Something About Göbekli Tepe’s Headless Man Doesn’t Add Up...

On the most famous stone at Göbekli Tepe, a vulture holds something round above its wing, and below it stands a man with no head. The people who dug him out say that round thing could be his head. And one detail carved on his body, by their own reading, doesn't belong on a dead man. He isn't the only one on that hill who lost his head. Stone figures with their heads broken off at the neck and laid beside the pillars. A human head carved between a vulture and a hyena. A beast holding a head, its faces smashed off and a wall built in front of it. Real skulls with grooves cut into them, and more pieces of skull in the ground than pieces of body. Then the first graves ever found on the hill, where the skulls ended up together in one corner. There's a reading of Pillar 43 that turns the headless man into everyone who died on the night a comet hit. The people who dug the pillar out answered it with the one detail on his body that breaks it, and the answer to that detail was written down far away from Göbekli Tepe. 0:00 The man with no head 0:40 Heads in the fill 2:05 The head between the animals 4:06 The cut skulls 5:48 The first graves 8:07 The night in the sky 9:53 What the carver saw 12:16 The sides nobody read 13:07 The picture that outlived them Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcMOgmkKMJ4U6pQSB6-TffQ?sub_confirmation=1 SOURCES Dietrich, O., Of animals and a headless man. Göbekli Tepe, Pillar 43, The Tepe Telegrams (DAI), 14 Oct 2016: https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/2016/10/14/of-animals-and-a-headless-man-gobekli-tepe-pillar-43/ Dietrich, O., Losing your head at Göbekli Tepe, The Tepe Telegrams (DAI), 5 May 2016: https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/2016/05/05/losing-your-head-at-gobekli-tepe/ Dietrich, O., A separated head between animals on a stone slab from Göbekli Tepe, The Tepe Telegrams (DAI), 17 May 2017: https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/2017/05/17/a-separated-head-between-animals-on-a-stone-slab-from-goebekli-tepe/ Dietrich, O., The Göbekli Tepe 'Totem Pole', The Tepe Telegrams (DAI), 1 Mar 2017: https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/2017/03/01/the-gobekli-tepe-totem-pole/ Extraordinary Discovery at Göbeklitepe: 12,000-Year-Old Human Statue Found Inside Wall, Arkeonews, 19 Sep 2025: https://arkeonews.net/extraordinary-discovery-at-gobeklitepe-12000-year-old-human-statue-found-inside-wall/ Gresky, J. et al., Modified human crania from Göbekli Tepe provide evidence for a new form of Neolithic skull cult, Science Advances, 2017: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318071703_Modified_human_crania_from_Gobekli_Tepe_provide_evidence_for_a_new_form_of_Neolithic_skull_cult Gresky, J. & Clare, L., First burials give insights into mortuary rites at Göbeklitepe, Early Neolithic Türkiye, PLOS ONE, 22 Sep 2026: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0358979 DAI press release, Human remains and burial practices at Göbeklitepe: https://www.dainst.org/en/newsroom/neue-veroeffentlichung-menschliche-ueberreste-und-bestattungsbraeuche-in-goebeklitepe/924 12,000-year-old Göbeklitepe burials explain the mystery of hundreds of scattered human bones, Archaeology Magazine, 25 Sep 2026: https://archaeologymag.com/2026/09/gobeklitepe-burials-hundreds-of-scattered-bones/ Notroff, J. et al., More than a vulture: A response to Sweatman and Tsikritsis, The Tepe Telegrams (DAI), 3 Jul 2017: https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/2017/07/03/more-than-a-vulture-a-response-to-sweatman-and-tsikritsis/ Same response, Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry 17(2), 2017: https://jensnotroff.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ii-17_37_maa-172_response-to-sweatman.pdf Carvings in ancient temple of Göbekli Tepe could be Earth's oldest calendar, ScienceAlert, 8 Aug 2024: https://www.sciencealert.com/carvings-in-ancient-temple-of-gbekli-tepe-could-be-earths-oldest-calendar The Vulture Shrine, north and east walls, showing vultures feeding on headless figures (Çatalhöyük): https://www.researchgate.net/figure/SVII8-the-Vulture-Shrine-north-and-east-walls-showing-vultures-feeding-on-headless_fig4_232014086 Hodder, I., Symbolism at Çatalhöyük, British Academy: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/3850/99p177.pdf Todd, N.V., Priapism in acute spinal cord injury, Spinal Cord, 2011: https://www.nature.com/articles/sc201157 Costea et al., Through Clinical Observation: The History of Priapism After Spinal Cord Injuries, World Neurosurgery, 2018: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878875017317680