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World's oldest temple built to worship the dog star
New Scientist ^ | Friday, August 16, 2013 | Anil Ananthaswamy

Posted on 08/17/2013 4:28:29 AM PDT by SunkenCiv

Magli simulated what the sky would have looked like from Turkey when Göbekli Tepe was built. Over millennia, the positions of the stars change due to Earth wobbling as it spins on its axis. Stars that are near the horizon will rise and set at different points, and they can even disappear completely, only to reappear thousands of years later.

Today, Sirius can be seen almost worldwide as the brightest star in the sky -- excluding the sun -- and the fourth brightest night-sky object after the moon, Venus and Jupiter. Sirius is so noticeable that its rising and setting was used as the basis for the ancient Egyptian calendar, says Magli. At the latitude of Göbekli Tepe, Sirius would have been below the horizon until around 9300 BC, when it would have suddenly popped into view...

Using existing maps of Göbekli Tepe and satellite images of the region, Magli drew an imaginary line running between and parallel to the two megaliths inside each enclosure. Three of the excavated rings seem to be aligned with the points on the horizon where Sirius would have risen in 9100 BC, 8750 BC and 8300 BC, respectively (arxiv.org/abs/1307.8397).

(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: anatolia; archaeoastronomy; archaeology; astronomy; catalhoyuk; catalhuyuk; gobeklitepe; godsgravesglyphs; jupiter; megaliths; moon; sanliurfa; sirius; thisissirius; turkey; venus
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To: JCBreckenridge

What is amazing to me is that they were able to do this so long ago, just barely after coming out of the hunter/gatherer stage of things (about 1000 years earlier??). Although I suppose with the growing of crops, the knowledge of seasons and time became much more important to them.

BTW - all of this development (agriculture, communities, large structures, etc.) was possible due to Global Warming.


41 posted on 08/17/2013 4:19:03 PM PDT by 21twelve ("We've got the guns, and we got the numbers" adapted and revised from Jim M.)
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To: JCBreckenridge

Satan foreshadows, echos and mocks...


42 posted on 08/17/2013 4:47:13 PM PDT by null and void (Frequent terrorist attacks OR endless government snooping and oppression? We can have both!)
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To: 21twelve

We know precious little of the age and their capabilities. I believe the research in this thread here is original. 9100 BC appears to herald the first rising of Sirius in more than 800 years over this particular area. The Long Year appears to be well understood by the Egyptians and Babylonians after so it does not seem to be a coincidence that this temple was built to herald the occasion.


43 posted on 08/17/2013 5:45:18 PM PDT by JCBreckenridge
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To: Flag_This

In the days before TV or books and when artificial light was either unreliable or very expensive, the nighttime “show” was in the sky. And there is lots to see with no urban light pollution.


44 posted on 08/19/2013 4:48:12 PM PDT by colorado tanker
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To: existentially_kuffer

Exactly. Pre-islamic Arab pagans worshipped the Moon God & daughters of Allah—Allat, Uzza, and Manat.


45 posted on 11/16/2013 6:12:57 AM PST by existentially_kuffer
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