Gobekli Tepe is an archaeological site in Turkey and is currently the oldest known religious temple to date. It is a 20 km square archaeological site that will take decades to uncover.
It's pre-pottery neolithic, so right in the middle to end stone age.
It is known for it's megalithic T shaped pillars in a circle formation.
Göbekli Tepe (Turkish: [gœbecˈli teˈpe], "Potbelly Hill"; known as Girê Mirazan or Xirabreşkê in Kurdish) is a Neolithic archaeological site in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. Dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, between 9500 and 8000 BC
The T shaped pillars are often shown with arms and hands and thought to represent deities or some say even ancestors. There are countless articles on the pillars and people speculating on their meaning.
However, I want to talk about something different.
The Gobekli Tepe Totem as I will call it. Shown below
From the front the totem appears to show [from the top down] a person holding a woman who is in a birthing position The woman's knees are bent and the child is half out.
Both the top face and the birthing woman's faces have been damaged unfortunately.
The child is then turning a potters wheel and has it's hands clasped around a clay pot.
I believe it has multiple meaning with the first being a beautiful portrayal of man, woman and child and the creation of life.
It's possible the man is not a man and the totem is showing a midwife helping to deliver a child.
When I see the totem and especially the potters wheel, I can't help but think about Genesis in the Old Testament.
Adam was made out of dust from the earth. Eve was then made from dust and Adam's rib.
From either side of the side of the 1.2 meter limestone statue, we can see the mans head is inside the head of an animal. The animal to some looks like a cats head and some say a frog and some say a boars head.
I'm on the cats head side because it is a common animal depicted at Gobekli Tepe.
Anything can change at any moment though as the site is about 20% uncovered. There is another 20 years of digging.
The lower portion is flanked on either side by snakes with the snakes heads making the woman's knees.
The above image gives you an idea of where the ground level on the totem is. Notice the ground level is right where the clay pot representation is.
Below is a totem that has a few similarities. It was found in Siberia.
It is also possible that the totem is telling a story from the base upwards.
The potters wheel of creation into birth and to adulthood all the way up to death and the soul being released.
The gruesome act by Indigenous tribes of scalping a fallen enemy or fallen tribesman away to released the Spirit.
The act is depicted all throughout the ancient world in artifacts, most famously in the jade Olmec artifacts.
Nevali Cori is a site close to Gobekli Tepe. This artifact has some similarities.
When we look at the damaged face of the woman, it almost looks like the hair forms two birds back to back, beaks outwards.
Below an Inuit totem
Indigenous Below
The Milky Way
I believe that the Gobekli Tepe Totem is telling the creation story of humanity and we still carry parts of in our own creation story with Adam and Eve but,
I believe the people of Gobekli Tepe were also depicting the Milky way and those reasons will be in part 2
