Taş Tepeler
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Tek Tek Mountains · Şanlıurfa, Türkiye

Karahan Tepe

Göbekli Tepe's sister sanctuary — not built up, but carved down into living rock, where a human head watches over a chamber of pillars.

c. 9400 BCETek Tek MountainsPre-Pottery NeolithicPlan a visit →

The site

Walk the ground.

Illustrated excavation map of Karahan Tepe The seated figure Human-faced pillar The carved head The serpentine channel The phallic pillars Structure AB

The evidence

What makes Karahan Tepe different.

The wild-looking man.
The wild-looking man.
A life-sized seated figure with a fierce face and ribs showing.
Faces carved in stone.
Faces carved in stone.
Carved human heads and faces recur across the site.
Pillars raised from the rock.
Pillars raised from the rock.
Around eleven pillars stand in the rock-cut Structure AB.
They carved down, not up.
They carved down, not up.
Chambers cut into bedrock, pillars left standing from the floor.

The story

before 9400 BCE

Part of a wider awakening

Karahan did not appear out of nowhere. It rose within the same Taş Tepeler world as Göbekli — a whole landscape of hunter-gatherers already raising stone, gathering, and inventing what it meant to build.

Inside the site

The chambers.

Structure AB
The rock-cut pillar chamber
Structure AD
The central complex & stone vessels
Structure BD
The Western Terrace figures

The wider world

Karahan Tepe doesn't stand alone.

Regional network of the Taş Tepeler sites Göbekli TepeKarahan TepeSefertepeÇakmaktepeSöğüt TarlasıMendikHarbetsuvanŞanlıurfaGürcütepeYoğunburçAyanlarSayburçYenimahalle

Visit

Stand where it happened.

Small-group and private tours to Karahan Tepe and across the Taş Tepeler landscape, led by people who know the ground.

Book a tourSee itineraries