This posting will be followed by a further posting, Asagi Gobekli II, and by additional postings about ancient sites in Upper Mesopotamia that also fit into the same inter-connected astronomical land survey analysis, i.e. as part of one broad system of land survey by astronomy.
Here we look more closely at Aşağı Göbekli, a place name location in Sanliurfa so little known that Google Earth has no label for it and its precise location was found only at MapCarta.com, which does label it, even though it can not be found through MapCarta's own keyword search. But go to the site at this link that we were lucky to find in order to see the labeled location. It appears to be the lower village of two neighboring populated locations.
In our analysis below, we use the Google Earth map of the region, more out of habit than by any conscious preference of sources.
Aşağı Göbekli (Asagi Gobekli) is located near Sanliurfa, a city which was earlier named Urfa viz. "Ur" and according to legend was Biblical Patriarch Abraham's birthplace in Anatolia, which is today's Eastern Turkey.
Terah, Abraham's father, had his home in the Biblical town of Haran and that is surely the same as the modern city viz. province Harran.
Harran is only 20 km (12 miles) from Aşağı Göbekli. Coincidence?
Our work in this posting, however, is not to resolve some of the difficult outstanding questions about Biblical origins, but we note these matters for the record, as the history of the Göbekli sites may relate to the origin and ancient deeds of the Jews, who have strong DNA markers in common with Anatolian peoples, though this may not be their original location.
The Atlas of the Human Journey-Genetic Markers-Haplogroup J2 (M172) wrote (Wikipedia): "The National Geographic Genographic Project linked haplogroup J2 to the site of Jericho, Tel el-Sultan, ca. 8500 BCE and indicated that in modern populations, haplogroup J2 is found in the Middle East, North Africa and Southern Europe, with especially high distribution among present-day Jewish populations (30%), Southern Italians (20%), and lower frequencies in Southern Spain (10%).[11]".
At Haplogroup J-M172 (Y-DNA J2 M172) it is written at the Wikipedia:
"In human genetics, Haplogroup J-M172 is a Y-chromosome haplogroup which is a subclade (branch) of haplogroup J-P209. J-M172 can be classified as Mediterranean/Aegean (Di Giacomo, 2004), Greco-Anatolian, Mesopotamian and/or Caucasian and is linked to the earliest indigenous populations of Anatolia and the Aegean....See also at Facebook: Cultural Anthropology of Haplogroup J2.
The precise region of origin for haplogroup J-M172 remains a topic of discussion. However, at least within a European context, Anatolia and the Aegean seem to be source regions, with Hg J2 having perhaps arisen in the Levant (Di Giacomo 2004) / Middle East (Semino 2004) with the development of agriculture....
In Europe, the frequency of Haplogroup J-M172 drops as one moves northward away from the Mediterranean. In Italy, J-M172 is found with regional frequencies ranging between 9% and 36% (Capelli 2007). In Greece, it is found with regional frequencies ranging between 10% and 48%. Approximately 24% of Turkish men are J-M172 according to a recent study, (Cinnioglu 2004) with regional frequencies ranging between 13% and 40% (Semino 2000). Combined with J-M267, up to half of the Turkish population belongs to Haplogroup J-P209.
It has been proposed that haplogroup subclade J-M410 was linked to populations on ancient Crete by examining the relationship between Anatolian, Cretan, and Greek populations from around early Neolithic sites in Crete. Haplogroup J-M12 was associated with Neolithic Greece (ca. 8500 - 4300 BCE) and was reported to be found in modern Crete (3.1%) and mainland Greece (Macedonia 7.0%, Thessaly 8.8%, Argolis 1.8%) (King 2008)."
For a scholarly view, see generally Aram Yardumian and Theodore G. Schurr, Who are the Anatolian Turks? Reappraisal of the Anthropological Genetic Evidence, Anthropology & Archaeology of Eurasia, Volume 50, pp. 6-42, 2011. See also Dienekes' Anthtropology Blog about that publication.
All three Göbekli locations appear to mark stars of what we today call the constellation of Cancer, though of course not identical to modern marking.
To recapitulate see the images at Göbekli Köyu I.
The 3 GOBEKLIS in Sanliurfa are:
- Göbekli Tepe, ca 35 kilometers distant from each of the other two
- Göbekli Köyü to the west of Şanliurfa (ancient Urfa), whereas Göbekli Tepe is to the northeast of Şanliurfa, ca. 35 kilometers distant from Göbekli Tepe and Aşağı Göbekli.
- Aşağı Göbekli which "Google Translate" renders as "down roundabout" but which seems to mean "lower Göbekli" and which is to the south of Şanliurfa, ca. 35 kilometers distant from Göbekli Tepe and Göbekli Köyü.
The ca. 60° angle formed at Göbekli Tepe by the two lines running to Göbekli Köyü and Aşağı Göbekli appears to be virtually the same as the angle formed by the lines running from delta Cancri to alpha and beta Cancri.
At Sanliurfa, a line extended from Gobekli Tepe to Asagi Gobekli is of nearly equal length to a line extended to Gobekli Koyu. Stars on the same line to beta Cancri as we use today could have been used in prehistoric days, but the ancients may havealso used stars closer to delta Cancri for making their land survey measurements by astronomy. Beta Cancri is somewhat more distant from delta Cancri than is alpha Cancri.
That analysis appears to hold true, although we can not be sure, because we have not been personally at the actual site, and can not know if the objects we suggest as potential prehistoric markings of stars are in fact ancient and not of modern provenance. For the record, here is what we see as possible:
Google Earth shows the following map image for Aşağı Göbekli which is rendered smaller here to fit on the page.
Is there anyone out there who is unable to see the outline of a bull-like animal with what is more likely a horse's head?
The upper body outline of the figure appears to be a road, perhaps following an ancient path so that the figure shape could be chance, but the head(s) probably not. Perhaps the horse's head replaced a previously existing bull's head figure.
In the next posting, we trace the relevant lines on that map to better identify what is being depicted, including mound-like formations on the ground which in our opinion represent stars of Cancer at and in the stellar area around beta Cancri.
Not having been at the site personally, however, we have no idea what those mound-like formations actually are, nor whether they are ancient or modern, or whether they are modern formations on top of ancient marks. That remains to be determined.
In any case, the next posting deciphers those mound locations as marking stars of Cancer.
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