How We Work

The Karahan Tepe Research & Archive exists to be the clearest, most reliable English-language home for Karahan Tepe and the wider Taş Tepeler region. We track every discovery as it emerges, explain the site for people who aren't archaeologists, and help travellers visit it well.

What we do

• Track the discoveries. Every new find from Karahan Tepe and the region, reported as it happens on our Discoveries feed.
• Explain the site. Definitive, plain-English guides to the enclosures, the carvings, the builders, and the big questions — with an interactive overview.
• Guide the visit. A practical how-to-visit guide, and expert-led tours across Karahan Tepe and the whole region.

How we source our information

This is the part we take most seriously. Karahan Tepe attracts a lot of confident storytelling; we try to be the place you can trust. Our standards:

• Primary sources first. We build on the excavation reports of Prof. Necmi Karul, the official Taş Tepeler project, the German Archaeological Institute's Tepe Telegrams, and published academic work.
• Evidence and interpretation, kept apart. We separate what excavators actually observed from what it might mean — and where a question is genuinely open, we say so rather than inventing certainty.
• Reported vs. published. When a detail has been announced but not yet formally published, we flag it as reporting-grade instead of presenting it as settled.
• The excavators' names. We use the official structure designations (Structure AB, AA, AD…) as the canonical names, and note popular nicknames as nicknames.
• Curiosity, handled honestly. We cover the popular theories — lost civilizations, ancient catastrophes — fairly and in full, and then show where the archaeological evidence actually lands. We don't promote pseudo-archaeology as fact.
• We correct ourselves. The site is being excavated every season; the picture changes. We update as new findings are published, and if you spot an error, tell us.

A living archive — not an official academic source

We're an independent archive and educational resource, not the excavation team and not an official academic publication. We summarise, organise, and signpost the work of the archaeologists doing the digging. For authoritative detail, always consult the excavation team and the published literature — much of which we link to.

Who's behind it

This archive is run by The Community Garden Foundation — a collective of researchers and history communicators that includes Dakota Wint — as part of its cultural-preservation work in Turkey. Our annual expedition is a separate program, guided by history creators who join us for the trip (such as Pete Kelly of History Time); they help lead the tour, but aren't part of the archive team.

The wider network

This archive is one part of a small family of projects around the region:

• KarahanTepe.net — this site: the archive for Karahan Tepe specifically.
• The First Temples (tastepeler.net) — our umbrella atlas for the wider Taş Tepeler region: Göbekli Tepe, Sayburç, and the whole Neolithic landscape.
• Şanlıurfa Tour — our regional tour service across the "Stone Hills" route and beyond.
• The annual expedition — our flagship small-group tour, Ancient Wonders of Anatolia.
• The Community Garden Foundation — the nonprofit behind it all: cultural preservation, including community support in Soğmatar. Tour proceeds contribute directly to this work.

Contact us

Questions, corrections, tour enquiries, or press: the fastest way to reach us is WhatsApp at +1 707-641-6697, or by email at info@thecommunitygarden.org.