The Myths and Religion of Gobekli Tepe

Let me know if you your thoughts on what the carvings mean...

The problem with interpreting any ancient carving or drawing is that we have lost the social context of the communication. We know that, as with words in modern languages, images could have different meanings in different context. A bull could just be a bull, or it could be a symbol for strength, or it could represent a constellation, or it could represent only the sound, or part of the sound for the word for bull, which in association with another symbol produced a name.

An interesting video, Jon. As for "skull cults", I remember that in Catal Huyuk a few thousand years later, when people had built houses and were farmers, they buried the dead below where they slept, and set the skulls of the ancestors up in their houses. They plastered the skulls with ochre and recreated facial features such as the eyes. When you spoke about how as societies grew more complex, the shaman changed from male to female. This is seen in indigenous tribes in the Philippines, such as my wife's tribe, the Higaonon, in Bukidnon Mindanao. They practice agriculture, growing corn and vegetables, but still hunt and gather sometimes. The baylan (shaman) is almost always female. My wife's maternal grandmother was a baylan, and trained my wife as a baylan as well. The traditional beliefs of the Higaonon, and many other indigenous tribes, are a combination of animism and ancestor worship. In the case of the Higaonon, there is a chief "Diwata" (spirit) called Magbabaya, whose will is said to have created the world. All other diwata are known as "Migbaya", and control the various aspects of nature. There is also the "Tumanud" (guardian spirit), and "Abyan" (spirit guide, companion spirit). Many indigenous tribes have carved anthropomorphic figures, in Tagalog called "taotao" ("tao" means "person") which are set up in houses or "spirit houses" in a village. It's interesting too that among the more complex societies, such as the Tagalog kingdom of Luzon, and the Visayan kingdoms, there was a pantheon of anthropomorphic gods that were worshipped. Despite this, and hundreds of years of influence by Christianity and Islam, people still pay their respects to the spirits of nature. Passing a large rock or tree, especially a "balete" (large strangler fig tree), Filipinos will usually say "Tabi po" or "Tabi tabi apo". "Tabi" means something like "Side by side". Tagalog speakers add "po" as an honorific. "Apo" can mean "Ancestor, grandparent, or grandchild". In this case it refers to the elders. There is something in humans that stems from our deep past, and hopefully will remain.

Dr. White, this was my favorite thing you’ve ever put out, and that’s setting an incredibly high bar. How incredible is this?! I have been having the great time taking the information from your videos and incorporating them into my homeschooling curriculum for my three little girls (8, 7, and 5). The bear cultures and rituals have, so far, been a huge hit with us!! I wish we could donate, but this has been a brutal year for us. But we wanted to say, keep up the amazing work, you are so very very appreciated!!

My area of expertise! So glad you've done a video on this - first thing I did was check your references and found myself pleased.

As a kid grumbling about chores, I would sometimes get this 'We HAD you to do the work! The more hands to bring in the harvest, the better!' Note that I can remember no one in the family who ever farmed, as we all were Detroiters for generations 😆

Ooh, I don't think I've ever caught a Crecganford video this soon before! 😮 Time to settle in for an entertaining education! ❤❤

I appreciate that you can analyze the past without the biases of the present. Too much of the speculation about what Gobleke Tepe represents involves modern understandings of civilization that leave out archaeology and anthropology. We were still human before we built cities.

38:16 The mention of people coming together from long distances reminds me of a cultural practice of the indigenous Australians regarding an important native food called the Bunya Nut. The Bunya Pine only grows in a limited range, the Bunya Mountains in Queensland. And thanks to the alternating El Nino/La Nina weather patterns that subjects Australia to a cycle of drought, bushfire and flood, the tree only produces a crop every 2-7 years depending on weather conditions. However whenever a crop was ready for harvest the local people of the area would send out messengers hundreds of kilometres away to let all the other peoples know it was ready. Thousands of people of diverse tribes would converge on the area, putting aside any differences for the duration, and there would be months of celebrations and ceremonies performed as the nuts were harvested and feasted upon. And due to nature of such a large gathering it was also a time where disputes were settled, marriage arrangements were made, and goods were traded. I wonder if perhaps something similar also occurred at Gobekli Tepe and the other similar surrounding sites. If perhaps for the "harvest" season the various people in the region would put whatever differences they had aside and would travel and converge onto the harvest sites to partake in the harvest. Leading to these sites, and the (I assume) annual gathering, becoming an important meeting place for intertribal negotiations and trade. A meeting place that eventually become permanent.

Just to correct that Aboriginal Australian cultures do have gods/spirits. They are increasingly understood to have been agricultural prior to colonization

I have some alternative interpretations of the images that you might like to consider. First is the man without a head indicates that he is having an out of body experience. His head is in another world of animal spirits while his body stays behind. The fact that he is also ithyphallic is indicative of a trance. Similar depictions of ithyphallic spirit journeys are found in earlier cave paintings and shamans around the world report this phenomenon when going into trance.. If you do not have pottery, skulls make a great container for everyday use. The person with a bull is holding either a snake, a symbol of change, or perhaps even a "bull roarer", an instrument long used in spiritual ceremony and initiation or even another bull's tail with which the man is teasing the bull to prove his bravery. He is communing with the the bull to give him virility and strength. It is hard for me to believe that a single person could take down a bull and castrate it, especially the large, wild ancient bulls. The figure that is holding his phallus, flanked by two leopards, could be, as you say, a young man going through puberty initiation rights or he could be performing a rite similar to ancient Egyptian fertility rituals. In Egypt, according to legend, the Egyptian god Atum created the universe after ejaculation from masturbation. The flow of the Nile was also said to be connected to the number of times the god ejaculated. Due to this, the pharaohs of ancient Egypt were required to ceremonially masturbate into the Nile. Historically, also, leopards have an association with protection and rulers. Perhaps this figure is not an initiate but somehow involved with renewal.

Woohoo Lee. Gotta show our archaeologists all the love for their works 🥰

We are so privileged to have you to tell us these stories. Even if they are way off, it's a special experience to connect with our ancestors.

This is the video I was waiting for. Thank you so much!

Amazing work as always

There was an area of southern Egypt, aka/Upper Egypt, during the PPN that did much of what you've been discussing at an even earlier time period, around 15,000 years before present. (During a period of desertification) However, it seems that they took the additional step of broadcasting the grain seed... No, they didn't plow fields or weed any fields. They just threw the seeds on the ground & did nothing else until harvest time. They had seasonal villages that they built & used in rotation with other sites. Hundreds of querns have been found at these sites. The sites were in use only briefly, maybe a couple hundred years & then they went back to a fully nomadic lifestyle as soon as climate conditions improved.

Superb video mate 👏

The Bull painted on the wall of Lsscaux cave in western France is a representation of the Taurus constellation. It has the seven stars around the eye of the bull. Only the celestial Bull has these seven stars around the eye. This indicates that the zodiac constellation was represented as a Bull as far back as 25,-30,000 years ago. Zodiac symbolism was certainly formed a long time before Gobekli Tepe was constructed.

Consistently excellent, Jon! You are our extraordinary guide for journeys back in time. Always a worthwhile treat. Thank you.

It is always better to say Anatolia or modern Turkey considering the fact that none of civilisations in Anatolia were related to ethnic Altaic/ Turkic peoples at all.