Archaeologists excavating the ancient site of Göbeklitepe, near the village of Orencik in the southeastern Türkiye city of Sanliurfa, have uncovered headless human figures along with carvings of vultures, scorpions, snakes, and wild birds on neolithic-era obelisks.
Klaus Schmidt, director of the dig and a representative of the Berlin Archaeology Institute (DAI), told reporters at a press conference on site that Göbeklitepe was a worship center built by hunter-gatherer communities roughly 11,000 years ago.
Schmidt noted that the human figure was the first of its kind found at the site in 12 years of excavations, calling it a significant find. A similar figure had previously appeared at Catalhoyuk, a site about 2,000 years more recent than Göbeklitepe.
The archaeological site contains approximately 20 round and elliptical structures. The animal reliefs decorating the obelisks within those structures may have represented guardian figures to the people who carved them, Schmidt suggested.
He described Göbeklitepe as evidence of monumental architecture and a sophisticated symbolic culture among the last hunter-gatherer groups living just before the transition to food production.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in October 2006, in its own words.