What if it's Just a Handbag? (part two of a series: What came before Genesis?)

 

I believe it is quite comical sometimes when we look at art, writing, or other artifacts from a foreign land or a forgotten time, and instead of examining the evidence with our vast store of accessible contextual knowledge, we settle on conclusions that will titillate and tantalize the viewer, listener or reader.

The image above is, of course, a montage of photos of Her Majesty Elizabeth II of Great Britain.  It is clear that she is holding what appears to be an ordinary handbag.  The keen observer will note that he has seen images like this over the years.  In fact, it seems that almost every time Her Majesty has appeared in public, she has been holding a similar handbag in a similar fashion, on her left wrist, her right hand over the left.  She is not smiling in any of the images.

Compare that with these three images of the late Queen.  The left one is in the same handbag position, but the other two are different from it and from each other.  She is smiling in all three images.

Pretend you are an archaeologist and discovered these images  2,000 years from now.  What would you make of them?

The Queen is similarly dressed in each image:  long coat, matching hat, brooch, pearls, and gloves.  Since she is dressed almost the same way in each image, we might conclude that this is just a fashion of the day.  Alternately, it might, in fact, be some kind of uniform.  Perhaps the colors have meaning.  It might be that she just simply has a preference for the way she dresses.

She likely lived in a temperate or cooler climate.  Her clothes seem heavy and thick.

It is likely that she is right-handed since the object that looks like a handbag is always on her left wrist in the images.  If we know that she was a queen who ruled a great nation from the middle of the 20th century until the first quarter of the 21st, we might see the hat as a sort of crown or badge of office.  We might also conclude that the handbag has a special significance since it appears in every image.

Perhaps the handbag is the key to some sort of defense or weapons system with which only the queen is trusted.  The American president, at that time always had a briefcase present which contained access to thermo-nuclear weapons systems.  This could be something like that.  Perhaps it contains certain artifacts that assist her in her rule.

In five of the six images, the Queen is wearing gloves.  We see her hands in only one image.  Does that matter?

We know that most monarchies had vanished by the 20th century.  Why was this woman a queen when there were few queens anywhere on Earth?

It is easy to see how we can observe images and artifacts from other places and times and make conclusions based on those observations.  Without further evidence, artifacts and images can lead us to conclusions that might or might not be accurate.

In our time, that is, in the first quarter of the 21st century, we are the beneficiaries of the rapid development of large-scale imaging technology which can be used to scan sites suspected of containing ancient ruins which are buried and not otherwise visible.  Newly discovered sites have been identified around the world, previously unknown to us.  Archaeologists, anthro- pologists, and other scientists certainly have enough work to stay very busy for many years to come.

One of the most interesting of these recent finds is located in what is now Turkey, in the mountains near the border with Syria.  It is known as Gobekli Tepe ("potbelly hill" in Turkish.

The location of this find is of particular importance due to its proximity to both the Tigris/Euphrates valley, where the ancient civilization of Sumer was located, which has been dubbed the Cradle of Civilization, and to the steppes area around the Caucasus Mountains and the Black Sea in what is now the area of Georgia, Uzbekistan, etc.

Before we proceed, we need to take a look at the historical timeline as it has been suggested by scientists and historians.  I use the word "suggested" because science is evolving very rapidly in these areas of study.  As new sites are found and excavated, universities, museums, and private institutions, and individuals have stepped up funding efforts and committed additional personnel to these projects.

There is no agreement among scientists as to the exact dates of ancient civilizations.  In most cases, one civilization did not disappear overnight and new civilizations did not usually replace them quickly.  We can, however, arrive at some general periods for these civilizations or cultures.

7000 BCE- Indus Valley Civilization.

5000 BCE- Sumerian Civilization.

3000 BCE- Minoan Civilization.

2450 BCE- Kingdom of Kush.

1900 BCE- Mycenaean Civilization.

1200 BCE- Olmec Civilization.  (The Olmecs were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization. Following a progressive development in Soconusco, they occupied the tropical lowlands of the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco.

750 BCE- Etruscan Civilization.

500-400 BCE Golden Age of Athens

625 BCE-476 CE Roman Empire (The Period of Kings (625-510 BC), Republican Rome (510-31 BC), and Imperial Rome (31 BCE-476 CE)

1450 BCE Egyptian Empire (known as the New Kingdom)

Other than the Olmec civilization, all of these are located in the general area around the eastern Mediterranean Sea.  The Olmec is included because there are features found in its ruins that are important to this study.  There were other things going on in other parts of the world at that time, largely unknown to the people who lived in the Mediterranean Sea area, but we are focusing here on the area in which we have conventionally agreed that civilization or culture was first identified.  Later, we will see that some of these other geographical locations far outside the  Mediterranean area will hold features of interest.

Note that the earliest civilization or identifiable culture dates back to 7000 BCE.  Prior to recent finds, scientists have believed that the early versions of homo species (Homo Neanderthalensis, Homo Sapiens, etc.) were hunter-gatherers who had neither agriculture nor domesticated animals, with the possible exception of dogs, which provided hunting skills and protection.

The site currently being excavated at Gobekli Tepe, however, has produced datable plant material and animal remains that have consistently dated to a period some 5,000 to 6,000 years BEFORE the Indus civilization which has been dated around 7,000 BCE.  This means Gobekli Tepe was built between 11,000 and 13,000 years ago (9,000 to 11,000 BCE).  This means that the massive site was built thousands of years before we previously believed that humankind had developed the most rudimentary versions of civilization.

In other words, a major stone construction project that includes at least five individual sets of structures, each about 300 meters in diameter, was built before human settlement, before agriculture, and before metal tools.  Only one of the sites on the hill has been excavated.  All the other sites are currently inside and buried under the hill and the evidence shows that they have been systematically backfilled or buried.

This is an aerial view of the site:

image: Wikipedia

A wide view of the site under excavation today:

image: Wikipedia

Another angle of the excavated site showing the covering that has been installed to curb weather  damage:

image: Wikipedia

I believe that most people, presented with this evidence, will either scoff, or form theories of all kinds from gods to aliens to superhumans to giants ad nauseum.  The simple truth is that we do not know who built these gigantic structures., how they were built, and why.

For the sake of brevity, I will not present a carefully constructed argument that stone-age (neolithic in this case) men could not have built gigantic stone structures with stone and bone tools.  This would have been both mentally and physically impossible for these people.  In addition, agriculture would have been necessary to provide enough food for the number of workers that would have been required and evidence of agriculture is missing, or so far it has not been found.

How, then, could this complex of what are believed to be temples of some kind, have been constructed in around 10,000 BCE?

Several theories have been advanced:

1.    The conventional theory is that the complex was actually built by hunter-gatherers with stone and bone tools, essentially little more than what we think of as "cavemen."  I find this to be difficult to accept, given the size and scale of the construction.

(Artist's conception of Neolithic man)

image: Wikipedia

(Reconstruction of Neolithic hunter from frozen remains found in the Italian Alps.)

image: Wikipedia

2.    A speculative theory exists that Gobekli Tepe and many other structures around the world were built at approximately the same time period by alien beings, probably from another planetary system, possessing advanced technologies.  There is no reasonable theory as to who they were, where they came from, why they came, or why they left.  Without further evidence, we will reject that theory for now.

4.    Perhaps the easiest theory to explain all the questions is that ancient gods came to Earth and built these structures.  No one knows how or why.  Again, there is no evidence to support this theory.

5.    Many cultures have a tradition that far, far back in time, following a huge worldwide cataclysmic event, men or possible giants with highly advanced knowledge and skills arrived at various places around the world and taught men how to grow food, and how to build in stone.  There is no consistency in the details of their coming and going except that they frequently arrived from the sea or in a boat.

6.  A final theory is that there were human civilizations on Earth before the time we recognize as the stone age and that they built these structures around the world, structures which were built long before the Egyptian pyramids, and long before Stonehenge (remember there are stone circles all over Britain and Ireland and in the Northwest of France.)  This theory, or some version of it,  can be found in the folklore of many cultures on Earth, as we shall see.

There are a couple of facts that will help us focus on our subject:

1.    There were people living in many other parts of the world during the period of 11,000 BCE to 9,000 BCE.

2.    I believe that we focus on the eastern end of the Mediterranean for several reasons:

• Our largest (and oldest continuously existing) religious traditions which have most shaped European, modern American, and Western Asian cultures, sprung from, flourished, and first grew in this geographical area.
• This general area produced several empires over thousands of years, which aided in the development of worldwide trade.
• The area where Gobekli Tepe is located is on a route between the Caucasus Mountains and Asian steppes and the Mesopotamian and Nile valleys, making it, along with the areas of Israel, Jordan, and Syria today, an area widely and frequently traveled.

One thing we have not thus far considered in this post, and one which is an integral and necessary part of the discussion about people who lived in and around the eastern end of the Mediterranean at the time period we are considering is a simple, but important question:

Does the Bible say anything about Gobekli Tepe?

The Holy Bible tells man's history from creation to a time after the death and resurrection of Yeshua, around 32-35 CE.  Its books cover all of human history up to that time.  The Hebrew Bible, from which the Old Testament was derived, was mostly written, edited, and finally compiled around the time of the Babylonian Captivity and later, roughly between 597 BCE and 538 BCE, using sources that are now lost, so that we do not know how far back some of these stories were first written down.  No scroll, codex, or any other physically observable source of the Bible created before this period has been found.  The oldest papyrus or vellum scrolls found to date (the Dead Sea Scrolls, recovered between 1947 and 1956), are dated to the first century BCE.  One older Biblical source or analog has been accurately dated to the seventh century BCE and contains one verse that is found in the Biblical book of Numbers (6:24-26).

-http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2010/01/06/The-Blessing-of-the-Silver-Scrolls.aspx (Accessed January 24, 2019)

There is nothing in either the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Old Testament that mentions Gobekli Tepe in any way.  This seems difficult for this reason:  Gobekli Tepe is located in an area that was transversed by armies, empires, pilgrims, and evangelists before and during the Biblical period beginning with Abraham, the father of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and extending thousands of years to the time of Saul the Letter Writer (better known as St. Paul), the self-appointed apostle.

Location of Gobekli Tepe complex in Turkey:

One map of Abraham's migration:

Another map of Abraham's migration:

A map of Saul's (Paul's) journeys:

Another map of Saul's (Paul's) journeys:

Clearly, these Biblical travelers and many, many others walked or rode frequently in the area where Gobekli Tepe is located at least from the time of Abraham (roughly between 2,000 BCE and 1,000 BCE) until the time of Saul (50-65 CE).  So, for some 2,000 to 3,000 years, Gobekli Tepe was waiting to be discovered before the BCE/CE transition period.  The site was right there under the ground and NO REFERENCE is made to it in the history of the world absolutely and officially accepted by Jews, Christians, and Muslims even to the present time.  The logical extension of this argument is that either the Bible authors did not know Gobekli Tepe existed or that they knew about it but chose to keep it quiet.  I reject the second possibility because it is clear that the Bible authors had no idea that Gobekli (or any other similar site) existed.  The Bible authors did not know how to keep quiet about anything.

We conclude, then that the Bible authors were ignorant of Gobekli Tepe even though it was located on their trade and conquest routes for thousands of years.  This speaks to the antiquity of the site, which existed long before any Bible story was written.  We will explore their omission of this mention and many more like it in future posts.

The site was buried in the sand long before Abraham was said to have lived.  Biblical dating places Abraham about 2,000 years from creation, twenty generations removed from Adam.  This is quite inconsistent with what we know to be true about Gobekli Tepe (and many other sites around the world).  I remind, again, that the people writing in the general area of the Middle East during Biblical times had no idea of the actual age of the planet or of the timeline of the emergence of any human species.  They certainly did not know anything about the rest of the world in their own time or in the cultures of the deepest antiquity, which were in existence thousands of years before any person who wrote any part of the Bible or was mentioned in the Bible was born.  The Bible authors were unaware that any cultures existed anywhere else in the world.  The Bible completely ignores people who lived anywhere else at any time at all.  Those who continue to see the Bible as unquestioned history have to be willing to ignore a vast store of the most compelling physical evidence that the history recounted there is inaccurate to say the very least.

 

We have established that the Gobekli Tepe complex was built by someone around 11,000 to 13,000 years ago.

 We have established that stone age men are unlikely candidates for the builders of Gobekli Tepe for a number of important reasons.

These premises suggest that there was a human civilization that could build huge complexes of massive structures in stone and that disappeared completely, leaving only a record in art and architecture long before hunter-gatherers were eating locusts and wild honey in the deserts and hills of Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Arabia, and Africa.
 
I will end this part of the story by introducing one of the artifacts unearthed at Gobekli Tepe.  We will learn in subsequent posts that this artifact has become very important in our quest to discover these ancient builders.  

That particular artifact is a carving on one of the pillars unearthed at Gobekli Tepe.  It is a carving of what appears to be a representation of something that looks a great deal like three ordinary modern-day handbags.

There are three objects at the top with basically rectangular bases and semi-circular loops above.  That shape is very important.

In subsequent posts, we will examine this artifact more closely and see what it might have to do with stories in the Bible, stories outside the Bible, sites and artifacts found around the world, a pre-historic race of giants, and finally with creatures described in the Bible, a hybrid between human females and male beings, called Sons of God in the Old Testament, who either corrupted mankind, causing a world-wide flood, or saved mankind after the flood.

Stay tuned!

Suggestions for further reading:

Armstrong, Karen. The Bible: A Biography (Books That Changed the World). Grove Atlantic. Kindle Edition.  2006

Dever, William  Has Archaeology Buried the Bible?  EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN 2020

Diamond, Jared  Collapse  Penguin  2005

Finkel, Irving The Ark Before Noah Doubleday 2014

Metzger, Bruce and Coogan, Michael D.  The Oxford Companion to the Bible  Oxford University Press  1993