Dr Martin Sweatman, a chemical engineer at Edinburgh University, is at it again. Not content with upsetting mainstream by identifying figures on the Vulture Stone at Gobekli Tepe, he has now interpreted other figures elsewhere as having celestial properties and a calendrical system which focuses on particular points in the year. In the Clube and Napier analysis of the Taurid meteor streams, the days around midsummer solstice were important, and of course the crack in the year associated with Halloween. Hence, a calendrical system devised to keep track of the passage of time was important to humans unfortunate enough to be living in a hazardous episode – or episodes. The turning of the seasons was not only important to the later farming communities but it seems, in the period leading up to the Neolithic transition.
See https://www.sciencealert.com/carvings-in-ancient-temple-of-gbekli-tepe-could-be-earths-oldest-calendar … and various other internet sciency sources such as IFL and PhysOrg etc. It seems Pot Belly Hill, may have been used, at least in part, as a watchtower of sorts, combing the sky for danger. The analysis runs to 50 pages and is well argued as an engineer would do, covering many possible points that critics may home in on. Cosmic Tusk also put up a post and a link to the full article yesterday. No excuse for not refreshing your knowledge of the subject. The SIS autumn meeting had a video talk of Sweatman talking to the 2023 – see for example https://cosmictusk.com/martin-sweatman-drops-paper-on-turkish-tepes/ … Sweatman, on this occasion, homed in on V shaped marks and found that if each mark represented a single day, then one of the pillars shows a year of 365 days consisting of 12 lunar months and 11 extra days. The bird of prey on the Vulture Stone wears a V symbol around its neck. The bird of prey, he suggests, represents the constellations associated with summer solstice. The V symbol worn by the bird represents the solstice itself. Other figures on other pilars have similar V symbols as well as statues and figures at other locations in this part of Turkey [such as Karahan Tepe].
Two of the pillars, he says, appear to depict the annual the Taurid meteor showers, the likely source of the Yonger Dryas event. The article is published in Time and Mind, a journal set up initially with a lot of input from Paul Devereux. If you click on Time and Mind [in blue] at the Science Alert link you will be taken, again, to the relevant article.
Time and Mind, The Journal of Archaeology, Consiousness, and Culture, Martin Sweatman, ‘Representations of Calendars and Time at Gobekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe suggest an Astronomical interpretation of their Symbolism‘ … which is another way of saying, we in the modern world have a problem in trying to understand the symbolism of the ancients. This applies not just to Manetho or the Bible, but to Gobekli Tepe and various Palaeolithic cave art.