News & field journal
From the field.
New discoveries, research, and events from across the Taş Tepeler sites — sourced, and updated as the digs report.
26 November 2025 · SefertepeSefertepe joins the family: two carved faces and a double-sided beadNew finds unveiled at the Taş Tepeler project's fifth-season briefing show Sefertepe carving human faces in its own distinct style — proof the symbolic world reached well beyond Göbekli and Karahan.
25 November 2025 · Karahan TepeThe earliest story told in three dimensions?Three tiny carved animals — a fox, a vulture and a wild boar — found sealed inside a vessel at Karahan Tepe are being read as one of the first stories ever staged in three dimensions.
24 November 2025 · SayburçThe stitched-mouth statue of SayburçA carved human figure with a mouth that appears sewn shut, found at Sayburç, is prompting archaeologists to rethink how these communities pictured death — beyond skulls and burials.
18 October 2025 · Karahan TepeThe village beneath Karahan TepeMore than thirty Neolithic houses — with hearths, grinding stones and standing stones inside them — reframe Karahan Tepe as not only a sanctuary but one of the world's earliest villages.
9 October 2025 · Karahan TepeA human face on a T-pillar, for the first timeA T-shaped pillar at Karahan Tepe carved with a human face — a prominent nose, deep-set eyes, an angular jaw — is the first of its kind, and hard evidence that the T-pillars stood for people.
18 September 2025 · Ayanlar HöyükA Japanese princess breaks ground at Ayanlar HöyükPrincess Akiko of Mikasa and Türkiye's culture minister opened excavations at Ayanlar Höyük, expanding the Taş Tepeler project through a new Türkiye–Japan partnership.
8 October 2023 · Göbekli TepeGöbekli Tepe's painted boar: the first coloured Neolithic statueA life-sized wild boar found in Special Building D still carried red, black and white pigment — the first hard proof that the sculptures of Göbekli Tepe were painted.
8 December 2022 · SayburçThe oldest story ever carved? The Sayburç relief goes publicA five-figure scene carved on a bench at Sayburç, published in Antiquity, is argued to be the earliest known depiction of a narrative in human art.