Göbekli Tepe: The World's Oldest Temple

A wall in an ancient temple displays an incredibly high level of sophistication in a Stone Age culture. Photo credit: Berthold Steinhilber.

The re-discovery of an intricately built ancient temple called Göbekli Tepe (Potbelly Hill in the native Turkish), in southern Turkey ^[0], is regarded as an archaeological discovery of the greatest importance.

The temple, which was built 8,000 years before the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egpyt, places our roots as a modern civilization much deeper than ever guessed at by any scholar or historian who had previously believed the first modern human societies formed around 9,000 B.C. in the Fertile Crescent near an area encompassing Jordan, Israel, and Iraq. With the shocking discovery of Gobekli Tepe, created by a culture that had clearly mastered masonry and developed a sophisticated culture prior to that within the Fertile Crescent, it places human society's beginnings nearer to 10,000 B.C. or 12,000 years ago in Turkey.

This discovery^[1] single-handedly and profoundly revolutionizes our understanding of a crucial stage in the development of human society in the Neolithic Era by predating the Fertile Crescent by a full thousand years and originating outside of it.

The prehistoric temple of Göbekli Tepe (pronounced Guh-behk-LEE TEH-peh) is large, intricately adorned - with sculpture and carved stone fashioned in a time when mankind was traditionally assumed to be nothing more than a handful of nomads with no great religious inclination with little to no education and no skilled trades abilities at all.

Yet, these ruins are amazing - the result of a highly sophisticated culture. The temple is made up of colossal T-shaped limestone pillars that are 10 to 20 feet tall each and weigh upwards of 40-60 tons. To put that into perspective, the largest standing stones at Stonehenge (Stonehenge Phase 3) weigh in at 25 tons and are 24 feet tall - making the Göbekli Tepe's monolithic pillars twice as heavy and nearly as tall. And, like Stonehenge, the creation of the temple is lost to history.

Two teams of archeological researchers remain hard at work at the site today uncovering this historical find and attempting to understand how the temple was built and what became of it's builders.

Notes:
[0] = Gobekli Tepe is located in an arid, dry region 9 miles northeast of the town of Şanlıurfa, Turkey.
[1] = Video of the actual site can be found here at YouTube.

References:
Wikipedia,Göbekli Tepe
National Geographic, Göbekli Tepe Excavation
Göbekli Tepe, Archeological Site Info
Worlds First Temple, Movie/Gallery

Foote's Fleet

Fort Donelson in Northern Tennessee is now quiet - betraying none of it's importance to the Civil War in 1862. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Foote's Fleet was a water-way expedition down the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers and directly into the Confederate heartland in 1862. Under the command of future president Ulysses Grant with a compliment of 17,000 raw recruits the Union expedition sought to take the initiative in the area of battle at the Kentucky/Tennessee border against two heavily fortified positions on the Tennessee River.

Unbeknownst to General Grant or Flag Officer Foote both crucial forts were manned by a force of less than 3,500 soldiers, made up of conscripts and slaves, who were mostly stragglers cut off from a force of 12,000 based in Arkansas.

The Union, by sailing directly south down the Ohio River, were guaranteed a line of supply that greatly favored their troops while their Confederate counterparts relied on distant Richmond, Virginia for supplies and orders.

Confederate Forts Henry and Donelson were isolated but strategically important outposts. The two forts were located 12 miles apart. Henry on the Tennesee River and Donelson overlooking the Cumberland River. Both were badly under-manned but also massively fortified. Fort Donelson, located south of Fort Henry, had walls that stood 20 feet high and were 20 feet thick in places. This fort was nearly impervious to infantry and hardened against cannon fire.

To attack these kinds of cyclopean positions, the Union expedition massed to enormous numbers. Foote's Fleet consisted of 7 war vessels and troop carriers including the ironclad cannon boat the Essex and a rickety barge dubbed a gunboat named the Cincinnati.


Forts Henry and Donelson as described in a map made circa 1862. Photo courtesy of Wikisource.

At the outset of the battle 17,000 Union soldiers were held at bay by a handful of country-fried Confederate bastards at Fort Henry. The Confederates heavily mined the river channel and by doing so damaged or destroyed 2 boats including the Essex.

Fort Henry's own fortifications were not complete by the start of the battle. In fact the fort suffered from disastrous flooding and submerged artillery placements. It was eventually deserted, moving it's remaining defenders east to Fort Donelson under the orders of Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman, who was captured when Fort Henry fell after two days of constant raids by Union forces.

The Union Fleet disembarked and raised the Union battle flag on February 5th 1862 above Fort Henry. Union General Halleck, not part of the fighting force in Tennessee, received word of the victory and immediately telegraphed Washington reporting: "Fort Henry is ours. The flag is reestablished on the soil of Tennessee. It will never be removed...".

Fort Donelson, with it's legendary walls, took in the remaining Henry compliment of Confederate troops and was determined to make a heroic stand under the guidance of former U.S. Secretary of War and Tennessee State Attorney (Attorney General in today's terms) John B. Floyd who, without any previous militia or military experience was made General by the Governor himself.

Strengthened by the Tennessee Cavalry Regiment, led by Colonel N. B. Forest, Fort Donelson repelled raid after raid for 5 days - from February 11th to the 16th. On the 15th, General John Floyd himself led a charge into the 17,000 men gathered against him. Against all odds (less than 3000 raiders versus 17,000 dug in troops) succeeded in opening an escape route.

Yet, due to what is presumed to be an error made out of lack of experience, Floyd returned to Fort Donelson where he was quickly surrounded.


The first USS Cincinnati was a "timberclad" gunboat fortified for naval warfare. She would be sunk in Vicksburg in 1863.

There, surrounded and under increasing pressure, but facing only minor losses of 40 of his 3500 men, General Floyd saw only calamity and annihilation. Floyd resigned his commission as General and transferred his position to Brigadier General Gideon Pillow who immediately transferred this position to, of all people the Commander of the Tennessee Regiment, Colonel Forest.

This abrupt lack of meaningful leadership from an extremely strong but under-manned position would mean nothing but escape and surrender of Fort Donelson. Colonel Forest ordered a second full charge out of the Fort.

Again, against-all-odds the casualties were minor. God himself, however temporarily, seemed to shield these out-numbered men as they rode out to charge through a sea of Union blue uniforms. Floyd escaped, reaching Nashville where he sailed for Virginia and Confederate controlled Richmond.

Losing these two Confederate forces in decisive and relatively quick battles (two weeks for two forts) opened up Middle Tennessee to Union forces destined to reach towards Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. Seizing Forts Henry and Donelson were the first important victories of Ulysses Grant's military career. General Floyd would be stripped of his command by Jefferson Davis himself, without a court of inquiry, on March 11th 1862 and die of a mysterious "ailment" the following year of 1963.

References:
Wikipedia, Battle Of Fort Henry
Wikipedia, Battle Of Fort Donelson
Wikipedia, USS Cincinnati
Civil War.org, The Fall Of Fort Henry
Old Court House, Civil War Era Vicksburg

The Bloody Sunday Massacre

The Bloody Sunday March of 1972 in Derry, Ireland prior to the massacre of unarmed civilians.

What can be our reaction to the institution of Fascism but horror? Yet, Fascism is a common practice among governments that cloak themselves in righteousness while butchering with impunity. Certainly Fascism is a horror that is readily found in the history any country in the world.

Fascism comes along to each culture, wrapped brightly in the guise of a reaction to an "immediate threat" (real or imagined), bringing with it the efficient brutality that is very often welcomed as a "just" answer or response - as it was at first in Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, the endless revolutions in Communist China and the disintegration of Yugoslavia, Viet Nam, Korea and Afghanistan. Initially, Fascism is warmly welcomed by an uninformed and misled population that have been carefully cowed by generations of corrupt leadership. When Fascism turns it's sights on it's own people the result is total self-destruction. Berlin, Toyko, Nagasaki, Rome...

Taking extreme measures against masses of unarmed people is pure madness but is at the heart of Fascism in all it's forms. It is at the very heart of fascism, from the gun toting drug thug on the corner to the storm trooper steam-rolling over burning battlefields, on this we can all agree openly - but this particular kind of fearful madness has never more clear then it was one Sunday in late January of 1972 in Derry, Ireland.

"And the battle's just begun, There's many lost, but tell me who has won?"

- U2, Bloody Sunday March 1983

Derry is often known as Londonderry by the native Irish due to the fact that Ireland has been dominated by England from this northern Irish city for centuries. Derry was, and remains today, a town deeply divided by religion and politics between England and Ireland. This international fight has been slowly boiling in the fabric of Irish and English society since the 16th Century and Henry VIII.

Irish political group Sinn Fein, first formed in 1905 as an underground resistance to English rule had re-formed in early 1970. Abandoning it's previous policy of abstentionism from politics Sinn Fein had begun actively organizing at the grass roots level with disaffected, unemployed youth and working professionals that saw Irish Independence or "Home Rule" as an attainable and realistic goal. Sinn Fein's fight was not above employing horrific violence equal to modern day suicide bombings that often claimed many innocent lives.

Their targets and opponents were indigenous Irish and emigrated English business leaders who maintained a strict status quo for their English counterparts. These so-called leaders did so by ensuring discriminatory policies that excluded the bulk of the Irish people from jobs, public housing and social programs - a kind of legally enforced religious segregation that only benefited a handful of collaborators. The collaborators themselves, for all their power over the destitute masses of their kin, were no more than weak puppets for a foreign power in their own home country.

In the middle of the two sides stood Ivan Cooper, a centrist Parliamentary politician and co-founder of the Social Democrat Labor Party (or SDLP). Cooper unflinchingly demanded that these centuries long practices come to an end with full civil rights being established for all Irish people. His solid leadership was founded around non-violent peaceful protest against the long military occupation in Ireland by having Catholic and Protestants work together towards common goals.

However, by 1970, explosive violence became the only politics between the two groups with MP Cooper finding himself more and more in the middle of two sides - each side galvanized by self-righteous anger. In July of 1971, two rioters, Seamus Cusack and Desmond Beattie, were shot dead in the Bogside section of Derry by soldiers in disputed circumstances adding to the atmosphere of growing fear and unease on each side. The difference here being that Cooper and the SDLP were not the ones holding crowds at bay with automatic rifles and mortars.

January 30th of 1972 is the day that would be called Bloody Sunday. It would be the second such massacre by the English military forces against it own unarmed civilians - the first occurring in 1887 when three protestors were beat to death in London and dozen more quite nearly killed with them during a political protest to free Irish politicians jailed under dubious charges.

On that winter day, thousands of people attended the Civil Rights March including protestors, observers and reporters. Before the parade would reach it's end, over one hundred rounds were fired directly into the crowds by troops. 27 unarmed people were shot, killing 14, More were injured as they attempted to aid the fallen. Two more were knocked down and run over by armored personnel carriers.

The dead included: John Duddy, 17, shot in the chest in a drive-way. Four witnesses stated Duddy was unarmed and running away from the paratroopers when he was killed.

Patrick Joseph Doherty, 31, shot from behind while attempting to crawl to safety.

Bernard McGuigan, 41, shot in the back of the head when he went to help the wounded Patrick Doherty. McGuigan had been waving a white handkerchief at the soldiers to indicate his peaceful intentions when he was shot.

Hugh Pious Gilmour, 17, shot in the chest as he ran from the paratroopers. A photograph taken seconds after Gilmour was hit corroborated witness reports that he was unarmed, and that tests for gunshot residue during his autopsy were negative.

Kevin McElhinney, 17, Shot from behind while attempting to crawl to safety. Two witnesses stated McElhinney was unarmed.

Michael Gerald Kelly, 17, shot in the stomach while standing near a rubble barricade in front of Rossville Flats. Also unarmed.

John Pius Young, 17, shot in the head while standing at a rubble barricade. Two witnesses stated Young was unarmed.

William Noel Nash, 19, shot in the chest near the barricade. Witnesses stated Nash was unarmed and going to the aid of another when killed.

Michael M. McDaid, 20, shot in the face at the barricade as he was walking away from the paratroopers. The trajectory of the bullet indicated he could have been killed by soldiers positioned on the Derry Walls as was later testified.

James Joseph Wray, 22, wounded then shot again at close range while lying on the ground. Witnesses stated that Wray was calling out that he could not move his legs before he was shot the second time.

Gerald Donaghy, 17, shot in the stomach while attempting to run to safety. Donaghy was brought to a nearby house by bystanders where he was examined by a doctor. His pockets were searched to identify him. Later police photograph of Donaghy's corpse showed unexploded nail bombs in his previously empty pockets. Neither those who searched his pockets in the house nor the British Army Medical officer (identified only as "Soldier 138") who pronounced him dead shortly afterwards say they saw any bombs before the dubious photo was taken.

According to the official report from the coroner for the City of Derry/Londonderry, retired British Army Major Hubert O'Neill, in a shockingly anti-collusionist bit of stark truth, the cause of death was listed as "sheer unadulterated murder".


The Bloody Sunday Memorial in Derry, Ireland.

This incident was immediately covered up, white-washed and denied for the next 40 years. The denial of readily available evidence by a remarkable number of colluded politicians and remorseful soldiers remains astounding given the seriousness of the crime. A number of kangaroo courts cleared all involved in the massacre. "Official" hearings reached the same irrational conclusions despite an over-whelming amount of evidence to the contrary.

During more testimony about Bloody Sunday in the Irish Parliament, Bernadette Devlin, very much a Joan of Arc figure in the chaos of that era of political strife, punched her colleague Reginald Maudling, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when he stated to Parliament that the events of Bloody Sunday were brought about when British Army fired in self-defense. Devlin was temporarily suspended from Parliament as a result of the incident.

It was not until June of 2010, nearly forty years later, that the Bloody Sunday massacre was only semi-officially acknowledged by the English government in the documents released from The Saville Inquiry. The inquiry heard from over 900 witnesses and received 2500 witness statements. However, according to the report, over 1,000 army photographs and original Army helicopter video footage were never made available. Additionally, guns used on the day by the soldiers that could have been evidence in the inquiry were lost by the English Ministry Of Defense. The Ministry claimed that all the guns involved had been destroyed yet some were subsequently recovered in various distant locations such as Sierra Leone and Beirut despite the obstruction.

References:
Wikipedia, Bloody Sunday
Wikipedia, Sinn Féin
Wikipedia, Ivan Cooper
Wikipedia, The Pale Partitioning Of Ireland
New World Encyclopedia, Bloody Sunday
Sinn Féin, Statement Of Equality
Irish Civil Rights, Badge Of The Derry Civil Rights Movement