gobekli tepe - genesis of the gods (29 page)

Plate 4
. Pillars belonging to Göbekli Tepe’s Enclosure A, the first structure to be uncovered, during the 1995–96 digging seasons. Visible in the center is Pillar 2, showing an auroch, a leaping fox, and a wading bird, most likely a crane.

Plate 5
. Göbekli Tepe’s Enclosure B, which lies immediately to the north of Enclosure A. The two T-shaped pillars to the right stand at its center, each one with a leaping fox on its inner face. Do they represent the cosmic trickster?

Plate 6
. The leaping fox on the inner face of Enclosure B’s Pillar 10. Note the graffito boar carved immediately beneath it.

Plate 7
. Göbekli Tepe’s Enclosure C from the north. Note the remains of its twin central pillars (the eastern one encased in wood), as well as the twin standing stones acting as its southern entranceway.

Plate 8
. One arm of the U-shaped portal, dubbed the “Lion’s Gate,” that marked the entrance into the long corridor, or dromos, that enabled access to Enclosure C. The strange quadruped that caps its termination is thought to be a feline of some sort.

Plate 9
. Pillar 37, the western of the two great monoliths that stand at the center of Enclosure C. Like the twin pillars in Enclosure B, it has a leaping fox carved on its inner face. This animal faces south, toward the entrant who walks between the twin monoliths in order to access the sky world.

Plate 10
. The author surveys Göbekli Tepe’s unfinished monolith, partly hewn out of the bedrock around a quarter of a mile (400 meters) from the main enclosures. It is as much as 22 feet (6.9 meters) in length and 6.5 feet (2 meters) broad, with an estimated weight of 50 metric tonnes (approximately 55 U.S. tons).

Plate 11
. Decoration on the right-hand side of the waist belt on Pillar 18, the eastern central monolith in Enclosure D. It shows a combination of C and H glyphs.

Plate 12
. Pillars 31 and 18, the central monoliths of Enclosure D. Note the long arm of the eastern pillar, which seems to be almost holding the fox. See also the way that the T-shaped head is tilted toward those who approach from the south.

Plate 13
. Pillar 18’s belt buckle, with its three-tailed comet design, surrounded by a group of H-shaped ideograms. Note also the fox-pelt loincloth hanging directly beneath the belt buckle.

Plate 14
. The twin pillars at the center of Enclosure D. Note the holed stone centrally positioned behind the monoliths, which might well have targeted the bright star Deneb in Cygnus as it set on the horizon around 9400 BC.

Plate 15
. The holed sighting stone at the rear of Enclosure D. Note the lines suggestive of the legs and buttocks of the female form, which if correct makes the hole a representation of the vulva.