.

  It seems feasible that this Romanian sky myth reflects the role played at Göbekli Tepe by Cygnus, and Deneb in particular. The leaping foxes on the pillars, along with the fox-pelt loincloths on the
central monoliths of Enclosure D, certainly suggest there was some connection between the Fox Star Alcor as the cosmic trickster and the area of sky toward which the pillars were directed, in other words the Cygnus star Deneb. These precision alignments toward the perceived opening to the upper world enabled the shaman or astral traveler immediate access to the sky realms. Beyond here, in otherworldly terms, would have been a world inhabited by a whole host of strange creatures. They would have been seen to roam freely within this sky world and could thus be encountered during vision quests or shamanic journeys made during altered states of consciousness. Many of these sky creatures, denoted by stars and star groups spread out along the Milky Way, are almost certainly represented in carved relief on the T-shaped pillars at Göbekli Tepe.

  Yet for these people living in southeast Anatolia during the tenth millennium BC one of the greatest considered threats to the stability of the sky pole or cosmic axis was, it seems, the fox, who as the cosmic trickster had the ability to create chaos and mayhem—activities that could lead to the collapse of the sky pole and the destruction of the world. It is almost certainly for this reason that the fox appears on the inner faces of the pillars at Göbekli Tepe, which Schmidt was probably correct to identify with the Fox Star Alcor. Very likely the foxes shown within the bent arms of the anthropomorphic figures represented by the twin pillars—particularly those in Enclosure D, who wear the fox felt loincloths—are displaying absolute control over the trickster influence of the sky fox, whose astronomical form is the Fox Star, Alcor.

  In the Romanian sky myth quoted above, the shaking of the heavens is all that results from the Man battling against the Fox Star Alcor in its form as the Christian Devil. However, this perceived threat from the heavens multiplies exponentially when we realize that it is not just the fox that can cause comets to bring about world destruction but also the wolf, a much more dangerous creature by far.

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  FROM A FOX TO A WOLF

  In the star lore of Estonia, on the Baltic coast of Northern Europe, we again encounter Alcor, the Fox Star, although now its zoomorphic form has changed to that of the wolf (bar in Estonian). As the Wolf Star it stands alongside the Ox, or Bull, identified with the nearby star Mizar.1 Once again they constitute the kink of the “handle” of the Big Dipper, or Plough, which in Estonia is known as the Great Wain (that is, a cart or wagon).

  Slovenian star lore tells the story of Saint Martin, who uses the Great Wain (Ursa Major) to carry a great pile of logs.2 Along comes the mischievous Wolf (Alcor), who proceeds to kill the Ox (Mizar) and break the vehicle’s shaft. The saint repairs the Wain and, as punishment, harnesses the Wolf to the Ox in order to make the animal take the load. Yet the Wolf does nothing more than pull the cart backward.

  THE CESSATION OF COSMIC TIME

  Once more the star Alcor, here in the guise of the Wolf, is seen to interfere with the turning mechanism of the heavens, symbolized in this instance by the shaft of the Wain. Not only this, but he also disrupts the natural order of the heavens by dragging the wagon backward, an allusion to the collapse or reversal of time. Clearly, in European star lore the figure of the sky wolf was interchangeable with that of the sky fox.

  The harnessing of the Wolf (Alcor) by Saint Martin is simply a variation of the Romanian sky myth in which the Man defeats the Devil to restore cosmic order. Clearly, the wolf, the fox, and the Devil play nearly identical roles in this myth cycle, with the human intercession being necessary to prevent any kind of catastrophe taking place (the role played by the shaman at Göbekli Tepe).

  Saint Martin’s feast day is November 11, when swans and geese are roasted and eaten across Europe. The date corresponds also to the return of migrating swans and geese from their breeding grounds in the north. Indeed, the idea of swans and geese carrying souls to and from a northerly placed “heaven” played a major role in European folklore until fairly recent times, the connection with Cygnus in its capacity as the entrance to the sky world being the obvious next step.3 Thus if Saint Martin might be seen as a Christian patron of the Cygnus constellation, then his role in the Slovenian sky myth makes complete sense. Like the Man in the Romanian story, he is the guiding intelligence of the Cygnus constellation in its struggle against the cosmic trickster symbolized by the star Alcor in Ursa Major. More incredibly, these beliefs almost certainly go back to a time when the constellation of Ursa Major revolved around either Deneb or Delta Cygni in their role as pole stars, ca. 16,500–13,000 BC.

  Yet even if this unprecedented vision of the beliefs and practices of those who inspired the construction of Göbekli Tepe in the tenth millennium BC is correct, why go to all this trouble in order to avert the baleful influence of comets? What was the real motivation behind all this work and effort, which must have completely changed the lifestyles of the hunter-gatherers of the region? Why did anyone at the end of the Upper Paleolithic age live in fear that a sky fox, or indeed a sky wolf, might disrupt the turning mechanism of the heavens and in so doing bring about the destruction of the world?

  The answer would seem to be that in the minds of the Göbekli builders, there was a genuine fear that if they did not do everything in their power to curtail this perceived threat from the sky, then something bad would happen. Whatever that “something” was, it was so deeply entrenched in the collective psyche of the peoples of southeast Anatolia that they were willing to abandon their old lifestyles and adopt new ones in order to deal with the problem.

  Accepting such a scenario only makes sense if there had already been a terrifying incident involving the sky fox or sky wolf—one that had brought chaos to the world during some former age of humankind. As we see next, a search through the folklore, myths, and legends of the ancient world tells us that just such a catastrophe might well have taken place in fairly recent geological history.

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  TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

  It was the American congressman, popular writer, and amateur scientist Ignatius Donnelly (1831–1901), most remembered for his best-selling work Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1882), who first publicly explored the possibility that a comet impact caused untold devastation on earth during some former geological age. More significantly, he thought that humans living at this time might well have preserved a memory of this catastrophic event that was passed down through countless generations in the form of myths and legends.

  Donnelly’s theories on a comet impact in recent geological history became the subject of a book entitled Ragnarök: The Age of Fire and Gravel, published in 1883, just one year after Atlantis: The Antediluvian World. It contains myths, legends, stories, and traditions from around the world that preserve chilling accounts of something immensely bad that happened in our skies, involving the sun, moon, and intruding celestial phenomena. As a result the earth is decimated by an all-encompassing conflagration, accompanied by noxious clouds, an extended period of darkness, and a subsequent deluge, responsible for putting out the fires and drowning humankind. Invariably, just a few righteous people survive, either by boarding a vessel or by hiding in a cave. Very often the world is repopulated either by a single family or a couple, usually a brother and sister, who become the progenitors of a new group of humans. Some accounts even speak of the survivors erecting great temples as a direct response to what has happened.

  THE EDDAS

  One source of material utilized by Donnelly to outline the actions of what he saw as a rogue comet, or cluster of comets, that brought destruction to the world, was that preserved by the peoples of Scandinavia and Iceland. Two primary sources are cited—the Prose Edda and Poetic Edda (known also as the Younger Edda and Elder Edda)—both recorded in their present form by Christian scholars during the medieval period. The Prose Edda, attributed to Snorri Sturluson, who lived ca. 1178–1241, derives from an Icelandic text known as the Codex Upsaliensis, which dates to the early 1300s, while the Poetic Edda is found in a thirteenth-century manuscript, written in Icelandic and known as the Codex Regius.

  Both Edda
s feature a much prophesized event that acted as the climax to the age of the gods, who are known as the Æsir, or Asa. This catastrophic event is referred to as Ragnarök, an Old Icelandic word meaning “doom or destruction of the gods; the last day, the end of the gods.”1 Another variation of the name, Ragnarøkkr, means “twilight of the gods” or “world’s end.”2 Put simply, it is the Norse version of Armageddon, a fatalistic judgment, where key gods actually die fighting hellish monsters that rise up intent on bringing about the end of the world.

  So important was the account of Ragnarök to Donnelly’s mounting evidence for a comet impact in some former age of humankind that it provided him with the title for his book. As there is today overwhelming scientific evidence to confirm his forward-thinking conclusions (see chapter 17), it seems appropriate to allow the U.S. congressman’s often poignant comments to set the scene as we review the account of Ragnarök as given in the Prose Edda, Donnelly’s own source for the events described in his book, cited here using the English translation by American author, professor, and diplomat Rasmus Björn Anderson (1846–1936).3

  THE DEVOURING OF THE SUN AND MOON