A figurine was found at Gobekli Tepe that seems to further confirm a belief of mine that the Shiva of India, the headless man with erect penis of Gobekli Tepe and the Shaman of the Lascaux cave are all related. This post outlines all the correlations I have found so far that confirm this belief.

Lets begin with the find at Gobekli Tepe: Notice how the figurine is in a seated position with an animal on one shoulder (with possible indications of there having - at one time - been another animal on the other shoulder) and these animals are not depicted as animals of the hunt but rather, as a shaman would describe it, as "allies" or friends;

A Short Note on a New Figurine Type from Göbekli Tepe

The motif of the figurine is an ithyphallic person sitting with legs dragged toward his body on an unidentifiable object. He is looking up and grasping his legs. Between the legs, a large erect phallus is depicted (Fig. 3), and a quadruped animal is sitting on the person´s left shoulder (Fig. 4). As one half of the figurine has a thick layer of sinter, the question whether there originally was another animal on the other shoulder remains open. The animal species cannot be determined with security neither, but the general form is consistent with depictions of large wildcats or bears at Göbekli Tepe (e.g. Schmidt 1999. 9-10, nr. A8). The material of the sculpture is unusual for the site on the other hand. Nearly all sculptures and figurines so far known from Göbekli Tepe were made from local limestone. The new figurine is most likely made from nephrite [Editor: Nephrite is often used for pendants or amulets and must have been considered a "blessed stone" in some way]. The figurine is perforated crosswise in its lower part. A functional interpretation for this detail is hard to give as one perforation would have sufficed to wear it as a pendant for example. Maybe the figurine was meant to be fixed to a support.

But in contrast to this group, the find discussed here has the animal on the shoulder (or one on each shoulder originally?) as an important characteristic. 

The animal is clinging to the shoulder in a crouched position, there is no indication of aggression or attack (Fig. 4), or a reaction of the sitting person. The animal could thus have a completely different meaning. We could be dealing with a more metaphorical relationship between man and animal here.

Extract continues: The other important characteristic of the depiction is the prominent erect phallus. Göbekli Tepe´s iconography is generally nearly exclusively male (e.g. Dietrich and Notroff 2015.85), and the phallus features prominently in several depictions of animals and humans. For example, a headless ithyphallic body is depicted on Pillar 43 amongst birds, snakes and a large scorpion (Schmidt 2006). Although the central pillars of the large enclosures are clearly marked as human through the depiction of arms, hands, and in the case of Enclosure D also items of clothing, their sex is not indicated. An erect phallus however is a prominent feature of the foxes depicted on several of the central pillars. There are also a few phallus sculptures from the site (e.g. Schmidt 1999.9, Plate 2/3-4).


Extract from: Of animals and a headless man. Göbekli Tepe, Pillar 43  

While some more reliefs to the left of the scorpion and the bird are hidden by the perimeter wall, to the right of the bird’s neck an especially interesting motif is depicted. Due to damage to the pillar it is not preserved completely, but the representation of a headless human with an erect penis is quite clearly recognizable. 

Compare the Shaman of the Lascaux cave of 15000 BC, with his penis erect...

“Among the Buriat, the animal or bird that protect the shaman is called khubilgan, meaning “metamorphosis,” from the verb khubilku, “to change onesself, to take another form.”[and]... in the great paleolithic cavern of Lascaux, in southern France, there is the picture of a shaman dressed in a bird costume, lying prostrate in a trance and with the figure of a bird perched on his shaman staff beside him. The shamans of Siberia wear bird costumes to this day, and many are believed to have been conceived by their mothers from the descent of a bird. In India, a term of honor addressed to the master yogi is Paramahamsa: paramount or supreme (parama) wild gander (hamsa). In China the so-called “mountain men” or “immortals” (hsien) are pictured as feathered, like birds, or as floating through the air on soaring beasts. The German legend of Lohengrin, the swan knight, and the tales, told wherever shamanism has flourished, of the swan maiden, are like-wise evidence of the force of the image of the bird as an adequate sign of spiritual power. And shall we not think, also, of the dove that descended upon Mary, and the swan that begot Helen of Troy? In many lands the soul has been pictured as a bird, and birds commonly are spiritual messengers. Angels are but modified birds. But the bird of the shaman is one of particular character and power, endowing him with an ability to fly in trance beyond the bounds of life, and yet return.” - Joseph Campbell , Primitive Mythology, page 258

Joseph Campbell explains further: Down there a large bison bull, eviscerated by a spear that transfixed its anus and emerged through its sexual organ stands before a prostrate man. the latter, (the only crudely drawn figure, and the only human figure in the cave) is rapt in a shamanistic trance. He wears a bird mask; his phallus erect, is pointing at the pierced bull; a throwing-stick lies on the ground at his feet; and beside him stands a wand or staff, bearing on its tip the image of a bird. And then, behind this prostrate shaman, is a large rhinoceros, apparently defecating as it walks away.

There has been a good deal of discussion of this painting among the scholar, and the usual suggestion is that it may represent the scene of a hunting accident. No less an authority than Abbe Breuil himself has supported this opinion, suggesting that the rhino may have been the cause of the disaster. It seems to me certain, however, that, in a cave where pictures are magical and consequently were expected to bring to pass such situations as they represent, a scene of disaster would not have been placed in the crypt, the holy of holies. The man wears a bird mask and has birdlike instead of human hands. He is certainly a shaman, the bird costume and bird transformation being characteristic, as we have already seen, of the lore of shamanism to this day throughout Siberia and North America. - Primitive Mythology, Book 1 Of The Masks Of God

The connection between the birdman with the erect penis from the ancient paleolithic caves to Gobekli Tepe seems pretty straightforward if we were to JUST put it in the category of ancient finds with clear links to shamanism that use similar art in a ritual context (both the Lascaux cave and Gobekli Tepe are considered to have been made for ritual purposes and this could indicate that erect penis art at Gobekli Tepe could represent a future elaboration of the same shamanic theme expressed in the Lascaux cave)

Compare the figure to the much later depiction of Shiva some 5-7 thousand years later from the ruins of Mohenjodaro from what must have been the Saraswati Civilization (now called Indus valley civilization)...

Yoga developed from practices started by Shamans: 

"the yogi, as a high transformation of the shamanistic techniques and experiences of ecstasis" Joseph Cambell, Primitive Mythology, Page 437

Notice the animals are different as one would expect from a mythological outlook adapted to local life, but the forms and general meanings/contexts would probably remain the same to SOME extent, the way a burial represents a belief in 'life after death' whatever form the belief may take .i.e. it could be life after death in another world or a reincarnation or whatever. the point is that the idea of an afterlife is indicated by the ritual of a burial and this idea/belief/mythological-outlook goes back - at least - 300,000 years)
"One of these is flanked by two kneeling worshipers and rearing serpents, while the other, with two gazelles reposing beneath his seat, is surrounded by four wild beasts – a water buffalo, rhinoceros, elephant, and tiger. It is well known that precisely these compositions are associated in later Hindu and Buddhist art both with the god Shiva and with the Buddha. One can only suppose that the practice of yoga must have already been developed and associated with the concept of heightened state of consciousness, not only worthy of worship but also capable of quelling and fascinating the animal world – like the music of Orpheus in the later tradition of the Greeks." 

An interesting fact is that this ancient seal, from a city that has been dead for around 3000 years, has some amazing similarities between later Hindu, Buddhist and Greek mythology.

"The seated yogi among the beasts wears on his head a curious headdress with a high crown and two immense horns, which, as Heinrich Zimmer has pointed out, resembles to a striking degree on of the so-called "Three Jewels" (symbolizing the Buddha, the doctrine, and the order of the Buddha’s followers), which in the form of a kind of trident. The Hindu god Shiva carries a trident also; and among the Greeks, as we know, this same sign was the attribute of Poseidon (Neptune), the god of the watery deep." Primitive Mythology page 436


Maybe long ago, Poseidon was another version of Shiva. They both carry the Tridents. They both have local animals associated with them (the bull exists in both regions and thus is associated with both, i.e. in the yogi image above the bull is of a local water buffalo species common to northern India). Poseidon;


Poseidon holding a trident. Corinthian plaque, 550-525 BC. From Penteskouphia.

Poseidon became divorced from the yoga/shamnic type practices that seem to characterize India and Gobekli Tepe art indicating a more humanistic/classic greek appraoch to the same archetype which seems to have disintegrated over time while in India this archetype still runs strong;

God of the sea, earthquakes, soil, storms, and horses

Poseidon from Milos, 2nd century BC (National Archaeological Museum of Athens)

Taking a step further into ancient shamanic postures for "journeying" or trance work...

If yogis originate from Shamans and shamnism as Joseph Campbell believes (and evidence seems to indicate)

"the yogi, as a high transformation of the shamanistic techniques and experiences of ecstasis" Joseph Cambell, Primitive Mythology, Page 437

Then meditation or trance - and the postures used for meditation/trance - would go back farther back than we can even imagine. Keeping in mind that the type of meditation may differ from culture to culture but the pose itself would signify meditation/yoga/shamanic-work over 10s of thousands of years through the process of land naming described below, notice these startling synchronicities...

The Shiva of Indus is obviously in a Mulabandhasana pose;





The shaman of 15000 BC s obvious;y in savana or "corpse" pose....



Here is a screenshot of the figurine (probably a pendant, amulet, of charm of some sort as suggested in the analysis) found at Gobekli Tepe;


































Does this mean that the pose found at Gobekli Tepe is a "sitting on a chair" yoga meditation pose or sitting on a throne and meditating (doing shamanic trance activity of some sort)...



... OR a variation of an even more ancient pose used by the mythological Jains called MulaBangha? (by the time these postures reached the modern age, which began about 500 BC, the animals were gone)

Wikipedia: Attainment of Kevala Jñāna(omniscience) by Mahavira in mulabandhasana posture. Mula bandha has its first literary mention in the oldest Jain canon Acaranga Sutra

This image still brings me the chills as this meditative sitting posture is being found so far back in some form or another, if it can be connected to ancient yoga, would mean that the Jains can probably trace their lineage to Gobekli Tepe if their histories have any element of truth in them!


A Short Look At Correlations Between Göbekli Tepe And Other Cultures (Includes Observations By Graham Hancock)


Extracts from: A Short Note on a New Figurine Type from Göbekli Tepe

Although the overall form is very similar, the figurines from Mezraa-Teleilat and Çatalhöyük are much more abstracted, the former are sitting on armchair-like seats, wear robe-like clothes and in some cases belts, and examples with animals on the shoulders seem to be missing. As the latest finds from Göbekli Tepe date to the middle PPN B, the figurine must be older than the finds from Mezraa Teleilat and Çatalhöyük.

This difference between Catalhoyuk and Gobekli Tepe could be because of a culture that moved away from animals to plant based or universe based mythology.



Why no animals in the later incarnations of the Gods? Because the forest sages in the most recent millenniums had shifted their attention from the forest (or farm) to the universe itself;

For the primitive hunting peoples of those remotest human millenniums when the sabertooth tiger, the mammoth, and the lesser presences of the animal kingdom were the primary manifestations of what was alien - the source at once of danger, and of sustenance - the great human problem was to become linked psychologically to the task of sharing the wilderness with these beings. An unconscious identification took place and this was finally rendered conscious in the half-human, half-animal, figures of the mythological totem-ancestors. the animals became the tutors of humanity, through acts of literal imitating - such as today appear only on the children's playground (or in the madhouse) - an effective annihilation of the human ego was accomplished and society achieved a cohesive organization. Similarly, the tribes supporting themselves on plant-food became cathected to the plant; the life-rituals of planting and reaping were identified with those of human procreation, birth, and progress to maturity. Both the plant and the animal worlds, however, were in the end brought under social control. Whereupon the great field of instructive wonder shifted - to the skies - and mankind enacted the great pantomime of the sacred moon-king, the sacred sun-king, the hierarchic, planetary state, and the symbolic festivals of the world-regulating spheres. - Joseph Campbell - Extract from the last chapter of "A Hero With A Thousand Faces"


By the time of Gobekli Tepe man had already reached the point where half-human and half animal figures had begun to emerge in their culture and as civilization grew the emphasis changed;

A Short Note on a New Figurine Type from Göbekli Tepe
A total of 149 sculptures has been found to date at Göbekli Tepe. Of these, 86 depict animals, 38 humans, four anthropomorphic masks, three phalli, nine are human-animal composite sculptures and a further nine are indeterminable.


In later Hindu Mythology Half-Human and Half-Animal gods exist which seem connected to this same stratum of mythological thought (notice Ganesha, the elephant headed child in Shiva's lap);

Oleograph by Raja Ravi Varmadepicting a Shiva-centric Panchayatana. A bearded Shiva sits in the centre with his wife Parvati and their infant son Ganesha; surrounded by (clockwise from left upper corner) Ganesha, Devi, Vishnu and Shiva. Shiva's mount is the bull Nandi below Shiva.





Extracts from: A Short Note on a New Figurine Type from Göbekli Tepe

Some Correlations on the Urfa Man and other Gobekli Tepe Art Observed by Graham Hancock

Urfa Man extract from: A Short Note on a New Figurine Type from Göbekli Tepe

Many of the fragments may have been originally part of sculptures in the shape of the ‘Urfa Man’, the oldest life-sized human sculpture currently known, discovered during construction work at Urfa-Yeni Mahalle (Hauptmann 2003; Schmidt 2010. 247, 248-249). 

There are two more examples of larger seated sculptures from Göbekli Tepe. A first depiction of a seated person (h. 32.5cm; Fig. 6), badly preserved, was found on the surface of the tell, too (Schmidt 1999. 9, Plate. 1/1). Here, the hands are brought together under the belly, the gesture reminds of the ‘Urfa Man’ who most likely is presenting a phallus (Hauptmann 2003), but unfortunately the lower part of the sculpture is not preserved. A snake could be depicted crawling up the back and head of the sculpture, but this remains uncertain, too. 

Both examples show some clear differences compared to the figurine: the arms are folded in front of the body, there is no animal on the shoulder, and the persons seem to sit on the ground, not on some object. As the lower part is missing we cannot be sure whether a phallus was depicted

Göbekli Tepe, Turkey, with Graham Hancock, Andrew Collins & Hugh Newman on the 'Origins' Tour

The following screenshots are taken from this video by Graham Hancock that shows some more of the cultural impacts the shamanic culture of Gobekli Tepe had on the world;

Video: ‘Magicians of the Gods’, snapshots of a work in progress




Highlights: Graham Hancock points out some very interesting cultural correlations he notices in the art of Gobekli Tepe and in ruins in the Americas...