Taş Tepeler
中文 Book Tour

Şanlıurfa · Southeastern Türkiye

The world's first
monuments.

Here, hunter-gatherers raised rings of giant carved pillars — and in time the hills closed over them. Göbekli Tepe is the most famous. It is far from the only one.

Begin the descent →Explore the sites
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What it is

Older than the pyramids.
Older than Stonehenge.

Taş Tepeler — the Stone Hills — is a cluster of Neolithic sites around Şanlıurfa. Their builders were hunter-gatherers, yet they quarried and raised rings of great T-shaped pillars, carved them with foxes, snakes and vultures, and wove the bones of their dead into the stone.

Then they filled the rings with earth, and the hills kept their secret for eleven thousand years.

11,500years old
12sites
9500BCE · first raised
Göbekli TepeThe famous oneGöbekli Tepe→ Karahan TepeCarved into the rockKarahan Tepe→ SayburçThe shrine among the housesSayburç→ SefertepeA hill of standing stonesSefertepe→
All twelve sites →

Start with a discovery

The great finds.

The carvings and statues that rewrote what we thought the Stone Age could do.

The carved head of Structure AB, Karahan Tepe

The Watching Head

Carved from the living rock, turned to meet everyone who descends.

Karahan Tepe →
 The painted boar statue, Göbekli Tepe

The Painted Boar

Still carrying its red, white and black paint, 11,000 years on.

Göbekli Tepe →
 The Ribbed Man statue, Karahan Tepe

The Ribbed Man

Gaunt, every rib showing — the living, or the dead?

Karahan Tepe →
 The Sayburç narrative relief

The Narrative Scene

A man between two leopards — the earliest story in stone.

Sayburç →
 The T-shaped pillars of Enclosure D, Göbekli Tepe

The T-Pillars

Faceless giants — but whose bodies?

Göbekli Tepe →
 The Vulture Stone, Pillar 43, Göbekli Tepe

The Vulture Stone

Birds, a headless man — the cult of the dead, carved in relief.

Göbekli Tepe →

From the field

News from the digs.

New discoveries, sourced and updated as the excavations report.

October 2026

The miniature T-pillars: giants shrunk to the hand.
September 2026

Göbekli's first intact burials — and the scattered-bones mystery.
September 2026

At Sayburç, the shrine stood among the houses.
All news & field notes →

Start here · Learn

Everything you'd want to ask.

Plain answers, from the basics to the questions archaeologists still argue over.

What is Göbekli Tepe?+
An 11,000-year-old site of monumental stone buildings near Şanlıurfa — rings of carved T-shaped pillars raised by hunter-gatherers, before farming, pottery or writing. Read the full answer →
How old is it, really?+
Its oldest great buildings date to around 9500 BCE — roughly 11,500 years old, about 7,000 years before Stonehenge or the pyramids. Read the full answer →
Who built it?+
Hunter-gatherers, before farming reached the region — the strongest evidence that monumental building predates agriculture. Not a lost civilization, and not aliens. Read the full answer →
Why did they bury it?+
The buildings ended up filled in — whether a deliberate act of closure or gradual accumulation is genuinely debated. Read the full answer →
Browse the full Learn hub →

The network · twelve sites

Twelve sites, one world.

Göbekli and Karahan are the famous two — but the Stone Hills run right across the Şanlıurfa plateau.

Map of the Taş Tepeler sites across the Şanlıurfa regionGöbekli TepeKarahan TepeSefertepeÇakmaktepeSöğüt TarlasıMendikHarbetsuvanŞanlıurfaGürcütepeYoğunburçAyanlarSayburçYenimahalle

Visit

Walk the hills with us.

Small-group tours led by guides who know every stone — from a half-day at Göbekli to the whole buried network.

Half day

Göbekli Tepe

The great enclosures under their canopy, with a guide who knows every stone.

See routes & prices →
Full day

Göbekli + Karahan

Both giants of the same world in a single day across the plateau.

See routes & prices →
Multi-day

The whole network

The lesser-seen sites, on a route we shape around you.

See routes & prices →
Not sure which?

Tell us when you're coming and we'll build the right route.

Plan my visit →