The History of Karahan Tepe

The history of Karahan Tepe divides into two stories separated by an enormous silence. First there is the deep history — a few centuries around 9500–8000 BCE when the site was carved, used, and finally closed. Then, after more than ten thousand years underground, the modern history — the survey, the excavation, and the ongoing discoveries that are still going on right now.

Deep history: building at the dawn of settled life

Karahan Tepe was made in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, the era just after the last Ice Age when people were beginning to settle but had not yet fully committed to farming. They had no pottery, no metal, and no writing. With flint and stone tools, they cut chambers straight down into the limestone bedrock of the hill, shaped pillars out of the living rock, and carved human heads and statues of startling realism.

This is the fact that overturned decades of assumption: monumental architecture like this was supposed to require farming, surplus, and cities to organise the labour. Karahan Tepe — like its sister site Göbekli Tepe — shows the opposite. The building came first. Who built it, and how →

How the site ended: a deliberate burial

Karahan Tepe did not simply fall into ruin. At the end of its life, key structures — including the famous Pillar Room — were intentionally filled in and sealed, in staged layers, with large stones placed deliberately over the rear pillars. The same closing gesture is seen across the Taş Tepeler. Why they buried their own sacred places is one of the great open questions of the Neolithic. Why they buried their temple →

The long silence, and one modern clue

For more than ten thousand years the hill kept its secret. It was known locally simply as Karahan — "the black hill." Its surface was scattered with worked flint and the tops of buried stones, but like Göbekli Tepe before it, nobody suspected how old, or how important, what lay beneath really was.

Modern history: survey, excavation, discovery

The site was formally identified during a regional survey in 1997 by researcher Bahattin Çelik, who recognised its potential significance. But it was not until 2019 — when it was folded into Türkiye's ambitious Taş Tepeler project under Prof. Necmi Karul of Istanbul University — that systematic excavation began. What came out of the ground in the seasons that followed turned Karahan Tepe into international news. And crucially, only a small fraction of the site has been dug: the history of Karahan Tepe is still being written, one season at a time. Follow the latest discoveries →

Timeline of Karahan Tepe

• c. 9500–8000 BCE — the main monumental phase. Chambers are cut into bedrock; the Pillar Room, the carved head, the pillars and statues are made and used.
• End of the Neolithic phase — key structures are deliberately backfilled and sealed by the community itself.
• c. 8000 BCE – 1997 CE — the site lies buried and silent for roughly ten thousand years.
• 1997 — Karahan Tepe is identified during a regional survey by Bahattin Çelik.
• 2019 — systematic excavation begins under Prof. Necmi Karul, as part of the Taş Tepeler project.
• 2021 — the Pillar Room (Structure AB) is fully revealed, making global headlines.
• 2023 — the site opens to visitors with a walkway and protective shelter; the 2.3 m "Ribbed Man" statue is among the celebrated finds.
• 2025 — a T-pillar carved with a human face is uncovered, along with evidence of 30+ dwellings — reframing the sanctuary as also a village.
• Every season since — new structures, sculptures and features continue to emerge, tracked on our Discoveries page.

Frequently asked questions

When was Karahan Tepe built?

Its main monumental phase dates to roughly 9500–8000 BCE, in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic — more than 11,000 years ago.

Who discovered Karahan Tepe?

The site was identified in a 1997 regional survey by Bahattin Çelik. Systematic excavation began later, in 2019, under Prof. Necmi Karul of Istanbul University.

Why was Karahan Tepe abandoned?

Rather than being abandoned to decay, key structures were deliberately buried and sealed by the people who used them — a deliberate closure seen across the Taş Tepeler. The reasons remain debated.