Free gobekli tepe - genesis of the gods by andrew collins Page B

form of plumage: others said it had the form of an animal’s tail. For this reason some came with feathers on their heads, and others with a lion’s or fox’s tail, each of them mimicking the animal he represented. In the middle of the plaza there was a great bonfire into which they threw their baskets [containing dead animals] along with everything in them. They did this in order to burn up and sacrifice these things, so they would rise up as smoke to the comet. As a result, the comet would have some food during those days and would therefore do them no harm. 5
    Although this strange ceremony to negate the influence of a comet took place on another continent nearly ten thousand years after the abandonment of Göbekli Tepe, the very specific use of fox (and lion) tails not just to represent the comet but also to connect with its supernatural nature, cannot be ignored. This form of sympathetic magic was the domain of the priest or shaman, and there can be little question that very similar ceremonies took place on other continents in past ages.
    That the twin central pillars of Göbekli Tepe’s Enclosure D both display fox tails, while the eastern example additionally possesses a belt buckle that might well show the symbol of a comet, begs the question of whether the Göbekli builders might in some way have been concerned by the influence and presence of comets in our skies. Moreover, because the comet symbolism only appears in full on one of the central pillars, was this particular figure seen to have a special dominion over comets, an ability connected with the proposed message or doctrine introduced to the hunter-gatherers of southeast Anatolia in the epoch immediately prior to the construction of the first stone enclosures at Göbekli Tepe?
    I PREDICT A COMET
    Is it possible that this imposing stone figure at the center of Enclosure D, whoever or whatever it represents, was seen to have delivered the means by which the Epipaleolithic peoples of southeast Anatolia, with the help of his shamanicbased elite, could combat the baleful influence of comets? That the hunter-gatherers of southeast Anatolia so readily gave up their nomadic lifestyles to build monumental architecture in an unprecedented manner argues persuasively that this incoming elite must have had some kind of hold or influence over the people. Perhaps they claimed they had direct contact with the supernatural creature behind the manifestation of comets. If so, then such claims would have needed to be backed up with some convincing displays of proof for the hunter-gatherers to have so readily abandoned their old ways. So what might this have been?
    One realistic answer is that, like the ancient Chinese astrologers behind the creation of the Mawangdui atlas ca. 300–200 BC, the incoming elite had a very real knowledge of comets, which might have included information on periodic comets, those that make their return within one to two human generations. A perfect example is Halley’s Comet, which makes its return every seventy-five to seventy-six years (its last appearances were in 1910 and 1986). Indeed, even though the gravitational influence of the solar system’s larger planets, such as Saturn and Jupiter, means that the orbit of a short-period comet can fluctuate somewhat, it is possible that its reappearance might have been calculated to some degree of accuracy in just a few centuries of observation.
    It is not known whether Halley’s Comet graced our skies in the tenth or eleventh millennium BC, although some sources do suggest that it has been in its current orbit for between sixteen thousand and two hundred thousand years. 6 So the likelihood of Göbekli Tepe’s founding elite being able to calculate the return of a short-period comet was therefore pretty high. If they were able to do this, then using this valuable information to their advantage might have been enough to convince the hunter-gathering communities that they had real influence over these