Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Gobekli Tepi: Eden?

Hola darlings! At first I thought this was one of those "Don't eat that, Elmer" stories - but when I got down to the veerrrrryyyyyy end, I realized it was a book review - only it didn't say it was a book review! Regardless, the images are great, and the recap of the events surrounding the discovery of Gobekli Tepi by a Kurdish shepherd in 1994 is engrossing. Do I think that the 13,000 year old ruins at Gobekli Tepi are the "Garden of Eden"? I have no idea and, frankly, it's not a question I'm particularly interested in. What I do find intriguing is this image of a lone fox. In a flight of imagination - could this stone form be a prototype for a pawn, just squared off, not rounded as much later versions of game pieces? And could this lone ancient fox running across the stone with his or her tail flowing out behind be the prototype for the "dog" game pieces that were used in the Middle East and in Greece thousands of years later? The use of canines in many ancient games and references to ancient games suggests the standard hypothesis of chess derived from "hunt" games, as dogs were most probably used for hunting from the time they were first domesticated. Suggestive...

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