The Taş Tepeler (‘stone hills’) project launched under that name in 2019 and has since excavated regional variations on themes that link Göbekli Tepe to other sites within a 50km radius. The enhanced effort, no doubt pushed by the Ministry of Tourism, has already witnessed some remarkable discoveries.
A bedrock carved bench discovered at the bottom of a circular building at a small village named Sayburç, just west of Sanliurfa, depicts an ‘animal master’ type figure normally encountered in later Bronze Age art. The elated man is flanked by two big cats which stylistically resemble the same from Göbekli, as found in the ‘Lion Pillars Building’ for example. On his left (the two scenes form one) is a lunging aurochs with a human coaxing it. The man, who has six fingers, brandishes what looks like a snake. The two figures might be forms of the double T-shapes acting out a story.
Karahan Tepe: According to its excavator Necmi Karul, this site is late-PPNA-early-PPNB so came slightly after the known Göbekli enclosures. Built by the same culture but different people, Karahan continues the monumental pairing in small square buildings and in a larger circular building (about 23 metres across) where the central pillars are collapsed and fragmented on the floor. This amphitheater-like enclosure, named Str. AD, is larger in floor space than Gobekli’s Enclosure D. Artifacts from the site also carry the twin theme apparently central in concepts of divinity to these people: there’s a twin pillar head (a bit like the plaster-reed statuettes from ‘Ain Ghazal), paired foxes, and an impressive human-animal entanglement statue.
A source of attention is a special building resembling a pit carved out of bedrock named Str. AB. A slightly ominous looking human-like face emerges snakelike from the stone wall. There are 10 stone pillars (interpreted as phalluses) which probably, along with the head, signified ancestral powers. and a standing beast (similar to a portable statue from Göbekli) which might depict a boar-hound beast. Incidentally, this appears to have confronted those admitted to the chamber who might have entered by a small descending stairwell located northeast of Str. AD. The semi-subterranean space of this building would likely have signified its figures as powerful underworld divinities. Did its cave like interior host initiation rites at significant gathering times of the year? A ritual progression from this pit to another beyond (named Str. AA) was proposed by Karul. The AA pit features relatively crude depictions of a fox and snake and reportedly was filled over before being completed.
The overall orientation of these pits is nevertheless interesting as the entrance to Str. AB echoes the place occupied by Pillar 43 at Göbekli which has received attention for its depiction of summer solstice imagery in underworld terms. Possibly the standing beast of Str. AB has counterpart in the ‘upright’ canine of Pillar 43 as a fierce guardian. The correspondence of this canine to Lupus, the ‘mad dog/hellhound’ of Babylonian constellations, is notable given its place relative to the other figures on Pillar 43.
In eras of writing, we’re aware that midsummer marked the closest approach of underworld and it’s perhaps relevant that Str. AB’s stone face looks in the direction of the rising midsummer sun (expand aerial photo above).
Features of the AB chamber such as its ovoid shape, circular entrance and water running into it would suggest sound was important. Further analysis of AB is forthcoming but it was most likely roofed making its environment conducive to sonic creation. In her ‘Listening for Ancient Gods’ the archaeoacoustic expert, Linda Eneix, discusses sound chambers found at a number of ancient sites and compares subterranean structures at Malta with Göbekli Tepe buildings. Audio manipulations in vibrant interior regions might, she suggests, have been experienced as supernatural voices (of ghosts and ancestors). She recounts a personal communication shared with Klaus Schmidt where he allegedly remarked how Göbekli’s pillars ‘sang’ under percussion (struck with a hand). More interestingly, she compares circular perforations in stone from Anatolia with similar ones at Malta. At the Hypogeum there, these have been named ‘oracle holes’ because the disorientating din created within their cavernous interiors projected outward, to the ears of the living, like voices of the dead.
With this auditorium in mind, inaudible to modern ears in the same way, it’s possibly overlooked how animals which feature at these sites played their part in it too. Lincoln (1991), for example, remarks on the ontology of a growl:
The growl of the hellhound is yet another expression of this liminal position, for the growl is a halfway station between articulate speech and silence. It is a speech filled with emotion and power, but utterly lacking in reason. Like death itself, the hellhound speaks, but does not listen; acts, but never reflects or reconsiders. Driven by hunger and greed, he is insatiable and his growl is eternal in duration. In the last analysis, the hellhound is the moment of death, the great crossing over, the ultimate turning point.
Karahan Tepe is very impressive and as its larger building strongly appears orientated to the same ceremonial purposes known elsewhere, we’ll wait to see what it reveals. Schmidt once described pre-excavated Karahan as a surrealistic painting by Salvadore Dali, it’s a shame he never got to see the equally imaginative structures hidden beneath.
Karul’s primary report: https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/arkeolojiveetnografya/issue/63476/909296
Footage of the site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om-vBEI5eeo