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Gobekli Tepe - Sirius - Temple

World's oldest temple, Göbekli Tepe, built to worship Sirius?

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New research has revealed that the world’s oldest known temple, Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey, was probably built to worship the star Sirius.

Göbekli Tepe is at least 12,000 years old and has been intensively studied by archaeologists since its discovery less than a decade ago. The remarkable site is comprised of numerous temples made with pillars weighing between 40 and 60 tonnes and with intricate depictions of bulls, snakes, foxes, lions and other animals carved into the stone.  Yet the awe-inspiring site was supposedly built by ‘primitive’ Neolithic men who lacked sophisticated tools, causing speculation as to how it was built and why.

Giulio Magli, an archaeoastronomer at the Polytechnic University of Milan in Italy, looked to the night sky for an answer to the latter. After all, the arrangement of the pillars at Stonehenge in the UK suggests it could have been built as an astronomical observatory, maybe even to worship the moon.

Magli simulated what the sky would have looked like from Turkey when Göbekli Tepe was built. Over millennia, the positions of the stars change due to Earth wobbling as it spins on its axis. Stars that are near the horizon will rise and set at different points, and they can even disappear completely, only to reappear thousands of years later.

The analysis revealed that the pillars of Göbekli Tepe appear to have aligned with the rising of the ‘dog star’ Sirius.  Using existing maps of Göbekli Tepe and satellite images of the region, Magli drew an imaginary line running between and parallel to the two megaliths inside each enclosure. Three of the excavated rings seem to be aligned with the points on the horizon where Sirius would have risen in 9100 BC, 8750 BC and 8300 BC, respectively.

"I propose that the temple was built to follow the 'birth' of this star," says Magli. "You can imagine that the appearance of a new object in the sky could even have triggered a new religion."

The findings will be welcomed by ancient astronaut theorists who maintain that because of the high level of skill that would have been required to build this ancient structure, Gobekli Tepe might have been built with the assistance of extraterrestrials. The finely chiselled columns and other features are believed to have only been possible with tools beyond the technology believed to be available to these ancient people and, in fact, no remains of tools have yet been found to show how it was constructed.

While some may find this conclusion far-fetched, at the very least, Göbekli Tepe and other ancient monuments around the world, point to an advanced knowledge of the cosmos and a belief and reverence in life outside our earthly realm.

By April Holloway

 

Comments

Marcia Everett's picture

And 7 years later we find out the tools were string and eyeballs in addition to a knowledge of astronomy. And guess what. All the pyramids were made by travelling Black Egyptians.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMAtkjy_YK4&t=31s

To be able for someone to confirm that the alignment of the pilars pointed to the rising Serius, not only the number of past years, but the date of the year should also be known, as the horizontal position of a rising star (and of the Sun for that matter) or azimouth, shifts depending on the day of the year. Usually, either the date of Equinox, or of Solstice is used, provided that the star is visible above the horizon that date.

YHWH Allah's picture

Alpha Sirius. Worship? No, just a place to live.
Hey, ready to Dig yet? Mag shield is cracking.

Mishkan 1.2m below Heel Stone
@ Stonehenge, United Kingdom

As I was driving my car one nightclub passed Stonehenge at the time it was a clear night with a full moon . I never gave it a second thought but lately I have come to wonder if it is more for observing the stars we forget that light from city and towns drown out the natural light of the stars so could it be .........

aprilholloway's picture

April

April Holloway is a Co-Owner, Editor and Writer of Ancient Origins. For privacy reasons, she has previously written on Ancient Origins under the pen name April Holloway, but is now choosing to use her real name, Joanna Gillan.

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