Structure BD — Key Facts
Structure BD is a large rectangular building on Karahan Tepe's Western Terrace — continuous benches around the walls, twelve T-shaped pillars, and a group of central pillars that collapsed in antiquity. It is associated with some of the site's most significant sculpture.
What we know
Structure BD is reported as a monumental rectangular building with slightly rounded corners, continuous benches, and symmetrically placed T-shaped pillars — twelve in total, of which four central pillars collapsed in antiquity. Formal sources describe a likely related upper west-slope public building, around 15.5 by 15.5 metres, associated with a seated human sculpture and a griffon-vulture sculpture. The checked formal text does not always print the 'BD' label explicitly, so parts of this remain reporting-grade.
The building of the seated figure
BD matters most for what stood inside it. This part of the site — a monumental rectangular building on the Western Terrace, with a likely related public building around 15.5 × 15.5 metres — is the context associated with a seated human sculpture and a griffon-vulture sculpture. The seated figure is the "death-fertility body" that recurs across Karahan: a large human form with deep-carved ribs and emphasized genitalia, kept in company with a vulture (the bird of the dead), human bone, plates, and a bench. In our reading — offered as interpretation, not fact — the ribs insist on death while the phallus insists on life, and Karahan repeatedly forces the two into a single image. See the human figures for the seated statues in full.
A monumental hall
The building itself is grand: continuous benches running around the interior, T-shaped pillars set symmetrically, and four central pillars that collapsed in antiquity. Where the Pillar Room (Structure AB) is small and sunken, BD is broad and open — a different kind of space in the same complex. Next door stands Structure BH, the liquid building with its north-wall bowl and channel; together the two rooms give this corner of Karahan Tepe the feel of a linked ritual precinct. We keep BD's labelling and dimensions at the confidence the sources allow, and do not fix a single function to it.
Frequently asked questions
What is Structure BD?
A large rectangular building on Karahan Tepe's Western Terrace with continuous benches, twelve T-shaped pillars, and four collapsed central pillars, associated with important sculpture.
How many pillars are in Structure BD?
Twelve T-shaped pillars in total, of which four central pillars collapsed in antiquity.
Karahan Tepe Research & Archive · Last updated July 2026.
Follows official Taş Tepeler project material and Stone Mounds reporting. Where details are still described as "reported," they await formal publication and are flagged as such. We use the excavator's designation as the canonical name and avoid assigning a single settled function. This is a living archive summary, not an official academic publication.
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