Göbekli Tepe is an archaeological site in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey 12 km northeast of the city of Şanlıurfa. The tell is about 300 m in diameter, it is 760 m above sea level. The tell includes two phases of use, believed to be of a social or ritual nature by site discoverer and excavator Klaus Schmidt, dating back to the 10th–8th millennium BCE. During the first phase, belonging to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, circles of massive T-shaped stone pillars were erected – the world's oldest known megaliths. More than 200 pillars in about 20 circles are known through geophysical surveys; each pillar weighs up to 10 tons. They are fitted into sockets. In the second phase, belonging to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, the erected pillars are smaller and stood in rectangular rooms with floors of polished lime; the site was abandoned after the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B. Younger structures date to classical times; the details of the structure's function remain a mystery. The excavations have been ongoing since 1996 by the German Archaeological Institute, but large parts still remain unexcavated.
In 2018, the site was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The site was first noted in a survey conducted by Istanbul University and the University of Chicago in 1963. American archaeologist Peter Benedict identified lithics collected from the surface of the site as belonging to the Aceramic Neolithic, but mistook stone slabs for grave markers, postulating that the prehistoric phase was overlain by a Byzantine cemetery; the hill had long been under agricultural cultivation, generations of local inhabitants had moved rocks and placed them in clearance piles, which may have disturbed the upper layers of the site. At some point attempts had been made to break up some of the pillars by farmers who mistook them for ordinary large rocks. In 1994, Klaus Schmidt of the German Archaeological Institute, working at Nevalı Çori, was looking for another site to excavate, he reviewed the archaeological literature on the surrounding area, found the 1963 Chicago researchers’ brief description of Göbekli Tepe, decided to reexamine the site.
Having found similar structures at Nevalı Çori, he recognized the possibility that the rocks and slabs were prehistoric. The following year, he began excavating there in collaboration with the Şanlıurfa Museum, soon unearthed the first of the huge T-shaped pillars; the imposing stratigraphy of Göbekli Tepe attests to many centuries of activity, beginning at least as early as the Epipaleolithic period. Structures identified with the succeeding period, Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, have been dated to the 10th millennium BCE. Remains of smaller buildings identified as Pre-Pottery Neolithic B and dating from the 9th millennium BCE have been unearthed. A number of radiocarbon dates have been published: The Hd samples are from charcoal in the fill of the lowest levels of the site and would date the end of the active phase of occupation of Level III - the actual structures will be older; the Ua samples come from pedogenic carbonate coatings on pillars and only indicate the time after the site was abandoned—the terminus ante quem.
Göbekli Tepe is with buildings fanning in all directions. In the north, the plateau is connected to a neighbouring mountain range by a narrow promontory. In all other directions, the ridge descends steeply into steep cliffs. On top of the ridge there is considerable evidence of human impact, in addition to the construction of the tell. Excavations have taken place at the southern slope of the tell and west of a mulberry that marks an Islamic pilgrimage, but archaeological finds come from the entire plateau; the team has found many remains of tools. The plateau has been transformed by erosion and by quarrying, which took place not only in the Neolithic, but in classical times. There are four 10-metre-long and 20-centimetre-wide channels on the southern part of the plateau, interpreted as the remains of an ancient quarry from which rectangular blocks were taken; these are related to a square building in the neighbourhood, of which only the foundation is preserved. This is the remains of a Roman watchtower, part of the Limes Arabicus, this is conjecture.
Most structures on the plateau seem to be the result of Neolithic quarrying, with the quarries being used as sources for the huge, monolithic architectural elements. Their profiles were pecked into the rock, with the detached blocks levered out of the rock bank. Several quarries where round workpieces had been produced were identified, their status as quarries was confirmed by the find of a 3-by-3 metre piece at the southeastern slope of the plateau. Unequivocally Neolithic are three T-shaped pillars; the largest of them lies on the northern plateau. It has a length of 7 m and its head has a width of 3 m, its weight may be around 50 tons. The two other unfinished pillars lie on the southern Plateau. At the western edge of the hill, a lionlike figure was found. In this area and limestone fragments occur more frequently, it was therefore suggested. It is unclear, on the other hand, how to classify three phallic depictions from the surface of the southern plateau, they are near the quarries of classical times.
Apart from the tell, there is an incised platform with two
Comfort of Strangers is English singer-songwriter Beth Orton's fourth studio album, the follow-up to 2002's Daybreaker. The album was recorded in just two weeks at New York's Sear Sound studio in the spring of 2005, with musician and composer Jim O'Rourke as producer, it features Beth on guitar and harmonica with O'Rourke on bass and marimba and the American percussionist Tim Barnes on drums. All songs were composed by Orton, although the title track was written in partnership with O'Rourke and singer-songwriter M. Ward. "Worms" – 2:04 "Countenance" – 2:23 "Heartland Truckstop" – 2:48 "Rectify" – 2:27 "Comfort of Strangers" – 3:18 "Shadow of a Doubt" – 3:58 "Conceived" – 3:27 "Absinthe" – 4:02 "A Place Aside" – 2:19 "Safe in Your Arms" – 4:28 "Shopping Trolley" – 2:51 "Feral Children" – 3:35 "Heart of Soul" – 3:50 "Pieces of Sky" – 3:09 "What We Begin" – 3:30 "On My Way Home" – 3:08 "Comfort of Strangers #9" – 3:16 "Did Somebody Make a Fool of You?" – 2:16 "Northern Sky" – 2:58 "Conceived", released 29 November 2005 as a digital download, 31 January 2006 on 7" and CD in the UK.
Beth Orton website
Gaspard van der Heyden was a goldsmith, master printer and builder of precision astronomical instruments including terrestrial and celestial globes from Leuven, Belgium. He was well known among the humanists in Leuven as well as among mathematicians. Gaspard was the son of the surgeon Peter van der Katharina van den Berghe, he was born around 1496 in Leuven. He's recorded to have married his wife, Anna van Luye in 1521. Little of his early life and education are recorded, but he was considered to be more than an artist, an engraver, a qualified craftsman, a metal worker, he had scientific education in mathematics. A letter from Prof. Goglenius of Leuven dated December 2, 1531, to a friend of Erasmus, namely, to John Dantiscus, Polish policeman in the Netherlands, great protector of Gemma Frisius, shows us that he and several other local humanists were friends of Erasmus. Goglenius thanks Dantiscus for a gift sent to him by Jaspar aurifex; the fact that the family name is not given makes it seem plausible that the goldsmith had a good reputation among the Humanists in Leuven and the Court of Marius of Hungary.
Goclenius does not mention what type of object the gift was. Gaspard van der Heyden is referred to as "aurifaber" or goldsmith in demographic records starting in 1524. In city records from Leuven his name is mentioned several times. It's recorded that on 13 June 1526 he received a payment for the production of a copper seal intended for the payment of the beer tax. On August 17, 1527 he's shown to have made a Seal for the city, on the following December 19, he's recorded to have repaired the chain of a city whistle. In 1531/32, he's commissioned to make a stamp for embossing cloth. Van der Heyden was considered an important member of the Leuven geographic circle, was noted by English scholar John Dee when he went abroad to speak with "some learned men, chiefly Mathematicians, as Gemma Phrysius, Gerardus Mercator, Gaspar à Myrica, Antonius Gogava." In 1526 or 1527 he made a terrestrial and a celestial globe in collaboration with Franciscus Monachus of Mechelen. These globes have not survived, but are described by Monachus in a letter to his patron, entitled De Orbis Situ ac descriptione ad Reverendiss.
D. archiepiscopum Panormitanum, Monachi ordinis Franciscani, epistola sane qua luculenta. He built another terrestrial globe with the assistance of Gemma Frisius in 1529, but they planned a new globe by 1535 to better represent new geographical discoveries; the new globe was completed in 1536 with Gerardus Mercator. A celestial globe was produced by Frisius and van der Heyden in 1537. Copies of the newer globes were produced until the 1570s. A legend engraved on the celestial globe reads "Made by Gemma Frisius and mathematician, Gaspar à Myrica, Gerardus Mercator of Rupelmonde in the year of the virgin birth 1537."On July 4, 1549, he received compensation for a five-day stay in Antwerp, where he bought a cup from the goldsmith, Matthieu van Campen. This gilded silver cup was decorated with the coat of arms of the town, inscribed with the inscription "insignia oppidi Lovaniensis", gifted to Philip II on 5 July 1549, when he received the most prestigious notables in Leuven. Atlas Cosmographicae Celestial globe Franciscus Monachus Gemma Frisius Gerardus Mercator Globe Golden Age of Netherlandish cartography History of cartography Sylvia Sumira.
Globes: 400 Years of Exploration and Power. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-13914-2. Gerhard Holzer. A World of Innovation: Cartography in the Time of Gerhard Mercator. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4438-7570-7. Cartographic images of maps and globes The History of Cartography, Volume 3, The University of Chicago Press - PDF The Discovery of Gerard Mercator's Astrolabes, G. L'E. Turner