The reliefs depict lions, bulls, boars, foxes, gazelles, donkeys, snakes and other reptiles, insects, arachnids, and birds, particularly vultures. (At the time the shrine was constructed, the surrounding country was much lusher and capable of sustaining this variety of wildlife, before millennia of settlement and cultivation resulted in the near– Dust Bowl conditions prevailing today.) [8] Vultures also feature prominently in the iconography of the Neolithic sites of Çatalhöyük and Jericho; it is believed that in the early Neolithic culture of Anatolia and the Near East the deceased were deliberately exposed in order to be excarnated by vultures and other carrion birds. (The head of the deceased was sometimes removed and preserved—possibly a sign of ancestor worship.) [12] This, then, would represent an early form of sky burial, as practiced today by Tibetan Buddhists and by Zoroastrians in India. [13]
SO?? You don't think this is about Science? Some Nimrod is just making posts??
You figure it out!! |
