How the lunar-solar calendar at Gobekli Tepe was discovered

Three people were involved in the discovery of the lunar-solar calendar at Gobekli Tepe. Dr John Gordon, myself, and Claire Murdoch.

John, a psychiatrist at the Turning Winds institute in Montana, USA, emailed me about how the top row of v-symbols on Pillar 43, shown above, likely represents a lunar cycle. I immediately saw that he was probably correct, as I had already read about a similar lunar tally-count in Alexander Marshack's work from the 1970s. However, I disagreed with his interpretation of the remainder of the calendar symbols. I soon worked out that the 11 little boxes likely meant "repeat the above count" and the 10 v-symbols in the bottom row were extra (epagomenal) days. Together, these symbols sum to 364 days.

I was sure this had to be the correct interpretation, although I struggled to find a convincing way to complete the solar calendar count of 365 days. Surely, there had to be another v-symbol in the count? I described this interpretation to Claire Murdoch, violinist in the keilidh band Muckle Flugga, who quickly pointed to the v-symbol on the bird-of-prey's neck. She was sure this was the missing day. She thought this v-symbol indicated the disk on the bird's wing represented the 365th day to complete the count.

Although I was doubtful initially, I couldn't see another way to complete the count and eventually agreed with her (now I can't unsee it - it's so obvious!). Claire also pointed to the v-symbols on the neck of the Urfa man as evidence that v-symbols at the neck were a meaningful symbol, and not just decoration. Probably they are symbols connected with time in some sense. So the v-symbol at the bird's neck is telling us i) that the disk is the sun on a special day (likely the summer solstice) and ii) therefore the scene on the pillar represents a date using precession.

Essentially, I think the whole purpose of this design is as a kind of astronomical checksum - anyone familar with basic astronomy will inevitably come to the conclusion that the disk represents a special day, and is therefore the sun and not anything else (like a human head or bird's egg). The v-symbol at the neck of the bird on which the disk is balanced confirms this. It's a clever design.

From this, it follows that the semi-circles at the top of the pillar are likely sunsets representing the three other important days of the year - the winter solstice and the two equinoxes. It further follows that the animal symbols next to them are likely to be constellations. This is practically confirmed by the very strong correlation between the scene on the pillar and the Greek constellations that we know today (Sweatman and Tsikritsis, 2017). So the lunar-solar calendar on Pillar 43 practically confirms that our initial 2017 interpretation that Pillar 43 memorialises an important date is almost certainly correct.