From Gobekli Tepe stone pillars to Kaaba stone


In fact, the topic is animism and sacred stones. Definitions and some exemples throughout history: ANIMISM From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animism 《 Animism (from Latin: anima, ‘breath, spirit, life‘) is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. … Religious studies scholar Graham Harvey defined animism as the belief “that the world is full of persons, only some of whom are human, and that life is always lived in relationship with others”. … For the Ojibwe encountered by Hallowell, personhood did not require human-likeness, but rather humans were perceived as being like other persons, who for instance included rock persons and bear persons. ….  For the Ojibwe, these persons were each wilful beings who gained meaning and power through their interactions with others; through respectfully interacting with other persons, they themselves learned to “act as a person”. … Various animistic cultures also comprehend stones as persons. Discussing ethnographic work conducted among the Ojibwe, Harvey noted that their society generally conceived of stones as being inanimate, but with two notable exceptions: the stones of the Bell Rocks and those stones which are situated beneath trees struck by lightning, which were understood to have become Thunderers themselves.》

From Types of Religions | Boundless Sociology – Lumen Learning …https://courses.lumenlearning.com › chapter › types-of-… 《Animism is the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, either intrinsically or because spirits inhabit them.

From The Vulnerable (Post) Modern Self and the “Greening” of Spiritual Personhood through Life in
the Spirit Mary Frohlich https://www.mdpi.com › <<In a much-discussed essay, anthropologist Irving Hallowell recounts asking an Anishinaabe elder about whether all the stones around them are alive. The elder answered “No, but some of them are.” (Hallowell 1960, p. 24) >>

SACRED STONES From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_Stone Religion

  • Baetyl, sacred stones in ancient Asian and European religions
  • Benben, in ancient Egyptian religion
  • Huwasi stone in Hittite religion
  • Omphalos, centre of the world in ancient Greece
  • Lapis Niger (“black stone”) a shrine in the Roman Forum
  • Banalinga, naturally-formed ovoid stones from river-beds in India
  • Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia § Sacred stones, a phenomenon common to Semitic religions
  • Seonangdang in Korea
  • The most original cult forms of the pre-Hittite period, in which Semitic and Indo-European populations mixed, were found in Göbekli Tepe in southern Anatolia and in Çatalhöyük”
The characteristic T-pillars can be recognized as larger-than-life human(-like) sculptures due to a number of specific elements. (Illustration: J. Notroff) https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2019/03/D1Js5VPWoAA0bxt.jpg-large-1097×1536.jpg
  • eugenrau: Huwasi stone situated in temple (!?) …. as T-pillars situated in Gobekli Tepe temple/ritualic complex. See folowing picture: Hittite orthostat relief from Alacahöyük depicting a king and a queen in front of the altar. The King carries the kingdom sceptre (lituus) in his right hand and extends his left hand forward for worship. 14th century BCE. Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara (Turkey).
Hittite Orthostat with King and Queen (Illustration) - World History  Encyclopedia
https://www.worldhistory.org/img/r/p/750×750/10422.jpg.avif?v=1599149703
  • From https://worddisk.com › wiki › Hittite… Hittite mythology and religion – Wikipedia | WordDisk … for the Hittites often worshipped their gods through Huwasi stones,
  • From https://www.cambridge.org › part-i Part I – The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions In other cases, inanimate objects or fetishes could stand in for the deity, so the cult image might be a stela (huwasi), a weapon (mountain..”

eugenrau:T-shaped Gobekli Tepe pillars/stelae <visa> HUWASI=hittite STELAE ? From https://books.google.ro › books Hittite Texts and Greek Religion: Contact, Interaction, and Comparison Ian Rutherford — 2020 · Religion Huwasi is often translated as ‘ stela ‘ , but they may have varied in shape and .. From https://books.google.ro › books The “Other” Psychology of Julian Jaynes: Ancient Languages, Sacred … Brian J. McVeigh — 2018 · Psychology (NA4) huwasi– grindstone; ritual monument, ritual stone 42. idālawah- to make … lord 45. istanana- a kind of altar 46. iya- to do; to realize; eugenrau: Sumerian and Hittite festivals were continuing Gobekli Tepe’s people feasts and festivals ? From https://books.google.ro › books The Oxford Illustrated History of the Holy Land Robert G. Hoyland, H. G. M. Williamson — 2018 · History 《 The nearly contemporary West Semitic ceremonial texts from Emar, on the Euphrates, as well as texts describing the huwasi festival 》 From https://books.google.ro › books Time at Emar: The Cultic Calendar and the Rituals from the … Daniel E. Fleming — 2000 · Religion Archi concludes that the fundamental celebration of the spring festivals consisted of procession to a huwasi stone and offering that —————– Excerpts from ——— (PDF) ‘Stones with character : animism, agency and megalithic monuments.’, in Materialitas: working stone, carving identity Chris Scarre …https://www.researchgate.net › publication › 279444394_’.. << Some later monuments too have carved motifs, and those motifs may imply they were thought to embody ‘human’ qualities. An ‘animistic’ or ‘anthropomorphic’ reading of these blocks may provide additional insights into the social practices and beliefs which lay behind the construction of megalithic monuments. … Ethnography suggests that prominent landscape features were invested with special significance by prehistoric communities, as sites of mythological or sacred importance. … If those sources were already considered places of power in the landscape, the use of largely unworked blocks may have been a means of visibly appropriating those powers of place. … These are standing stones of north-west France, systematically felled and incorporated into passage graves during the later 5th millennium or early 4th millennium BC. It is clear, however, that they were originally erected in the open air during the 5th millennium BC (Scarre 2007) Far from being ‘brute’ blocks, these stones appear to have been fashioned specifically to evoke elements of the human form. … A good example is provided by the decorated stone immediately inside the entrance to the Ile Longue passage grave (Péquart et al. 1927, pl. 65, 66) (Fig. 3a). … What unites these divergent interpretations is the notion that the representation is in some way anthropomorphic. … Equally, it is important to recognise that stones need have no resemblance to the human form in order to represent humans.Standing stones may hence in some, and perhaps many, cases represent people. It must be observed, however, that only a minority of them incorporate active representations of the human form. … In a much-quoted study, Alfred Gell drew attention to the way in which inanimate objects, notably ‘idols’, are considered to possess animacy and agency by those who worship them. … Was that agency brought into being only by the act of carving, or did the motif merely strengthen and make manifest a quality of agency that was already immanent in the block before it was carved? … In explaining the agency of idols, Gell provides several descriptions of the actions or ceremonies by which images (which may be only vaguely anthropomorphic in their basic form) can be consecrated, brought to life or renewed (Gell 1998, 144-153). … Yet the aniconic nature of the slabs on which they were carved, the presence of disembodied human features, and the fact that very few of the slabs which make up these tombs are decorated in this way, together suggest that the imagery itself is only a clue to a deeper meaning. We have already mentioned the power and prevalence of anthropomorphism – the tendency to ‘humanise’ objects in the world around us. … More recent studies have redefined animism as the anthropomorphisation of apparently inanimate things (along with animate plants and animals) in the specific sense of social interaction (Bird-David 1999). … There is indeed a major methodological problem, since the attribution of life to an inanimate object would be difficult to determine unless that object were modified in some way. … The key feature of megalithic blocks is their size, and it is by their size that they communicate power and fix the attention. … Mircea Eliade emphasised the cross-cultural ‘power’ that stones exercise on the human imagination, observing that “[m]en have always adored stones simply in as much as they represent something other than themselves” (Eliade1949, 216). Eliade saw those stones that are associated with burial as serving as a prison or dwelling for the souls of dead, who might otherwise trouble the living (Eliade 1949, 219). It is clear that among many traditional societies, individual stones are considered to enclose human-like identities or life-forces. … Were these blocks considered to contain forces or qualities that were conceptualized partly in anthropomorphic terms? In some cases, it may have been those special qualities that were made manifest through shaping or the addition of carvings. Such modifications would have accentuated the active character of the block; but the scarcity of more naturalistic human representations indicates that it was felt sufficient merely to suggest. … It may be misleading to draw a sharp distinction between those stones which to our eyes are clearly anthropomorphic, and those which are not. It is the carving and shaping of megalithic blocks, however, that suggests most clearly that they may have been endowed with human-like qualities, or that the powers they incorporated were thought of in at least partly human terms. That in turn implies that they possessed agency, the perceived ability to act upon and interact with the world of the living. … Nonetheless, the possibility exists that some of these stones relate to a world of animistic powers that were conceptualised in human form. >> – – – – – – C O N C L U S I O N S – – – – – In developement of religions, Gobekli Tepe was in paganist stage, at the last stage, beeing evidences to begin to turn to gods worshiping. Developement succeded everywhere in the folowing order: animism, totemism, samanism, paganism. Animism is the oldest and longest throughout history, some aspects beeing present even nowdays. If totemism was present, animism was the most visible and pregnant at Gobekli Tepe. Not to be confused, animism does not mean only or resume to spirit- worship, IT IS ABOUT NATURE WORSHIPING. DIVINE NATURE THROUGH DIVINE ENTITIES ! (… whatever entities could be, gosths, spirits or demons ) Pillars were not lifeless stones, nor humans or antropomorphic gods, hunter-gatherers comprehend stones as persons. Because stones were inhabiting spirits, wich had personality. Non-human entities, spirits inhabits them. If much later, huwasi stone is sacred to a deity  and is usually situated in a temple, then the more such aspects existed earlier. To equate pillars with stone persons, pillars does not need to have only minimal antropomorphic traits. Otherwise (if more, by accentuation) sugested power and spiritual character would diminish ! There at the Holy-Mound (sumerian Du-Ku) G.T. people receive from Divine powers (sumerian En-lil, lord-ghost) through shamans the sets of knowledge. Also there were kept earlier (sumerian-like) nature worshiping fertility festivals. T-shaped pillars, has the same shape as sumerian proto-cuneiform sign Me, wich ment “beeing” and “will to live” so direct related to life. But beginning with pillars full of life through various sculptured living animals and totem-poles like Kilisik-Adiyaman sculpture with a hole and child in front and Urfa-man,

So-called Urfa Man is considered the oldest known life-sized sculpture of a man (Photo: J. Notroff, DAI).

…all not induce awe or reflect in the first time relation to divinities but rather a close connection with life.Also composite sculpture with two childs in front:

https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2017/03/fig-19-1466×1536.jpg

..Urfa-man, quite common, ordinary looking person at best some local Ensi(sumerian for ruller..see collar) or respected ancestor. … If somebody is no convinced how could be related stones to life, here you have nowdays: https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/11584/mauri-stone

This mauri stone depicts Horoirangi, a female ancestor in the Rotorua area. Such stones were believed to maintain mauri (life force) in areas which provided food. Horoirangi was carved into a cliff face to preserve the fertility of her people’s lands. Later the stone was removed from the cliff so it would not be stolen.

You noticed where and how the hands are ?

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