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Top left: Cuzco, Peru. Top right: Western Italy. Bottom left: Alaca Hoyuk, Turkey. Bottom right: Casing stones on pyramid on Giza plateau.

Did Megalithic Sites in Turkey and Peru Share the Same Architects?

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6,500 years before Stonehenge and 7,000 years before the pyramids were constructed, a cult megalithic complex sat atop the hills near current day Sanliurfa, in southeast Turkey. Göbekli Tepe was flourishing an astonishing 12,000 to 14,000 years ago. Today the preserved remains still exhibit high degrees of sophistication and megalithic engineering skill. Back in the 1990's when Robert Schoch exclaimed that the Sphinx could be many thousands of years older than previously thought, he was ridiculed. Graham Hancock's popular theories of a 12,000-year-old Ice Age civilization were slammed. With Göbekli Tepe we now have a unique and remarkably ancient complex that has been carbon-dated by German archaeologists to the end of the last ice-age that is shaking the foundations of science and history and awakening an interest in our human origins.

The Ancient Megalithic Site of Gobekli Tepe

In September 2013 I had the opportunity to go and see Göbekli Tepe for myself. I joined forces with authors Andrew Collins and Graham Hancock on a Megalithomania expedition around Turkey to investigate this enigmatic discovery. Graham was as astonished as I was. For such an old structure, the quality of stonework and abstract artistic skill just seems too advanced for its era.

T-shaped pillars and a fox relief at Göbekli Tepe

T-shaped pillars and a fox relief at Göbekli Tepe. (Author provided)

American archaeologist Peter Benedict first discovered something was going on there in 1963, noticing prehistoric flints all over the area. He also discovered some broken fragments of beautifully crafted T-shaped blocks with relief carvings. However, due to the superior quality of the stonework, they were classified as Byzantium artifacts. Interestingly this stone, now on display in Urfa Museum, looks conspicuously like one I had previously seen at Sillustani in Peru. In 1994, a German archaeologist named Klaus Schmidt recognized Göbekli Tepe as part of the “pre-pottery Neolithic” culture because this style of carving was similar to a site he had worked at earlier: Nevalı Çori.

What strikes people when they visit this site is the intricacy of the stonework, the size of the megalithic pillars, and the sheer magnitude of the man-made hill it was carefully covered with. The original construction was built on solid bedrock, then mounds were constructed on top of these, and further structures built on top over a period of around two thousand years, with the final enclosures containing smaller stones and less sophistication than the earlier levels.

The larger and older pillars at the lower levels show bas-relief carvings of various animals, reptiles, birds and serpents. Some pillars seem to represent strange, abstract statues of humans, wearing space-age belts, with long, bent arms and 'H' type letters (on every pillar in enclosure D). Most impressive is a strange creature in three dimensional high-relief showing beautiful craftsmanship and originality (for that period). There are several types of relief carvings at Göbekli Tepe. The 3D high-relief, the shallow reliefs of animals, 'H's, and the humanoid arms and belts, plus a rougher style that occurs on the later levels, although incredibly, this still dates to around 8,000 years old.

I found the shaping of the pillars interesting too. Why choose such a specific design? It is an abstract construction that sits gently on the bedrock, in very shallow pits. Some of the pillars are 18ft high (5.48 meters), with the top part of the “T” carved to look like it is a separate block to the main pillar, although it is actually one piece.

There are finely carved rims and shaping that reminded me of Tiwanaku in Bolivia, as well as some other sites around Peru. Another interesting aspect of the site are the unusual cup-marks that are found, mainly on the bedrock, but also on top of some of the oldest pillars, that may at some point shed some light on the cup-mark phenomenon in Britain, many thousands of years later.

Cup-marks and a pillar base at Göbekli Tepe

Cup-marks and a pillar base at Göbekli Tepe. (Author provided)

Megalithic Walls at Alaca Höyük Resemble Peruvian Constructions

As part of the expedition, we also visited a Hittite site called Alaca Höyük, near Ankara, the modern capital city of Turkey. Its earliest inhabitants were the Hattians, who were earth-based goddess worshipers, with roots in the Stone Age, who flourished from around 2350 BC to 1700 BC. Although much younger than Göbekli Tepe, the megalithic walls are indistinguishable from polygonal walls found all over Peru.

The jigsaw, irregularly shaped blocks, with some weighing more than twenty tons apiece are a unique style that were once thought to only exist in that part of South America. During my travels, I have seen them all along the west coast of Italy, on Easter Island, and in Egypt, plus they have been photographed in Delphi, Greece, Albania, Saudi Arabia, and Japan. Although separated by many millennia and vast distances, this style is possibly the most difficult style to accomplish, as each block needs to be carved with extreme accuracy so that they fit together and stay together over the years, even through earthquakes.

However, at Alaca Höyük and nearby Hattusu, they are not flat-faced walls. They look 'puffy', basically protruding from the joins, which some researchers say look like pillows. It does not seem to follow any particular plan, but it was a popular technique favored by the ancient megalith builders. This begs the question, was there a global megalithic stonemasonry elite in prehistory? Did they diffuse this influence around the world and construct specific sites? On witnessing so many similarities to sites in Peru and Bolivia, there was only one thing to do.

Top left: Sillustani, Peru. Top middle: Cutimbo, Peru.  Bottom left: Sillustani.  Top right: Pillar at Gobekli Tepe. Bottom right: The first artifact found at Gobekli Tepe, originally thought to be Byzantium.

Top left: Sillustani, Peru. Top middle: Cutimbo, Peru. Bottom left: Sillustani. Top right: Pillar at Gobekli Tepe. Bottom right: The first artifact found at Gobekli Tepe, originally thought to be Byzantium. (Author provided)

Peruvian Relief Carvings Match Those at Göbekli Tepe

Fortunately, I was co-organizing a Megalithomania trip to Peru and Bolivia in November 2013 with David Hatcher Childress and Brien Foerster. We headed to Cuzco, known as “The Navel of the World.” Interestingly, Göbekli Tepe's name has a similar meaning (“Hill of the Navel”) and is one of many “world navels” or “sacred centers.” Cuzco is a megalithic city. Its foundations are made up of polygonal and precision carved stone, which is quite a sight when you first visit there.

Further southwest on the shores of Lake Titicaca, the strange Chulpu's, that are officially circular funerary towers, are built of huge megalithic blocks and hold several ancient secrets. On high bluffs, always with a steep climb up to them, these towers are a mystery, made with startling engineering precision, obviously meant to last for several generations. The most famous example is Sillustani, a site I have visited many times.

Not only does the Sillustani site have circular towers, it also has a unique square “chulpa” that is made of huge finely cut polygonal blocks. The mystery here is that it is an almost perfect match of one of the platforms on Easter Island, some 2,600 miles (4184.29 km) away across the Pacific Ocean. Sillustani has several relief carvings that closely resemble those at Göbekli Tepe, including serpents, lizards, foxes, pumas, and other unusual creatures. One tower that is partly intact shows a beautiful, but very weathered lizard that can only be seen at certain times of day when the sun reaches round to its location on the tower.

Perhaps as the sun revolved around the circular towers, the reliefs got exposed only at certain times of day. Could this have been a useful clock, or did it have some other shamanic meaning? I wonder if Göbekli Tepe was used in a similar way, as whoever repaired the site and covered it with thousands of tons of dirt, may have wanted to keep the pillars, and therefore the reliefs, in their correct position, suggesting they may hold astronomical secrets that have yet to be deciphered.

Cutimbo is another chulpa site further around the lake, about 15.5 miles (25 km) from Puno, the nearest major town. The stonework here reaches another level of complexity, with the beautiful “puffy” polygonal stonework, along with some exquisite reliefs, including serpents, pumas, and even faces of creatures emerging from the rock.  As you can see from the images, the similarities to Göbekli Tepe are there. The faces that emerge from the rock look like the stone 'totem' statue found at Göbekli Tepe, now in Urfa Museum.

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Near the entrance to Cutimbo amongst piles of broken stone, a unique relief of a cheeky critter sits upon a lump of rock that was once part of one of the towers. It looks like some kind of feline, but its’ unusual elongated fingers are an anomaly. This one closely resembles the vertical creature on the solitary high-relief at Göbekli Tepe.

Left: A Chulpa tower at Sillustani with Lizard relief, Peru. Right: Totem statue from Gobekli Tepe. Bottom: Chulpa tower at Cutimbo, Peru. (Author provided)

The Rosetta Stone of South America

At a site about six miles (9.66 km) from Tiwanaku in Bolivia, a 3-foot (0.91 meter) wide ceramic bowl was discovered that shows proto-Sumerian writing, next to indigenous Aymara script. It has been labelled “The Rosetta Stone of South America." Not only does it suggest Sumerian visitors once arrived on the shores of Lake Titicaca, it has now been translated and the use of this type of script has been dated to 3,500 BC. What does this mean? It certainly looks like there was an ancient visit by Sumerians around 5,500 years ago, and when we look at the location of where this language was being used, suddenly we see a direct connection between Tiwanaku and the builders of Göbekli Tepe and surrounding sites.

Top: Gobekli Tepe relief. Bottom: Cutimbo, Peru.

Top: Gobekli Tepe relief. Bottom: Relief at Cutimbo, Peru. (Author provided)

Cross-Cultural Bonds?

Arthur Posnansky, an eminent archaeologist of Bolivia, dated Tiwanaku to around 17,000 years old based upon archaeoastronomy. However, since his initial deductions, this date has been revised several times, with the Fuenta Magna bowl possibly nailing down one date at least. When you visit Tiwanaku and Puma Punku, they look like a cataclysm has given its best shot to destroy them a very long time ago, and with the evidence of advanced agriculture beginning in both South America and the fertile crescent at about the same time, we must reconsider the idea that perhaps the Fuenta Magna bowl is in fact just part of a long cross-cultural bond that had existed for thousands of years.

Left: The Fuente Magna bowl showing proto-Sumerian script. Top right: Gobekli Tepe “H” motifs. Bottom right: “H” blocks from Puma Punku, Bolivia. (Author provided)

It can easily be argued that these distant cultures are divided by not only space, but time, and that they would have come up with their ideas independently. I’m not so sure. Carving high-reliefs, constructing polygonal walls, quarrying and transporting super-sized megaliths, are not things that that can be put away as simple “coincidences” that any culture would just come up with, as they are all particularly difficult to achieve. Since the discovery of Göbekli Tepe, the re-dating of the sites in Peru and Bolivia needs some more investigation, as this kind of sophistication, at this incredibly early date, could be the shake-up academia needs. Could it provide us with a new view into our ancestral megalithic origins?

Top left: Serpent carving from Nevali Cori. Bottom Left: Serpents at Gobekli Tepe. Top Right: Sillustani, Peru. Middle right: Cutimbo, Peru. Bottom Right: Cuzco, Peru with the author.

Top left: Serpent carving from Nevali Cori. Bottom Left: Serpents at Gobekli Tepe. Top Right: Sillustani, Peru. Middle right: Cutimbo, Peru. Bottom Right: Cuzco, Peru with the author. (Author provided)

Top image:  Top left: Cuzco, Peru. Top right: Western Italy. Bottom left: Alaca Hoyuk, Turkey. Bottom right: Casing stones on pyramid on Giza plateau.

All images courtesy of Hugh Newman. Visit Hugh’s website at www.megalithomania.co.uk

By Hugh Newman

Updated on March 30, 2021.

 

Comments

Pete Wagner's picture

“carbon-dated by German archaeologists to the end of the last ice-age”

Well, fat chance getting to the bottom of it, the truth of things, when we can’t even get the obvious right.  Fact is, we’re STILL IN ‘the last ice-age’!  The Ice Age began SUDDENLY around 120k BC, before which there were NO ICE CAPS and sea levels would have been a good 400 feet or so HIGHER THAN TODAY.  All this is scientifically accepted. We also know that due to the resulting rapid cooling and accumulation of glacier ice, sea levels became MUCH lower early in the ice age, perhaps by the same 400 or so feet (which also explains some of the sub-sea ruins), which would INSTEAD suggest that we’re actually only half-way through the current ice age.  The deception seems to be fueled by the politics of climate change, to maintain power structures/leverage, facilitated by keeping people in the dark as to it and ancient history in general.  So acknowledging the easily seen truths, via clarity of KNOWN FACTS, purging once and for all any and all diversion, deception, or lock-step institutional brainwashing, has to be the long-overdue NEXT STEP.  After that, it’s just a matter of being hungry for truth, to keep digging, to keep shining into the dark holes, and to  keep longing for the beauty of truth, regardless of how tragic, to bring modern humanity, warts and all, together as one.

By the way, when you add the zero back to Plato’s timeline, in his telling of the destruction of Atlantis, it becomes 115 BC, right at the start of the Ice Age, which we know came on very suddenly.  Nuclear winters can last a long time?

Nobody gets paid to tell the truth.

Bruce Nowakowski's picture

itd be interesting to look in the shallows of the worlds seas and oceans.  places that would have been above ground antedelluvian and see what is there. or buried under the sands of the Sarah from when it was a lush plain

Most polygonal megalithic structures found in places other than Peru/Bolivia have endured much more weathering over the millennia which would account for the not passing the razor test. Construction with massive interlocking stones identical to what is found in Machu PIchu can be found in Italy, Greece, egypt, lebanon, malta, saudi arabia (yes…saudi arabia), Turkey, and Japan. All of these sites though are attributed to much more recent, yet still ancient peoples but its clear that they discovered the sites and attempted to copy in many cases the techniques, to poor results.

1. These are ciclopean constructions, they could have the same technical knowledge, but in a
2. Razor blade test: In the peruvian construction, a razor blade can not go through the joints,
3. Shape: The have the same shape, but the peruvians seems to have better machines to do the Job.

Hugh Newman's picture

Hugh Newman

Hugh Newman is a world explorer, megalithomaniac and author of Earth Grids: The Secret Pattern of Gaia’s Sacred Sites (2008), co-author of Giants On Record: America’s Hidden History, Secrets in the Mounds and the Smithsonian Files with Jim Vieira (2015), and Stone Circles (2017). He... Read More

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