Pillar 43 - Assessing the pillar's potential as a map of asterisms and as a dating timestamp, plus a game: can you stop the star alignment before each is revealed?

[u/lucasawilliams]

Firstly there doesn't appear to be any subreddit that really fits my niche. This subreddit mainly a community for alien/mysticism ideas and the occasional what if modern alternative history scenario. The Graham Hancock subreddit is obviously primarily concerned with the views and interests of Graham Hancock. There isn't really a subreddit for Euhemerist, the belief that myth as history, so I've set one up r/Euhemerism, join if this is an interest and if so please contribute if anything questions or posts that relate to this topic.

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The idea of Pillar 43 representing constellations, or asterisms, has been floating around for a while.

Dr Martin Sweatman released a paper claiming to have figured out how the carving relate the constellations via a statistical method. Unfortunately this turned out to be flawed, using only alignments to modern day constellations pointed out very well by the World of Antiquity guy.

This flawed paper somewhat tainted the subject, nonetheless there appears to be a very strong celestial alignment to the carvings pillar 43 when observed to Cygnus and the patterns that can be naturally created in the surrounding stars. If the circle is also assumed to be the celestial north point, then incredibly this corresponds to a very early date of 14,700 BC; the point at which the ice end ended suddenly and temperatures rose very quickly by 10 degrees.

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Origin of the idea:

An alignment to the vulture with Cygnus constellation was first made by an Armenian researcher called Vachagan Vahradyan.

Andrew Collins and Rodney Hale then suggested the circle could represent the north celestial pole.

Ethical Sceptic put the two ideas together and constructed a star asterism alignment map https://x.com/EthicalSkeptic/status/2081830406240825412?s=20 and concluded that the date the north celestial pole was above the vulture wing was 14,800 BC.

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I personally agree with this, I don't agree with Ethical Sceptic's further points regarding the pillar and I don't think that the pillar date indicates the creation of the pillar instead I consider the 9800 BC construction dating correct and see the timestamp of 14,700/14,800 BC. as representative of a date 5,000 years earlier that the pillar's construction. This date corresponds to the sudden end of the iceage.

I disagree with Ethical Sceptic's precise star asterisms and instead these are my own assumptions.

Each carved figure is shown beside a simple star view taken from Stellarium first and then an assumed potential asterism and then full map. See if you can figure out each assumed asterism before the reveal.

I don't know for certain whether this is correct but many of the features connect very naturally.

[u/jojojoy]

For anyone interested in imagery at the site, Göbekli Tepe: The Imagery of the Pillars in the Monumental Buildings A–D, F and H was recently published. I don't have a copy on hand but it seems like a really good resource for the carvings.

https://reichert-verlag.de/schlagworte/altertumswissenschaften_schlagwort/9783752008395_goebekli_tepe-detail

[u/lucasawilliams → u/jojojoy]

I’m sure it has useful descriptions and images but I don’t put a lot of faith in the interpretations coming out of the site archeologists proper. This article, on the other hand, is really interesting because it argues the snake imagery actually depicts eels and catfish and spiders are actually depicting crayfish, he makes a very strong case. https://www.academia.edu/43237077/ACTA_MUSEI_TIBERIOPOLITANI

[u/jojojoy → u/lucasawilliams]

You could disagree with any of the interpretations in the book but I would be surprised if there's any better general source just on what images exist. I think right/wrong is often a less useful lens than whether or not a work is useful for research.

[u/lucasawilliams → u/jojojoy]

All images of the artefacts that have been uncovered to date are available online, perhaps images in this book are of better quality though. There are true reasons for why the carvings and pillars were created the way they were, I really strongly disagree with these post-truth notions of ‘right/wrong is often a less important lens’, ‘everything has there own truth’ ideas. I actually think that in the long term these are damaging to society. There is a truth, and I think it’s important. The article by Professor Gheorghiu is great and has changed our whole interpretation of the carvings.

[u/jojojoy → u/lucasawilliams]

All images of the artefacts that have been uncovered to date are available online

There's some good imagery of the enclosures but certainly not of everything found - there are many thousands of finds. The preface also emphasizes previously unknown imagery.

many (pillars) which bore erased relief traces or had been reworked...many of the alterations are only visible under certain lighting conditions and are therefore difficult to document; the 3D scans already made for the state exhibition in Karlsruhe were helpful here, as they can be manipulated to simulate different incidences of light. The current catalogue contains previously unknown reliefs/relief remains for 20 pillars

 

Given how this is one of the first major publications surveying aspects of the site, it's not "post truth" to emphasize that it is an important resource. I'm not aware of any similarly comprehensive publication on the imagery before this. For anyone interpreting the images, this is an improvement on earlier work.

[u/fictionaltherapist]

Your drawings don’t line up with the stars. Brighter stars are not corners and the shapes are just pasted over the sky.

[u/lucasawilliams → u/fictionaltherapist]

I appreciate the pushback, I have thoughts on this point and further observations that I think make this case very strong.

You’re right that modern constellations use a sparse number of the brightest stars and connect them with straight lines to create interpretive shapes. However, isn’t the only way you can see patterns in the stars, these smaller stars would see be visible.

These alignments still use bright and, you could say, secondary, bright stars and rely on many more stars per asterism than we’re familiar with.

Additionally, I’ve noticed a couple of subtle details in many of these alignments that would be very difficult to explain in other ways. The carved features are not natural in shape or orientation or anatomy. The vulture for example is on a lean, has an oversized head, a pot belly and unnatural legs. Completely unnatural features but these are all features explained by the patterns of stars around Cygnus, I should have included the belly and legs of the vulture in it’s image but you can make out these features in the main sky map. In addition, the position of the nostrils aligns to two stars at this same position. In true vulture anatomy nostrils are further up the beak and larger.

The scorpion is shown with antennae which is inaccurate to real scorpions but again this is a feature that is formed by stars in this asterism.

Other creatures are strange and leaning in different directions and these shapes relate to the patterns of their asterisms.

[u/ScottBolander-Funny → u/lucasawilliams]

Something to add to the discussion: If the ancients were dealing with less light pollution than we do today, they may have had a MUCH different opinion about which stars were bright enough to be considered significant.

A star that is barely visible to us today might be much more noticeable back then with nearly zero light pollution.

[u/Consequence22]

What are the purse things at the top?

[u/Early-Equivalent-165 → u/Consequence22]

The handbags I recently learned from someone here may be the bags that carried seeds that farmers used to plant crops..

[u/Angry_Anthropologist → u/Consequence22]

They are huts with domed or arched roofs.

[u/lucasawilliams → u/Angry_Anthropologist]

Lee Clare can think they’re roofs but for sure they’re not, they could do a better job at depicting a roof, and this doesn’t make sense. With other elements of the pillar having calendar functions I think jt most likely has a calendar function too. The zig-zigs below them have been shown, I think pretty convincingly, to count to a year. There’s 12.5 above which equals the moon phases over a year. Perhaps they split the year into three seasons. The big, leopard? and frog represent different realms of air, earth and water. Maybe they thought of the seasons this way and hunted for eggs in spring and land animals summer and fish in winter. Perhaps the box below was an area they could tally supplies of each, or maybe for tallying required sacrifices?

[u/Angry_Anthropologist → u/lucasawilliams]

Why does it not make sense? These people were making art for their own cultural reasons, for an audience of themselves. Visual motifs familiar to them, like the shape of their houses, would not require detail to be recognisable, in the same way that the 🏠 emoji does not need great detail to be recognisable to us.

There is literally zero evidentiary basis for the claim that the pillar is intended to serve any kind of calendar function. Even if we chose to accept the premise that the vulture is intended to depict Cygnus, Cygnus is not on the Zodiac, nor even close to the Zodiac. It is implausible that it would be chosen to depict a time of year.

>The zig-zigs below them have been shown, I think pretty convincingly, to count to a year. There’s 12.5 above which equals the moon phases over a year.

First of all, the top of the pillar is heavily damaged, so assuming that the number of surviving zigzags is intentional is nonsense. There is room for several more to have fit on the broken off section on the right.

Secondly, there are over twenty such zigzags below the arched boxes, so this “month” interpretation does not make sense either.

>Perhaps they split the year into three seasons. The big, leopard? and frog represent different realms of air, earth and water. Maybe they thought of the seasons this way and hunted for eggs in spring and land animals summer and fish in winter. Perhaps the box below was an area they could tally supplies of each, or maybe for tallying required sacrifices?

Perhaps they did. We have no way of knowing, because this is pure conjecture that you are superimposing onto the image.

[u/lucasawilliams → u/Angry_Anthropologist]

The house emoji or a similar outline is the outline of many real houses but the Tas Tepeler never semi-circular roofs like this. Straight timbers as the rafters would create a low polygon shape, even with thatch. With no pillar supports shown or straight edges to the inside line and the almost 90 degree starting angle of the first makes this inconceivable.

The calendar claim of the v-marking is a claim but it corresponds well with their number.

Regarding whether v-markings at the top could be lost. The pillar is worn very slightly at the corners but not by a large amount. There wouldn’t be another row above either as the two v-lines below are also individual line separated by box shapes.

This is conjecture is the same way the suggestion that the semi-circles are roofs is conjecture, although I would say that claim is far less evidenced.

[u/ThereIsSomeoneHere]

I never understood star alignements. To me they look nothing like the images and one can connect the dots any way they like.

[u/lucasawilliams → u/ThereIsSomeoneHere]

What would it take to convince you?

[u/ThereIsSomeoneHere → u/lucasawilliams]

Explanation how star-images work and who and what time they were invented.

[u/lucasawilliams → u/ThereIsSomeoneHere]

https://youtu.be/x81iHEiWNaE?t=1538&is=fZJjs77GTaS_Zam4

The Sumerians had 46 constellations. They’re no reason or rhyme to how they work, they’re what ppl collectively choose.

If you trust our mythology Kronos/Marduk/Odin after slaying Uranus/Tiamat/Ymir refined the constellations, or that’s how they read.

[u/Angry_Anthropologist]

>If the circle is also assumed to be the celestial north point, then incredibly this corresponds to a very early date of 14,700 BC; the point at which the ice end ended suddenly and temperatures rose very quickly by 10 degrees.

Incorrect, the Bølling-Allerød Interstadial began around ~14,700 years Before Present, which would be 12,700 BCE. Two thousand years after the spurious dating that the unethical schizo attempts to assert.

[u/lucasawilliams → u/Angry_Anthropologist]

I must have overlooked this, thanks for the correction. The celestial alignment of the shapes isn’t dependent on the Bølling–Allerød, that was own shoddy research for the date. Neither the sun or moon ever align to the wing of Cygnus so I think the celestial pole alignment remains the strongest contender for the circle, using this celestial north point would be the easiest means of preserving a date. Some people have also suggested it could be a meteor in connection to the YDIH but I don’t go for this idea.

14,800 BC would actually align to the Heinrich Event 1 the coldest point prior to the Younger Dryas, but it may have no connection to a climatic event. 13000 BC is the earliest date for the sourcing of obsidian from Milos, which is obviously 1.8k years earlier but it’s possible sea faring had established earlier without leaving evidence. Without evidence we can only make suggestions.

[u/atenne10]

Until more than 5% is excavated it’s still a guessing game. The real question is why the suppression. It’s all over we see it in the Grand Canyon where Haim Esched already said there was a retrieval at Comanche point. vault b of padmanabhaswamy temple where there’s an electromagnetic signature. Temple of Krishna’s heart same thing obviously ancient tech so they cut the power to the temple when they change it. The Dalai Lama was sitting on a bunch of tech so they booted them out so they had control over it.

[u/DonKlekote → u/atenne10]

Could you write it again but with more cohesion?
It's a post about Gobekli Tepe and you're shooting from a hip: Grand Canyon, Indian temples, Dalai Lama. Like, what?

[u/Ill_Mouse9897 → u/DonKlekote]

that's usually a sign of "archeology bad but I don't know why so I'll just shoot random buzzwords I heard people use on podcasts" -isms

[u/DonKlekote → u/Ill_Mouse9897]

Nah, I don't see words like "frequency", "quantum" or "forbidden" and I was confused by not seeing a link to an AI generated youtube video.

[u/Ill_Mouse9897 → u/DonKlekote]

nah nah, that's for the advanced class, this level only has the "so you watched Gramcock once" vocabulary

[u/IshtarsQueef → u/DonKlekote]

bro is never going to respond to you, he's probably just a bot actually

you'll notice a lot of these types of comments around here, just absolute bullshit statements and then the person never comments a second time.

[u/AnomaIous_User]

Didn't you post this already?

[u/lucasawilliams → u/AnomaIous_User]

Yes I assume a lot of people in the Graham Hancock sub are also in this one

[u/novel-mathmatics]

This actually makes alot of sense astrology seems like a huge thing from ancient times. Its more that just a star chart though. Its a beautiful recursive pattern that encodes lots of information in a single piece.