The meaning of H-symbols at Gobekli Tepe (updated 7th June)

The H and I-symbols at Gobekli Tepe are some of the hardest to decipher, and their precise meaning remains obscure. But there are some good clues, which allow a preliminary interpretation.

Let's have a look at all the instances where H and I-symbols occur.

Pillar 33: A pair of H-symbols bracket some snakes (meteors) on the inner face. The upper H-symbol is quite faint. An I-symbol appears at ground level below the snake heads, but it is hardly visible here.

Also, there are more I-symbols on the side with the tall bending birds.

Of course, Pillar 43 has H and I-symbols near the bird with fish/snake.

But Pillar 18 has the most H and I-symbols. First, at the top, forming a kind of necklace, together with likely sun and moon symbols.

Then on the belt of Pillar 18 surrounded by loops...

And then also on the belt buckle surrounding what might be the head of a comet.

Pillar 30 has a single H-symbol,

... while Pillar 28 has an H-symbol over another loop, with an I-symbol at the bottom. The loop behind the H-symbol here looks to be similar to the loops and H-symbols on the belt of Pillar 18.

So how can we make sense of all these H and I-symbols?

I had thought the H and I-symbols were interchangeable, and couldn't make out a specific pattern. So I thought a good interpretation was that they were notational - indicating these scenes were astronomical. Essentially, the stars. I thought, perhaps because the H and I-symbols tesselate, they might indicate the dome of the night-sky, like the Ancient Greek notion of a celestial sphere.

But an email from Paula Douglas of Vancouver Island changed my mind. She said they might represent pairs of solstices or equinoxes, or day and night, or summer and winter. I very much like this idea - that the H and I-symbols instead represent astronomically-related opposites, or complementary pairs. As we already have symbols for the solstices and equinoxes - the 'handbags' on Pillar 43, it seems more likely they might represent night and day, or summer and winter.

As soon as Paula mentioned this idea, I recalled I had said something similar about a Pictish symbol in an earlier blog post. Here is what I wrote about the double disk and Z-rod Pictish symbol...

"In astronomical terms, this probably represents the summer and/or winter solstice. The symbols appears to be indicating the transition from a rising sun to a descending one." The Pictish symbol is drawn below, and looks a little bit like an H-symbol,

Now recall the Nebra sky-disk (found in Germany, thought to have been made in the 2nd millennium BCE),

The arcs on the left and right are thought to represent the angular range (i.e. the azimuth) of the rising and setting sun on the horizon between the summer and winter solstices; each subtends an angle of around 81 degrees, which is consistent with the location where the sky-disc was found. If we draw a line between them, representing the East-West direction of the equinoxes, we get something like an H-symbol. In this case, this H-like symbol would represent the solstices, so perhaps the I-symbol represents the equinoxes? Or, since we already have the handbag symbol, perhaps they are the summer (H) and winter (I) seasons? Summer would go from spring to autumn equinox, and vice-versa for winter.

Let's see how this works at Gobekli Tepe. First consider Pillar 43. On the pillar we see both an H-symbol and an I-symbol, perhaps indicating that the calendar shows an entire solar year? This would be perfectly consistent with the current interpretation of Pillar 43.

What about Pillar 33? On the side of the pillar with the snakes and tall bending birds we see several I-symbols. Interestingly, the birds are thought to represent Pisces (or something like it), which we expect (from Pillar 43) is the autumn equinox constellation at the time of the YD impact event. Do the I-symbols indicate the meteors occur in winter? Or are they saying they occur near the autumn equinox? On the other side of the pillar there are snakes radiating from a fox, but there are no H or I-symbols. Why? Is it because the fox isn't an equinoctial or solsticial constellation at the time? Or did they just not bother with this side? Hard to know.

On the inner face of Pillar 33 we have (starting at the bottom), snakes (meteors), then a spider (death?), and above that we have more snakes between two H-symbols. Maybe this means that meteors always occur between the summer solstices, every year. In other words, they are an annual event?

Now, what about Pillar 18. At the top of the pillar we have the necklace symbol with, probably, the sun, moon and an H-symbol. Does this mean that one of the solstices was obscured, like the sun and moon? Maybe. Or, perhaps it means the summer was ruined; "a year without summer". This is very nice.

What about the belt buckle on Pillar 18? Here we see 3 I-symbols and 2 H-symbols surrounding what is probably the head of a comet. According to this idea, if an H-symbol plus an I-symbol represents an entire solar year, then these 5 symbols would represent around 2.5 - 3 years. Does this mean the comet returned every 2.5 - 3 years, or had a brightness cycle of 2.5 - 3 years? Interestingly, the orbital period of comet Encke, a Taurid object, is 3.3 years. Other Taurid objects have similar orbital periods, 3 - 3.5 years. Close. Maybe the impacting comet's orbital period was shortened by a close encounter with Earth? Or, perhaps when viewed from the moving platform of Earth along its orbit, the comet seemed to have a shorter orbital period?

Now consider the side of the belt. See below...

On this side of the belt we have "C C H C H reverse-C" What could this mean if the H-symbols represent the summer season? Perhaps the C-symbols are counting something, in this case summers, i.e. years? After all, the Egyptian hieroglyph for 10 is "n" (thanks for that one, Diana Aten). Does each C-symbol mean 10? But what then does a reverse-C mean? Perhaps "C H reverse C" means 100H, i.e. 100 years, so that "C C H C H reverse C" means 120 years? Why would that number be important? This is still not clear. And why are there no I-symbols on this side of the belt?

What about Pillar 30? It has a snake emanating from an I-symbol. Perhaps this is just like Pillar 33 again, meaning the Taurids radiate during the winter season?

And, finally, Pillar 28 has an H-symbol surrounded by more loops, but arranged vertically this time? Again, it's not clear what the loops mean, but are they counting solstices or summers, perhaps 100 summers? Why? The loops remain unclear.

Overall, I very much like the idea that the H and I-symbols represent the summer and winter seasons, respectively. It seems to fit very well in most cases, especially Pillar 43. And given the similarity to the Pictish symbol, and the Nebra sky-disk, I think it's the best idea we currently have. But this is all still guess-work, and the pattern doesn't seem to be perfectly consistent across all the pillars. More evidence is needed to get a better picture.

Of course, it might be that their proto-writing changed over several millennia. GT lasted for several millennia, which means notation and carving styles could change considerably. Maybe we shouldn't look for perfect consistency on every pillar. Different cultural groups, even, might have occupied the site at different times. But Paula's idea that the H and I-symbols represent astronomically-related complementary pairs, like summer and winter, is the best guess for now, I think.