Karahan Tepe
Pre Pottery Neolithic Site In The Tektek Hills, Contemporary With Gobekli Tepe; Part Of The Tas Tepeler Programme And On The UNESCO Tentative List · Sanliurfa, Sanliurfa
Thirty-five kilometres from Gobekli Tepe, in the Tektek hills east of Sanliurfa, sits the site that has done most to change what Gobekli Tepe means. Karahan Tepe is contemporary with it and in places earlier, and excavation since 2019 has uncovered something stranger than anything at its famous neighbour: a chamber cut down into the bedrock with eleven pillars carved from the living rock, and in the wall above them a human head with a snake-like neck, carved emerging from the stone and looking across the room. Nobody knows what happened in there. The site is one of a dozen in the Tas Tepeler programme, which is steadily establishing that Gobekli Tepe was not a one-off but part of a whole Neolithic world in this landscape. It has opened to visitors recently with a shelter and walkways, and the arrangements are still settling - check what is open before making the hour-long drive out from Sanliurfa.
Tektek Daglari, Karahantepe Oren Yeri, Haliliye, Sanliurfa, Sanliurfa, Turkiye
Open daily with longer summer hours and an earlier winter close. Visitor arrangements here are recent and have been changing as the excavation and the Tas Tepeler programme develop - shelters, walkways and access have all been added in stages. Confirm what is open before driving out. Sanliurfa province was affected by the February 2023 earthquakes.