Andrew Collins's book "Karahan Tepe," about the incredible archaeological site of this same name in southestern Turkey, has just dropped in Turkey and it is causing one hell of a firestorm already! As one archaeologist out there put it, a "pseudo" (??) like Andrew cannot write about this site because excavations only began there in 2019.

Andrew's new book, however, is the product, not of six years research (since 2019), but the product of 22 years of hard work, since he was first at Karahan Tepe as far back as June 2004. Since then he has returned there on countless occasions recording its stories, legends, celestial alignments, entering caves locally, and making a record of everything he finds. His book has been written for the people of Turkey to inform them not only of what is going on at the site, but also to tell them what impact its existence has had on the myths, legends and religious traditions of the country. There is a whole chapter, for instance, on the Shahmaran, the serpent queen, and how her story almost certainly comes from a much earlier goddess of Hurrian origin known as Isharah, whose religion derived from a shamanic snake cult that thrived at Karahan Tepe as much as 11,000 years ago. He show's also how stories in Turkey of a world-encircling serpent recall the Milky Way in its role as the Cosmic Serpent, and how its memory inspired not only the activities at Karahan Tepe, but also the story of the Serpent of Eden tempting Adam and Eve. A localised version of this tale is told to this day by the old inhabitants of Şanlıurfa, so close to both Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe. The legacy of Karahan Tepe lives on, and now Andrew's findings are available for everyone to read for the first time.