Open Veils · Answer
Under Pillar 18 of Gobekli Tepe the Pleiades
Pillar 18 is now a serious candidate for a Pleiades-calendrical instrument. A 2026 peer-reviewed study proposes the seven birds carved on its pedestal encode the seven stars of the Pleiades, with the shadow of adjacent Pillar 19 acting as a gnomon marking the winter solstice cycle at ca. 9500 BCE. This aligns with and extends Martin Sweatman's solar-calendar thesis and Andrew Collins' stellar-alignment research at the site.
Evidence
- The seven birds carved on the pedestal of Pillar 18 in Enclosure D have long resisted clean interpretation.
- Randall Carlson and Martin Sweatman have both argued that Göbekli Tepe's builders were sophisticated astronomical record-keepers.
- Graham Hancock, citing Robert Schoch and Klaus Schmidt's original excavation notes, has long argued that the T-pillars represent anthropomorphic beings with cosmological roles, not mere totems.
- 9500 BCE the winter solstice point sat in Taurus, directly adjacent to the Pleiades.
- The seven birds map onto the mythological seven daughters of Pleione — the 'lost Pleiad' tradition, in which six sisters remain visible while the seventh descends to the underworld, corresponds precisely to the one bird shadowed by Pillar 19 versus the six that remain lit.