ABODE OF THE GODS
The mythologies of these great civilizations speak clearly of wisdom bringers and creator gods responsible for the formation of the earliest towns, cities, canals, walled enclosures, and irrigation channels—and even of humankind. Named as the Anunnaki, these anthropomorphic, or humanlike, gods are said to have emerged from a primeval mound called Duku, situated on a cosmic mountain named Kharsag, beneath which was the world of mortal human beings.
Klaus Schmidt believes that Göbekli Tepe had a direct impact on the myths and legends regarding the Anunnaki, and that the site could be the role model for the original Duku mound. Indeed, he goes further, as Andrew points out in this book, by hinting at a connection between Göbekli Tepe and biblical traditions concerning the Garden of Eden, and perhaps even the very human angels of Hebrew mythological tradition known as the Watchers.
CULT OF THE VULTURE
A deep look at the description of the Watchers and their offspring, the Nephilim, in ancient Jewish texts such as the book of Enoch makes it clear that these mythical creatures were not incorporeal angels, but flesh and blood human beings with very distinct shamanistic qualities. They are occasionally said to wear dark, iridescent cloaks, or feather coats, and on occasion they take flight like birds, echoing the presence among the earliest proto-Neolithic communities of the Near East of a cult of death and rebirth focused on scavenger birds such as the vulture.
As Andrew points out, at Göbekli Tepe, as well as at the nine-thousandyear-old Neolithic city of Çatal Höyük in southern-central Turkey, there are abstract representations of vultures with articulated legs. Either they are shamans adorned as birds or bird spirits with anthropomorphic features.
Were these shamans of the early Neolithic age role models for the Watchers of Enochian tradition? Are the Watchers a vague memory of those behind the construction of proto-Neolithic complexes, amongst them Göbekli Tepe in southeast Turkey? Did the Watchers really introduce this current world age to forbidden knowledge carried over from a global civilization that once thrived in an antediluvian world?
FROM THE ASHES OF ANGELS
These are questions we are only now beginning to ask for the first time. Yet they were asked as far back as 1996 by Andrew Collins in his groundbreaking book
From the Ashes of Angels.
What is more, there is little question that Andrew was one of the first writers to realize the greater significance of Göbekli Tepe, bringing it to the attention of the mysteries community as early as 2004. It is for this reason that his book
Göbekli Tepe: Genesis of the Gods
is such a masterwork, for it is the culmination of nearly twenty years of Andrew’s original research into the origins of the Neolithic revolution and its relationship to Hebrew traditions concerning the location of the Garden of Eden and the human truth behind the Watchers of the book of Enoch.
In a testimonial written to accompany the publication of
From the Ashes of Angels,
I said that Andrew had “put important new facts before the public concerning the mysterious origins of human civilization.” I stand by this statement and add only that with his vast knowledge of the subject under discussion, there is no one better suited to reveal Göbekli Tepe’s place in history today.
Graham Hancock, born in Edinburgh, Scotland, is a British writer and journalist. His books, including
Fingerprints of the Gods, The Sign and The Seal,
and
Heaven’s Mirror,
have sold more than five million copies worldwide and have been translated into twenty-seven languages. His public lectures, radio, and television appearances have allowed his ideas to reach a vast audience, identifying him as an unconventional thinker who raises controversial questions about humanity’s past.
Also see the Notes and Bibliography of this book for further references related to the material in this introduction
PROLOGUE
IN QUEST OF ANGELS
S
eptember 16, 2013. Ever since kindergarten I have had a strange fascination with angels. Back then I was forced to endure Sunday school on a regular basis, and what I heard about Moses parting the Red Sea or Jesus feeding the five thousand with just a few loaves and fishes intrigued me. I loved hearing about miracles. Yet the lessons were always long and dreary. I wished only to be in the park, kicking about a soccer ball with my dad and brother.
Then one day my Sunday school teacher, a rather stern-faced woman, related how the Old Testament prophet Abraham received into his presence three angels. They sat with him beneath the shade of a tree, where they talked and ate food together.
I knew about angels, those with radiant bodies and beautiful wings, but what the teacher was implying seemed at odds with this ethereal view. Not only did angels seem to function in this world, but they could also be tangibly real. What’s more, people could talk to them and perhaps even become their friends. This was an incredible revelation to me.
Abraham’s meeting with the angels was not lingered on, causing me to raise my hand and ask: “Please miss, what are angels?” To which I was told: “They are messengers of God.”
I needed to know more, so I asked the teacher to elaborate further. She just looked at me and said, slowly and decisively: “There is nothing to be explained—they are the angels of God.”
For her, the existence of angels seemed arbitrary, so my curiosity bore no meaning or relevance. Yet clearly it mattered to me.
It was a moment in my life I shall never forget. Somehow it fired my interest in angels as corporeal creatures and was one of the reasons I was here in southeast Turkey, making my way through sun-baked, dusty streets looking for answers. All around me were market vendors plying their wares, stalls brimming with ripe melons, trays of tomatoes, and all manner of household goods sold at very competitive prices.
Amid the incessant din, I gazed up at an age-old stone archway, the only opening through a more or less intact wall of some considerable size. Beyond it, as far as the eye could see, were the ruins of an ancient city razed to the ground by the Mongol hoards in 1271. Known as Carrhae to the Romans, this sprawling Mesopotamian metropolis—a commercial center at the crossroads of several key trading routes—is better known by the name Harran.
All that remains of the ancient city today are a scattering of walls; a massive stone arch marking the entrance to the now-vanished Great Mosque; a ruined castle, built in the early Islamic period on the site of a pagan temple dedicated to the Mesopotamian moon god Sin; and a colossal stone structure, rising to a height of 110 feet (33 meters) and known locally as the Astronomical Tower. Although it too once formed part of the Great Mosque—or Paradise Mosque, as it was more correctly known—legend asserts that the Harranites, the inhabitants of Harran, were keen astronomers who used the tower’s summit to observe and record the movement of the stars.
Although the Harranites acknowledged the faith of Islam following the Arab conquest, many belonged to an altogether different faith—one that came to be known as Sabaeanism. These curious people worshipped the sun, moon, and planets, which they honored in temples built specifically for this purpose. In addition to this, they saw the Pole Star, and the northern night sky in general, as the direction of the Primal Cause, of God himself, a fact celebrated each year in a grand festival known as the Mystery of the North. This fascination with the Pole Star was a belief shared by other religious sects of the region including the Ismaili Brethren of Purity, the Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran, and the angel-worshipping Yezidi, all of whom owe at least some part of their existence to the Sabaeans of Harran.
In addition to being star worshippers, the Harranites are said to have collated the sacred writings of Greco-Roman Egypt attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, the Thrice Great Hermes. Following the destruction of Harran in the thirteenth century, this important corpus of religious literature known as the Hermetica was carried into Europe, where, some one and a half centuries later, it became the spiritual backbone to the Italian Renaissance and, with it, a revival of all things Egyptian.
Yet before even the Sabaeans flourished in Harran, the city was connected with the earliest events of the Bible. Here the prophet Abraham and his family stayed prior to their departure to Canaan, God’s Promised Land. Local tradition asserts that the prophet hailed from the nearby city of Şanlıurfa, the original “Ur of the Chaldees.” So strong is this belief that even today thousands of Kurdish Muslims arrive in the city, anciently known as Orfa, Orhay, or Edessa, in order to visit a cave shrine said to be the birthplace of the great prophet.
According to medieval belief, Abraham arrived at Harran and at once set about converting the local population to his monotheistic faith. Yet the Harranites claimed their teachings were older, having derived from Seth, the son of Adam, and Enoch, a later antediluvian patriarch. Some of the Harranites did convert to Abraham’s faith and departed with him to Canaan. Those who did not are said to have remained in the neighborhood of Harran, declaring that “we acknowledge the religion of Seth, Idris (Enoch) and Noah.”
1
So much did the inhabitants of Harran honor Abraham’s presence in the city that a temple was set up to him and his father, Terah, which apparently stood 2 parsangs (around 7 miles, or 11 kilometers) southeast of the city, close to the border with Syria.
2
Abraham was the perceived father of the Jewish people, and his descendants were responsible for bringing together the source material for the book of Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, traditionally ascribed to Moses the Lawgiver.
Everywhere around Harran are sites associated with stories from the book of Genesis. On Cudi Dağ (Mount al-Judi), in the mountains to the east of Harran, Noah’s ark is said to have made first landfall after the waters of the Great Flood receded. Here too Noah established his first post-Flood settlement, leaving his son Shem to continue his journey into the Eastern Taurus Mountains, where also Seth, the son of Adam, lived after his father and mother’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden (see chapters 35 and 37). Even Harran itself, where Abraham dwelled with his family, had more ancient biblical connections, as tradition insists that Cainan, a grandson of Shem, founded the city. He was the originator of Chaldaism, the knowledge of the stars as practiced by the Sabaeans of Harran.
3
More significantly, the book of Genesis records that the primordial Garden where Adam and Eve, the First Couple, existed in a state of innocence and bliss before the time of the Fall was located at the source of the four rivers of Paradise, two of which can easily be identified as the Tigris and Euphrates (see chapter 27). They take their rise in the mountains to the northeast of Harran. Here somewhere lies the original Garden of Eden, tended over by the angels of God, returning me to the pressing questions that had preoccupied my childhood: Who or what are angels? Where did they come from, and did they have some kind of earthly tangibility?
As I climbed Harran’s giant occupational mound, which rises above the ruined city, and stared out toward the mesmeric Astronomical Tower, I felt I was getting closer to some real answers. For even as the first Bible stories were being played out across the region, Harran was already extremely old. Archaeological fieldwork has shown that its earliest inhabitants occupied the site as much as eight thousand years ago,
4
having arrived here from another occupational mound, located just 6 miles (10 kilometers) away, which dates back an incredible ten thousand years.
5
Known as Tell Idris, the very name of this prehistoric mound reveals its association not just with the earliest events of the Bible but also with the angelic beings said to have guarded the Garden of Eden. For Idris is the Arabic name for the antediluvian patriarch Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah. He is accredited with the authorship of one of the strangest and most mystifying religious texts ever written.
Called the book of Enoch, it recounts how Enoch, while resting in his bed one night, is approached by two strange beings of angelic appearance. Named Watchers (Hebrew
‘îrîn
), they ask him to accompany them on a tour of the Seven Heavens, one of which includes the Garden of Righteousness, where the four rivers of Paradise take their rise, while another leads to the abode of the angels.
When in the Watchers’ heavenly settlement, Enoch is shown a prison in which a whole group of these angelic beings are incarcerated. On asking what crime they have committed, the patriarch is informed that two hundred of their number disobeyed the laws of heaven by descending among mortal kind and taking wives for themselves. As a consequence, these women gave birth to giant offspring called Nephilim (a Hebrew word meaning “those who fell” or the “fallen ones”).
More significantly, the book of Enoch relates how the rebel Watchers, who are described as extremely tall (like “trees”), with pale and ruddy skin, powerful eyes, white hair, and long, viper-like faces (see chapter 32), are said to have taught their mortal wives the arts and sciences of heaven. For this heinous crime they were rounded up and incarcerated.
Although these stories are understandably dismissed as allegorical fantasy by theologians and Bible scholars alike, there is an air about them that tells of a forgotten event in humanity’s distant past—one connected integrally with Harran and the surrounding region, for it was here that the Neolithic revolution began.
On the upper reaches of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, in the region that is today made up of eastern Turkey, northern Syria, northern Iraq, and northwest Iran, animal husbandry occurred for the first time, as did the domestication of wild cereals and the first metalworking and smelting. Here too some of the earliest baked and fired statuettes were produced, along with the construction of rectilinear and curvilinear buildings, some incorporating decorated standing stones and steles. With them came the first construction of terrazzo mortar floors, the first evidence for brewing beer, and perhaps even the first use of grapes to produce wine.