I’m delighted that my paper, ‘Chips off the Block: Twin Symbolism in the Emergence of Neolithic Monuments and Cosmology’ will be published (quite soon) in the Journal of Skyscape Archaeology (JSA). It was peer reviewed for a while and accepted last year. JSA, which looks at the relevance of the sky in the interpretation of material records, re-terms the modern subject of archaeoastronomy ‘skyscape’ and puts higher emphasis on religious and ritual dimensions in archaeoastronomy than alignments only. As will be clear in their various publications, JSA also seeks to address the split between archaeology and archaeoastronomy. Both archaeology and archaeoastronomy had common origin in old boy club antiquarians of the mid-eighteenth century but whereas the former went on to become an established discipline, the later found itself taking a more obscure route on the fringes of the academic mainstream, manifesting in 1960s British counterculture and earth mysteries movements. The term ‘archaeoastronomy’ therefore carries some baggage; archaeology does too but it’s more tucked away.
There’s a review of Liz Henty’s 2022 book: Exploring Archaeoastronomy: A History of its Relationship with Archaeology and Esotercism by Professor Ronald Hutton (JSA Vol. 8 No.2, 315-19) which picks up on topics raised above.
Since its launch in 2015, JSA seems to be doing a good job attracting a scholarly gaze at archaeoastronomy from archaeology and elsewhere. My personal view at the present time is that archaeoastronomy will largely remain a specialist postgraduate interest unless it can be rooted in undergraduate archaeology. However, as archaeology today intersects anthropology and religious studies more than it has done in the past, and with JSA dialoguing these disciplines connectively, archaeoastronomy may well re-launch and progress as a field more than a module. Likewise, anthropology and religious studies in some areas would benefit from a dose of skyscape principles.
My recent contribution to JSA concerns twin monuments found at the early Neolithic, mostly focusing on Göbekli Tepe and related Taş Tepeler sites. Specifically, I suggest these monumental sets remembered people in the form of companion ancestors or myth figures that were significant to the builders and those visiting the sites. An important resource of these figures, I suggest, was the Gemini constellation for announcing the winter solstice as a major ritual turning point of the year in addition to other factors discussed therein.
One indication of the type of special social activities GT hosted are masks which brings notions of secret society initiation, costumed “theatre” and shamanic death journeys into view. As discussed in the paper, at present only miniature stone and bone masks have been found at GT but these, for several reasons, are thought to mimic life-size headgear used at the site. Life-size stone heads which appear to show people wearing masks have been noted, while miniature heads (feasibly commemorating the same) are found at other Taş Tepeler sites; at Jericho (better known for its plastered skull cult) and at the Nahal Hemar Cave which stored miniatures, plastered skulls and life-size masks.
The pairing theme which organises monuments and artefacts is common over known PPN A-B sites but attempting to outline its phases is complicated. At the monumental level the doubling is symbolic more than structural and neither served purely as entrance embellishment. To my knowledge it was not reported at the now drowned epipalaeolithic Hallan Çemi buildings but is present at the recently excavated Boncuklu Tarla (technically not a Taş Tepeler site) located in the Upper Tigris Valley and dated to the same age as Hallan Çemi.
It is unclear whether the Boncuklu pair depict people or vague cosmic principles as they don’t bear markings unlike the Enclosure D set which are definably more humanoid and shown in costumes amid other symbolic furnishings.
Jacques Cauvin, the archaeologist who put religious impulse primary to Neolithic collection-production food shifts, placed attention on the Woman and Bull figures polarising the “new” Neolithic sacred domain and thought these divinities persisted all the way up to Bronze Age Mediterranean cults. Though I don’t disagree with Cauvin my focus traces a different trajectory of male sets evidenced in prehistoric Mesopotamia. Regardless of gender, however, I argue that these pairs participate in a deep-rooted Near Eastern cycle that alternated between life, death and underworld resurgence themes as embodied in the seasonal saga of Inanna and Dumuzi. These pairs and the unseen realms one half of them visited had, I argue, a celestial counterpart in the Gemini constellation.
Issues surrounding stars, constellations and beginnings of the Mesopotamian zodiac are touched on in addition to other features such as the importance (both religious and astronomical) of helical risings/settings and how naked-eye observers – here, calendar specialists/ritual organisers – in that part of the world at that time were more than capable of accomplishing this. Although the origin of the Mesopotamian zodiac is addressed the emphasis is mostly on the heritage of the Gemini constellation. The connection between the winter solstice and this star group. in a region where the legacy of skywatching invested in star and planet positions (more than megalithically defined solstice points on the horizon), is not arbitrary as will be seen.
Prior to summary is a brief survey of one of the larger known Taş Tepeler sites Karahan Tepe and if it bears any relationship to GT’s monumental enclosures.
There’ll be more on this shortly.