Taş Tepeler Site Profile
Sayburç
Sayburç is an Early PPNB settlement near Şanlıurfa, best known for a five-figure bench relief with two humans, two leopards, and a bull. It also matters because special imagery sits beside houses.
Site image used for public orientation.
Overview
- Period
- Early PPNB / middle of the 9th millennium BCE
- Location
- Şanlıurfa region
- Main Evidence
- Narrative relief, Leopard pair, Residential buildings with hearths and storage
Timeline
- Early PPNB / middle of the 9th millennium BCE
- Sayburç matters because it is a settlement with one of the clearest early narrative reliefs: humans, leopards, and a bull in one carved scene. It should be read first as its own place, then compared outward to the wider Taş Tepeler horizon.
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Sayburç matters because it is a settlement with one of the clearest early narrative reliefs: humans, leopards, and a bull in one carved scene. It should be read first as its own place, then compared outward to the wider Taş Tepeler horizon.
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Discoveries
- Eylem Özdoğan describes the Sayburç relief-bearing structure as a round-plan bedrock-carved non-residential/special-purpose building whose reliefs are carved on the front face of an interior bench parallel to the wall.
- Özdoğan identifies five figures in the Sayburç reliefs: two leopards, two humans, and one bull, organized into two main compositions: leopard-human-leopard and bull-human.
- Özdoğan stresses that Sayburç imagery must be interpreted through archaeological context and warns that isolated objects can produce false or sensational explanations.
- Eylem Özdoğan describes Sayburç's Neolithic occupation as a short/single-layer late PPNA-early PPNB horizon, with interview radiocarbon framing around 8650-8300 BCE.
- Özdoğan describes Sayburç as containing residential buildings, multiple special buildings, and smaller ambiguous structures, with domestic features such as hearths, storage, food preparation tools, grinding stones, benches, niches, and pillars.
Structures
- The relief-bearing Sayburç structure is described by Özdoğan as a round-plan, bedrock-carved, non-residential/special-purpose building.
- The reliefs are carved on the front face of an interior bench parallel to the wall, making audience position, seating, wall, and image inseparable.
- Sayburç also includes residential buildings, special buildings, and ambiguous smaller structures, so domestic and symbolic space should not be separated too quickly.
- Eylem Özdoğan describes the Sayburç relief-bearing structure as a round-plan bedrock-carved non-residential/special-purpose building whose reliefs are carved on the front face of an interior bench parallel to the wall.
- Özdoğan describes Sayburç as containing residential buildings, multiple special buildings, and smaller ambiguous structures, with domestic features such as hearths, storage, food preparation tools, grinding stones, benches, niches, and pillars.
Structure pages
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