gobekli tepe - genesis of the gods by andrew collins

fearful celestial objects.
    Such ideas might help explain why Enclosure D’s twin central monoliths wear fox-pelt loincloths, why leaping foxes are present on the inner faces of key central pillars at Göbekli Tepe, and why Joris Peters and Klaus Schmidt considered that “a specific worship of foxes may be reflected here.” These thoughts also perhaps have some bearing on why the large enclosures seem to incorporate symbolism of a clearly celestial and cyclic nature.
    Is it possible that the enclosures embody a belief, offered by the Hooded Ones and, through them, their lineal descendants (responsible perhaps for the continued construction and management of Göbekli Tepe), that by synchronizing the enclosures with cosmic time cycles it would help provide the builders with enough information to control the influence of comets on a supernatural level? Was it these communities’ absolute fear and loathing of comets that motivated them to abandon their old lifestyles to build monumental architecture on such a dramatic scale? More pertinently, how did any of this relate to the apparent alignment of the main enclosures at Göbekli Tepe toward the Milky Way’s Great Rift, marked out in the heavens by the star Deneb? These are matters that must be addressed next.

14
    FROM A FOX TO A WOLF
    I n the star lore of Estonia, on the Baltic coast of Northern Europe, we again encounter Alcor, the Fox Star, although now its zoomorphic form has changed to that of the wolf ( bar in Estonian). As the Wolf Star it stands alongside the Ox, or Bull, identified with the nearby star Mizar. 1 Once again they constitute the kink of the “handle” of the Big Dipper, or Plough, which in Estonia is known as the Great Wain (that is, a cart or wagon).
    Slovenian star lore tells the story of Saint Martin, who uses the Great Wain (Ursa Major) to carry a great pile of logs. 2 Along comes the mischievous Wolf (Alcor), who proceeds to kill the Ox (Mizar) and break the vehicle’s shaft. The saint repairs the Wain and, as punishment, harnesses the Wolf to the Ox in order to make the animal take the load. Yet the Wolf does nothing more than pull the cart backward.
    THE CESSATION OF COSMIC TIME
    Once more the star Alcor, here in the guise of the Wolf, is seen to interfere with the turning mechanism of the heavens, symbolized in this instance by the shaft of the Wain. Not only this, but he also disrupts the natural order of the heavens by dragging the wagon backward, an allusion to the collapse or reversal of time. Clearly, in European star lore the figure of the sky wolf was interchangeable with that of the sky fox.
    The harnessing of the Wolf (Alcor) by Saint Martin is simply a variation of the Romanian sky myth in which the Man defeats the Devil to restore cosmic order. Clearly, the wolf, the fox, and the Devil play nearly identical roles in this myth cycle, with the human intercession being necessary to prevent any kind of catastrophe taking place (the role played by the shaman at Göbekli Tepe).
    Saint Martin’s feast day is November 11, when swans and geese are roasted and eaten across Europe. The date corresponds also to the return of migrating swans and geese from their breeding grounds in the north. Indeed, the idea of swans and geese carrying souls to and from a northerly placed “heaven” played a major role in European folklore until fairly recent times, the connection with Cygnus in its capacity as the entrance to the sky world being the obvious next step. 3 Thus if Saint Martin might be seen as a Christian patron of the Cygnus constellation, then his role in the Slovenian sky myth makes complete sense. Like the Man in the Romanian story, he is the guiding intelligence of the Cygnus constellation in its struggle against the cosmic trickster symbolized by the star Alcor in Ursa Major. More incredibly, these beliefs almost certainly go back to a time when the constellation of Ursa Major revolved around either Deneb or Delta Cygni in their role as