The Exhibition — Key Facts
The story of Karahan Tepe usually stays close to the hills of Şanlıurfa. In 2026 it travelled — to the heart of Berlin. "Building Community: Göbeklitepe, Taş Tepeler and Life 12,000 Years Ago" placed original Neolithic finds from southeastern Türkiye on Museum Island, and asked visitors to see Göbekli Tepe not as a lone wonder but as one site in a connected world that includes Karahan.
What was on show
Held at the James-Simon-Galerie in partnership with Berlin's Vorderasiatisches Museum, Istanbul University and the Şanlıurfa Archaeology Museum, the exhibition brought together archaeological finds and architectural reconstructions across eight thematic sections — moving from birth and daily life through to death and the treatment of the dead. Rather than isolating a single famous pillar, it set the objects inside the rhythms of early settled life: how these communities gathered, built, ate, made images, and buried their people.
Alongside the ancient material, the show included contemporary photographic work by the Spanish photo-artist Isabel Muñoz, inviting visitors to feel their way into the transition from hunting and gathering to settled life — the exact threshold that Karahan Tepe sits upon.
Why it matters for Karahan Tepe
Exhibitions shape how the public understands the past. For years, "Göbekli Tepe" was shorthand for the dawn of monumental architecture. By foregrounding Taş Tepeler — the "Stone Hills" network — this show did in a gallery what excavation has been doing in the field: widening the frame. Karahan Tepe is central to that wider frame, the sister site whose carved chambers, human figures and predator imagery push the story further. When international audiences meet the Taş Tepeler world, they are meeting Karahan's world too.
A travelling story
The Taş Tepeler sites have been investigated since 2021 in an international research project led by Prof. Necmi Karul of Istanbul University. The Berlin show is one stage of a growing international programme: further exhibitions have been announced for the United Kingdom in 2026 and the Tokyo National Museum in 2027. The world is coming to meet the first temples — and Karahan Tepe is at the centre of what it finds.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Taş Tepeler Berlin exhibition?
"Building Community: Göbeklitepe, Taş Tepeler and Life 12,000 Years Ago," an exhibition of original Neolithic finds from the Şanlıurfa region shown at the James-Simon-Galerie on Berlin's Museum Island, running from February to 19 July 2026.
Does it include Karahan Tepe?
It presents the wider Taş Tepeler cultural landscape, of which Karahan Tepe is a central site, reframing Göbekli Tepe within that connected Neolithic world.
Will it travel elsewhere?
Further exhibitions in the programme have been announced for the United Kingdom in 2026 and the Tokyo National Museum in 2027.
Karahan Tepe Research & Archive · Last updated July 2026.
Exhibition details ("Building Community," James-Simon-Galerie, dates and partner institutions) draw on public reporting and museum announcements. The photograph shown is representative Neolithic museum material from a partner institution, not an installation view of the Berlin exhibition. This is a living archive summary, not an official museum publication.
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