Astronomy , Landscape and Power in Eastern Anatolia

Since the earlier hunters-gatherers who built the

impressive sanctuaries at Gobekli Tepe ten thousand years ago

to the Sabeans of Harran, every single culture in eastern

Anatolia looked at the sky in a search for inspiration,

guidance and political control. In a recent campaign, the

Gobekli Tepe monuments were studied searching for

presumable traces of astronomical skill in the constructors of

such impressive structures, the oldest stone monuments ever

erected by humankind. The ancient ruins of the Kingdom of

Commagene (First Century B.C.), near her summer capital at

Arsameia, were inspected in depth with the aim of falsifying

previous ideas and test new hypotheses in relation to the

suggestive monuments of the area, including the hierothesion

of Antiochos I at the summit of Nemrud Dag or his wife´s one

at Karakush. These were indeed impressive manifestations of

power where astronomy presumably played a substantial role.

Finally, we researched the ancient Sabean ruins at Sogmatar

Harabesi, in north-western Mesopotamia, where a set of

suggestive buildings had been identified as a cluster of

temples devoted to the seven planetary deities. The Sabeans of

Harran region created in the first millennium of our era a

selective and peculiar astral religion, and they were reputed

sky-watchers and astrologers. Our new data on site will be

useful to test such speculative exercises.