Table of Contents
Pillar 43 is the carved limestone T-pillar at Göbekli Tepe. Many people call it the Vulture Stone.
What is Göbekli Tepe Pillar 43? I start with the stone in Enclosure D. Then I follow The Ethical Skeptic’s northern-sky reading for about 14,800 BCE. I keep that sky claim attributed. I keep the cataclysm claim attributed too. I put this next to Cygnus, flood, and Göbekli neighbor pages.
What it is
Göbekli Tepe Pillar 43 is a carved limestone T-pillar in Enclosure D at Göbekli Tepe, near Şanlıurfa in southeastern Turkey.
Göbekli Tepe is a Pre-Pottery Neolithic monumental site. It is famous for T-pillars carved with animals and abstract symbols. It is a UNESCO World Heritage place.
A T-pillar is a stone pillar with a T-shaped top. The form looks like a person. That form is typical of the site.
The Vulture Stone is the popular name for Pillar 43. The name comes from the large bird relief on its western broad face. The same face also carries a scorpion, snakes, other animals, a headless human figure, H symbols, “handbags,” and a round disk or sphere.
Archaeology places Enclosure D wall-plaster and charcoal dates roughly in the mid to late 10th millennium cal BC.
cal BC means calendar years Before Christ, after the radiocarbon dates are calibrated.
That date band is about a Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, or PPNA, construction and use period.
PPNA is an early farming-age layer before pottery.
Deliberate refill and burial of enclosures is discussed in the excavation reports.
The Ethical Skeptic reads the same pillar as a northern-sky map for about 14,800 BCE. I keep that sky claim labeled beside the PPNA band. I keep both dates.
Ethical Skeptic northern-sky reading (14,800 BCE)
The Ethical Skeptic, in “An Interpretation of Göbekli Tepe Pillar 43,” argues that the carvings show the northern sky over Göbekli Tepe around 14,800 BCE.
Therefore, unequivocally, Pillar 43 depicts the northern sky at Göbekli Tepe in 14,800 BCE.
The Ethical Skeptic, “An Interpretation of Göbekli Tepe Pillar 43”
That date is the author’s sky claim. It is earlier than the PPNA archaeology band above. I keep both dates.
The Ethical Skeptic opens with a reconstructed “Author and Survivor” voice.
That voice is a first-person telling written as if from someone who lived the event.
The voice speaks of a Great Year and an aurora portent.
A Great Year here means a long sky cycle tied to the turning of the heavens.
An aurora portent means northern lights read as a warning sign in the sky:
In the days when the Great Year axis aligned above the left wing of the celestial condor, an ominous portent appeared in the northern night sky – one unseen in our lifetimes but foretold through the legends of our forefathers. Flames of green below and red above raged across five points of bearing either side of true north, terrifying our tribespeople and signaling to our elders that it was time to abandon our farms in the beloved Edin (𒂔𒂗 or ‘ plain’) and retreat to the mountains.
The Ethical Skeptic (14,800 BCE “Author and Survivor” reconstructed voice)
Meaning: the stone is not only animal art. In this reading it holds sky memory. That memory is of a northern warning in the sky. The warning drove people off the Edin plain. They fled toward mountain refuge.
On memory and purpose, The Ethical Skeptic writes:
In other words, this complex may have served as both a cultural memory repository and an observatory, vigilantly watching for the next foretold event.
The Ethical Skeptic
I read that as deep-time sky memory on stone. That sits in the same open paleo-contact lane Graham Hancock uses for the Younger Dryas.
The Younger Dryas was a sharp return to cold climate near the end of the last ice age.
The claim is The Ethical Skeptic’s.
A short institutional note from the same essay. The Ethical Skeptic argues that archaeology, UNESCO, and state limits have been slow to hear independent sky and cataclysm readings. I keep that as one attributed charge.
Figures, asterisms, and H symbols
The Ethical Skeptic maps nine carved figures to nine asterisms in the Şanlıurfa night sky around 14,800 BCE.
An asterism is a recognized star pattern, smaller or looser than a full constellation.
In Exhibit A below, the reader can observe how the nine iconographs carved into Pillar 43 correspond strikingly well to the nine asterisms I have identified from the sky field map… The carvings on the stone align precisely with the Sanliurfa night sky as it would have appeared around 14,800 BCE. Four birds, including the Condor, two snakes, a scorpion, a dog, and what may be a headless frog (?) all align exactly with the star formations visible in the heavens at that time.
The Ethical Skeptic
In that clockwise list from the Condor: Condor, Crane, Viper, Gull, Frog (headless), Dodo, Scorpion (not zodiac Scorpius), Dog, Serpent.
A few fixed points in the same reading.
The main bird is Cygnus under the Condor name.
The round disk is the North Celestial Pole, not the sun.
The North Celestial Pole is the point in the sky around which the stars appear to turn.
The field is a pre-zodiac northern sky, not the ecliptic zodiac.
The ecliptic is the path the sun appears to follow through the stars over a year.
Neighbor page: Constellation Cygnus.
On the H symbols and cataclysm model:
The presence of two orthogonal ‘H’ symbols placed side by side on Pillar 43 – interpreted here as symbolizing two different risings and settings of the Sun – is unsettling. This imagery aligns strongly with and supports my Exothermic Core-Mantle Decoupling – Dzhanibekov Oscillation (ECDO) Hypothesis.
The Ethical Skeptic
ECDO is The Ethical Skeptic’s Earth-cataclysm model. The full name is Exothermic Core-Mantle Decoupling / Dzhanibekov. It involves core-mantle decoupling and a true polar wander-type disruption. It is the author’s term, not a standard geology term.
Meaning: the H pair marks two different paths of the sun around a cataclysm. The figures mark asterisms. Together they turn Pillar 43 into a sky marker and an event marker, in this author’s reading.
Handbags, refuges, and cataclysm / ECDO
The Ethical Skeptic reads the three “handbag” motifs as three fortified hill settlements in the Taş Tepeler region.
Taş Tepeler means “stone hills.” It is the wider cluster of early monumental sites around Göbekli Tepe.
Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe are two. A third may sit west, perhaps Sayburç.
What this may suggest is that we have uncovered two of the three major tepes in the Taş Tepeler/Paddan Aram region of Turkey. It is entirely possible that a third significant tepe, potentially located to the west – perhaps Sayburç Tepe – and sharing the same construction, purpose, and characteristics as Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe, remains to be discovered or further excavated.
The Ethical Skeptic
In that reading the handbags mark refuge tepes above a torrent or inundation.
A tepe is a hill site.
A torrent or inundation is a flood or sudden rise of water.
The people of the Edin plain below are farmers retreating to the hills. They are not “mere hunter-gatherers.”
I put that refuge and flood memory next to flood neighbors such as Altai Flood. The ECDO H-symbol claim above belongs in the same cataclysm lane.
Martin Sweatman and related work read Pillar 43 toward a Younger Dryas / comet sky date around 10,950 BCE. That is a different date from Ethical Skeptic’s 14,800 BCE. Both belong in the “sky memory on stone” lane. Neighbor page: Taurid Meteor Stream. I keep the 14,800 claim.
Timeline layers (Ethical Skeptic reception)
These layers are how The Ethical Skeptic lays out the story over time. I keep them labeled beside the archaeology PPNA band above.
| Layer | Claim (attributed) |
|---|---|
| 14,800 BCE | Sky and cosmic / aurora event recorded; early cataclysm neighborhood in the author’s figure |
| ~9600 BCE | Descendants curate the site as ceremonial and observational; Meltwater Pulse / Younger Dryas-era stress |
| ~8000 BCE | Later authority (live reception: Enlil-worshipping theocracy) destroys or buries pillars to erase narratives |
| Modern | Tourist curation; alternative readings suppressed (author’s charge) |
The soft ~8000 BCE Enlil burial line is The Ethical Skeptic’s reading of later burial and erasure. Neighbor page for that sky-power layer: Aessir Anunnaki.
Archaeology’s mid-late 10th millennium cal BC PPNA band sits next to these sky and burial claims. It is a separate date. It does not cancel the 14,800 sky reading.
How I use this in my research
I use Pillar 43 to define the Vulture Stone. I also use it for deep-time northern-sky and cataclysm research.
- I put the Condor / Cygnus and North Celestial Pole reading next to Constellation Cygnus.
- I put the Sweatman-style Younger Dryas / Taurid parallel next to Taurid Meteor Stream.
- I put handbags as hill refuges and flood memory next to Altai Flood.
- I put the soft Enlil / sky-power burial layer next to Aessir Anunnaki.
- I put on-site Göbekli comparison next to Easter Island and Göbekli Tepe.
FAQ
What is Göbekli Tepe Pillar 43?
Göbekli Tepe Pillar 43 is the carved limestone T-pillar in Enclosure D often called the Vulture Stone. The Ethical Skeptic reads its carvings as the northern sky over Göbekli Tepe in 14,800 BCE. In that reading the figures map to asterisms. The H symbols and handbags mark cataclysm and refuge.
Why is it called the Vulture Stone?
The popular name comes from the large bird relief on the western broad face. The same face also shows a scorpion, snakes, other animals, a headless human, H symbols, handbags, and a disk or sphere.
What is the 14,800 BCE sky claim?
The Ethical Skeptic states that Pillar 43 depicts the northern sky at Göbekli Tepe in 14,800 BCE. Nine figures map to asterisms. The main bird maps to Cygnus / Condor. The disk maps to the North Celestial Pole. Archaeology’s PPNA band for Enclosure D sits later. That band is the mid-late 10th millennium cal BC. I keep it as a separate labeled layer.
How do handbags and ECDO fit the cataclysm reading?
The Ethical Skeptic reads three handbags as Taş Tepeler refuge hills. Those hills are Göbekli, Karahan, and a possible third such as Sayburç. The two H symbols support the ECDO hypothesis. ECDO means Exothermic Core-Mantle Decoupling – Dzhanibekov Oscillation. It is the author’s core-mantle / true polar wander-type cataclysm model.
How do I use Pillar 43 in research?
I use it to define the Vulture Stone. I also use it for sky-memory, refuge, and cataclysm research. I put it next to Constellation Cygnus, Taurid Meteor Stream, Altai Flood, Aessir Anunnaki, and Easter Island and Göbekli Tepe.
Related on this site
- Constellation Cygnus: Ethical Skeptic maps the main bird to Cygnus / Condor in the 14,800 BCE northern sky.
- Taurid Meteor Stream: Younger Dryas / Taurid / Göbekli-region catastrophe neighbor (Sweatman-style parallel lane).
- Altai Flood: flood / cataclysm memory neighbor for handbags-as-refuge reading.
- Aessir Anunnaki: Enlil / sky-power layer from the ~8000 BCE timeline note.
- Easter Island and Göbekli Tepe: on-site Göbekli comparison page.
