The 'Handbags' of Göbekli Tepe's Pillar 43: Are These Actually the Enclosures? | Ancient Architects

Pillar 43 in Enclosure D of Göbekli Tepe is without doubt the most iconic piece of art at the ancient Pre-Pottery Neolithic site. Researchers have analysed it in detail. Some believe it has archeoastronomical significance, some say the iconography is naturalistic and some ritualistic, but whatever the interpretation, everyone notes the three strange objects that run along the top.

On the internet you can often find them called ‘the handbags of the gods’ due to their likeness to the buckets held by Assyrian demigods, the bags in Olmec art used to carry hardened tree sap, bag shaped objects in ancient North American rock art and so on, but these comparisons are unfounded and very speculative.

Researcher Martin Sweatman interprets the three symbols as solstice and equinox sunsets with each animal being an astronomical marker so we know which event is being depicted. You can learn more on Martin’s channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx11KXwumf5w8J-GdBGKNVA

What I’m doing in this video is focussing on another interpretation, originally made by E. B. Banning that the so-called ‘handbags’ of Göbekli Tepe’s Pillar 43, also known as the Vulture Stone, could actually be depictions of the famous circular enclosures, and the V-shapes around them could be willow-branch fencing. Watch this video to learn more!

All images are taken from Google Images and the below sources for educational purposes. Please subscribe to Ancient Architects, Like the video and please leave a comment below.

Subscribe to World of Antiquity by Dr David Miano, as mentioned in the video, at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC64TYItcUS940vNWhQRnJWg

Sources:
https://www.exoriente.org/docs/00066.pdf
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/661207
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235799840_Materialien_zur_Deutung_der_zentralen_Pfeilerpaare_des_Gobekli_Tepe_und_weiterer_Orte_des_obermesopotamischen_Fruhneolithikums
https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/2016/10/14/of-animals-and-a-headless-man-gobekli-tepe-pillar-43/
https://tepetelegrams.wordpress.com/2016/05/05/losing-your-head-at-gobekli-tepe/
https://curis.ku.dk/portal/files/181905903/Notroff_et_al._2017_More_than_a_vulture.pdf
https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/tag/enclosures/
https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/2016/08/16/emblematic-signs-on-the-iconography-of-animals-at-gobekli-tepe/

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