13,000 Year old temple,

[HillBill]

Just found this today, maybe some of you already know about it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...-mysterious-stones-mark-site-Garden-Eden.html

This complex was built 10,000 years before the pyramids and has turned everything upside down because apparently we were living in caves then.

 

[Wayland]

Fascinating...

 

[SkogKniv]

Absolutely amazing. I love it when we think we know how something went or is, and something like this pops up to rewrite history once again.

 

[British Red]

Makes me laugh out loud.

Another case of science not having all the answers (aka being proved plain wrong) ....oh an of course archaeology describing something as a "temple" or "ritual significance" ...aka "we have no clue what it is or what it was for"

Great to still have some things to marvel at...and to know that no, we don't have all the answers!

Red

 

[HillBill]

Makes me laugh out loud.

Another case of science not having all the answers (aka being proved plain wrong) ....oh an of course archaeology describing something as a "temple" or "ritual significance" ...aka "we have no clue what it is or what it was for"

Great to still have some things to marvel at...and to know that no, we don't have all the answers!

Red

Agree with you 100% there Red. The more we think we know, the more we find out we don't know much.

 

[Toddy]

Gobekli Tepe is a stunning site, but why does the Mail have to report it in such an overblown way ?
The archaeological remains are unique enough that they don't need a religious controversy added to their interpretation.
One man's theories promoting a book is why

The fertile crescent is well named, and we know of the domestication of animals and plants within that area so successfully that mound cities, like Catal Huyuk
http://www.smm.org/catal/introduction/
could support up to 15,000 people on a mixed agriculture and hunting economy.

This temple site only pushes that date back by 4,000 years, Catal Huyuk is only one mound, there are so many more that haven't been touched let alone excavated and analysed.
We don't know the whole picture and archaeology has never claimed that it does.
The site adds to our knowledge, it allows us to refine theories..............and isn't the carving stunning

We know from DNA analysis that dogs were domesticated at least 15,000 years ago,(there is one study claiming that it's at least 31,000 years ago in the Aurignacean period in Europe...........cavemen ? there were still populations of Neanderthals then) and the divide from wolves is nearer 100,000 years ago. Pigs are a classic example of multi regional domestication.............the fertile crescent's agricultural advances aren't unique, it happened in South America, China, and there are claims for Africa and India too.

We don't need to create aliens to rationally interpret the past, just take a wider look at the world.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Chinkapin]

Fascinating, thanks HillBill for posting the link.

 

[dogwood]

Great story!

In part this reflects how much of a gap there is in our knowledge from about 80,000 years ago until we began building durable structures.

When our hunter gatherer ancestors began burying the dead and/or disposing of the bodies in other ways, once they start breaking camp when they move on, once they start giving tools to others instead of dropping them, it gets really hard to piece together their lives.

This is why we've got so few Neanderthal skeletons. They moved around a lot, they took their artifacts with them and they buried their dead....

In many ways we've got a clearer picture of life in the Jurassic than we do in the stone age.

That's what makes the period so fascinating too -- there is a tremendous amount yet to learn.

 

[BOD]

Wonderful.

I particularly like the notion that it was religion that was the forbidden fruit that doomed us to expulsion from paradise.

 

[robin wood]

Yep great site but of course Çatalhöyük gave us things like the first known textiles, mirror and wooden bowl.

Those carvings are incredible, imagine doing that with stone tools. Shame about the over dramatised story from a guy selling a book. I would rather hear it from the archaeologists.

 

[Shambling Shaman]

Makes me laugh out loud.

Another case of science not having all the answers (aka being proved plain wrong) ....oh an of course archaeology describing something as a "temple" or "ritual significance" ...aka "we have no clue what it is or what it was for"

Great to still have some things to marvel at...and to know that no, we don't have all the answers!

Red

Agreed... when they dig up a pub thousands of years from now
"People used gather here, It must have been for religious reasons?"

I also laugh at that friends episode where Phoebe says something like
"scientist were shore the atom was the smallest thing on the planet, till some one cut one open and a whole mess of stuff fell out"

 

[Cobweb]

Fascinating, I liked the reference to Eden... I'm not a Christian by any stretch of the imagination but I believe that the bible stories are a kind of remembered event, an old folk tale dressed up to enhance the 'one true god' fanaticism.

The archaeological evidence suggests that the place was surrounded by trees and plants which in turn would provide an abundance of food, both fruit, plant and game, especially in that region. Why not Eden? The suggestion that these stones are religious is a basic one, anything lasting this long is considered religious, but I doubt it.

To be honest, looking at the way the stones are laid out, I reckon that it's a burial ground. The look more like tomb stones. The carvings suggest to me that the person(s) buried hunted these animals.

Another theory is that they tell stories. It could've been a classroom or a meeting place where people gathered and used the stones to illustrate the stories or lessons being taught.

Which ever, they are a very interesting look at how our ancestors saw the world.

Thank you for posting the link!

 

[WhichDoctor]

I gave up on the Mail's site quite quickly but there is a good article on Wikipedia. Very interesting though, I'd never herd of it before.

Another case of science not having all the answers (aka being proved plain wrong)....oh an of course archaeology describing something as a "temple" or "ritual significance" ...aka "we have no clue what it is or what it was for"

I fail to see how this is science having "been proved plain wrong" when its scientists doing the proving. That is rather the point of science, you make theories baste on the evidence and when the evidence changes the theories change with it.

You are right about the "ritual significance" however. Archeologists do so love ritual, it seems to be there first description for everything before they understand it.

Toddy and dogwood are right, all this does is push back our earliest evidence for Human settlement by a few thousand years.

I do like the idea that farming and cities were only invented as a way to support religion though, rather terns everything on its head

 

[Toddy]

Here's a double no on the discussion on the forum front, but.......I sometimes wonder when religion was first used as a justification for political action.........the 'Divine' right of kings, people who don't adhere to a certain form of social structure are 'evil', slavery or social ostracism as a fundamental religious tenet, that kind of thing.

I wonder about the 'temple' aspect too......why not a trading place ? a learning place ? a discussion place ? an entertainment place ? a judgment place ?.......this is why sites like this are called places of ritual significance.
We joke about using the term when we genuinely don't know, but we also use it when a place has some obviously important social function even when we don't yet have a widely approved of interpretation.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[firecrest]

I think the garden of eden probably has some grain of truth - places usually do, especially if it is in the fertile creseant. Something with that much abundance and skilled artisans is bound to have gathered a mythological representation.
I have a gripe with how we condence the past though. As modern people with have no oral or conscious connection to what went on 3000 years ago unless we investigate. Yet here we have a temple possibly 11,000 years old and was buried 8,000 years ago "perhaps the people were ashamed of the barbaric acts associated with the place" it says. but 3000 years lapsed inbetween it being built and being buried!! Isnt it more likely a new religion replaced the existing one in the area, and nobody remembered what the site was for, other than that it looked rather unlike their own belief system and buried it?

 

[HillBill]

I think the garden of eden probably has some grain of truth - places usually do, especially if it is in the fertile creseant. Something with that much abundance and skilled artisans is bound to have gathered a mythological representation.
I have a gripe with how we condence the past though. As modern people with have no oral or conscious connection to what went on 3000 years ago unless we investigate. Yet here we have a temple possibly 11,000 years old and was buried 8,000 years ago "perhaps the people were ashamed of the barbaric acts associated with the place" it says. but 3000 years lapsed inbetween it being built and being buried!! Isnt it more likely a new religion replaced the existing one in the area, and nobody remembered what the site was for, other than that it looked rather unlike their own belief system and buried it?

Eden has a very substantial basis in truth. Like most things in the bible it was taken from ancient Sumarian texts. E'den was a city of Sumer.

The Sumerian Eden was located in Dilmun, modern day Bahrain. Eden contained the Tigris and Euphrates rivers associated with Sumeria. The word Eden was derived from an old Babylonian name for Mesopotamia, Gan-Eden, the garden of the Middle East. Because those great two rivers watered the rich plains between them, the word Mesopotamia means between the waters.

Enki, the Sumerian water-God and God of wisdom, impregnates Ninhursag, his half-sister. Enki desires a son, but receives a daughter. He them impregnates his daughter, who in turn gives him a daughter. Ninhursag decides to put an end to this immoral procession by sowing eight poisonous plants in the garden. Enki eats of all eight plants and becomes deathly ill. On of Enki's sick organs is the rib. Nin-ti is created to heal Enki. Nin-ti means "she who makes live." It is approximately what Eve means. Nin-ti can also be translated as "the lady of the rib." "Ti" means rib and "to make live."



Most of the bible is taken from their scripts. The flood happened to them ( the one which the bible attached noah to). They also have lots of very controversial text carved into their temple walls that can not be explained rationally. Such as the Sumer king list which lists all the kings ( funnily enough) from ancient sumar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_king_list

The controversal bit being that some of the kings reigned for 40,000 years. It is a very detailed document though so it cannot be passed off as untrue. Nor can it be publicly confirmed.

A very interesting people with a VERY INTERESTING history.

Read up on it, it will surprise you.

Lots of Sumer symbolism is used today by the elite. The Masons symbol is Sumer in origin.

 

[BorderReiver]

Makes me laugh out loud.

Another case of science not having all the answers (aka being proved plain wrong) ....oh an of course archaeology describing something as a "temple" or "ritual significance" ...aka "we have no clue what it is or what it was for"

Great to still have some things to marvel at...and to know that no, we don't have all the answers!

Red

Science doesn't have, nor has ever claimed to have, "all the answers".

When current perceived knowledge is "proved plain wrong" scientists in that field are delighted to have the new ideas to work with.

Science searches for answers and tries to interpret available evidence using current knowledge. When new evidence emerges, the interpretation changes.

 

[BorderReiver]

Eden has a very substantial basis in truth. Like most things in the bible it was taken from ancient Sumarian texts. E'den was a city of Sumer.

The Sumerian Eden was located in Dilmun, modern day Bahrain. Eden contained the Tigris and Euphrates rivers associated with Sumeria. The word Eden was derived from an old Babylonian name for Mesopotamia, Gan-Eden, the garden of the Middle East. Because those great two rivers watered the rich plains between them, the word Mesopotamia means between the waters.

Enki, the Sumerian water-God and God of wisdom, impregnates Ninhursag, his half-sister. Enki desires a son, but receives a daughter. He them impregnates his daughter, who in turn gives him a daughter. Ninhursag decides to put an end to this immoral procession by sowing eight poisonous plants in the garden. Enki eats of all eight plants and becomes deathly ill. On of Enki's sick organs is the rib. Nin-ti is created to heal Enki. Nin-ti means "she who makes live." It is approximately what Eve means. Nin-ti can also be translated as "the lady of the rib." "Ti" means rib and "to make live."



Most of the bible is taken from their scripts. The flood happened to them ( the one which the bible attached noah to). They also have lots of very controversial text carved into their temple walls that can not be explained rationally. Such as the Sumer king list which lists all the kings ( funnily enough) from ancient sumar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_king_list

The controversal bit being that some of the kings reigned for 40,000 years. It is a very detailed document though so it cannot be passed off as untrue. Nor can it be publicly confirmed.

A very interesting people with a VERY INTERESTING history.

Read up on it, it will surprise you.

Lots of Sumer symbolism is used today by the elite. The Masons symbol is Sumer in origin.

Why?

Just because it's "detailed" doesn't mean the whole thing can't be total fabrication.

 

[British Red]

Science doesn't have, nor has ever claimed to have, "all the answers

I'm sure that's right BR- sometimes. However science is a word and therefore incapable of utterance.

Do you mean that no-one, ever, who professes to be a scientist has ever made such an assertion? Or that no "true scientists" have?

I have though read posts, articles, etc. expressing outrage when people profess views that are not "accepted science".

Science has its own mantras and I often feel the overtones of "burn the heretic" when people criticise aspects of it. Indeed as I said before, science is the new religion with its priests (scientists), saints (Nobel Prize winners), ceremonies (peer review) etc. All spoken of in hushed and reverential tones. And of course its sects, schisms and excommunications!

In my mind science is a word, it has good practitioners and charlatans (some notably exposed recently), it has done great things (advances in medicines) and terrible things (nuclear and chemical weapons).

Scientists are not above beyond being wrong, or beyond monumental conceit.

The parralels with "enforced religion" are uncanny.

I love poking fun at pompous priests and I also enjoy poking fun at pompous scientists

Not having a pop at any membes of this forum but I willingly confess to moments of schadenfreude when the pomposity of any "we know better" group is dented

Me - I like my world based on a little logic, a little wonder and leavened with a pinch of certainty that no person or group has all the answers.

Red

 

[HillBill]

Why?

Just because it's "detailed" doesn't mean the whole thing can't be total fabrication.

I am not forwarding an opinion on either possibility as i do not know. The fact that it has not been discredited speaks louder than i ever could. It may not be true but then it may not be wrong either.

Science is detailed, does that mean science could be total fabrication? People were different back then, different values etc, don't judge them on the perception of modern human behaviour, we can not concieve of their mentalities. Some of the kings on the king list have also been independantly confirmed from elsewhere and by different people. So it is not "total" fabrication.

Thats the thing with science, they say they do not have all the answers then act like they do until something changes it. The public then also have the perception that science says this and that so it's correct.If you tell someone something and it is different to what science says then that person will disagree without even thinking about it. When in reality science is nearly always wrong and nearly always has been as this article and quantum physics are now beginning to demonstrate. Do not put your faith in science.You will only find out you were wrong later. I'd rather not believe it that repeatedly find out i was never right in the first place.