Ancient site · Monument
Karahan Tepe
Also known as Keçilitepe
A Stone Age site in Şanlıurfa province, Turkey, about 46 km east of Göbekli Tepe and closely related to it. Builders cut rooms into the bedrock and set up T-shaped pillars; one chamber holds a carved human head emerging from the wall above a row of stone pillars.
It belongs to the 'Taş Tepeler' (Stone Hills), a group of about a dozen similar sites now being excavated, which show that Göbekli Tepe was not unique.
- Dates
- c. 9750–9400 BCE (dates still being refined)
- Still standing
- Yes
- Location
- 37.09° N, 39.30° E
How we know
No writing existed; the site has been dug only since 2019 and its dates come from a small but growing set of radiocarbon samples.
Nearby sites
- Göbekli Tepe c. 9500–8000 BCE
- Tell Halaf c. 6100–5400 BCE (Halaf village); later the Aramaean city of Guzana
- Çayönü c. 8630–6800 BCE
- Tell Abu Hureyra c. 11,300–5800 BCE
- Arslantepe c. 4000–700 BCE; palace c. 3400–3200 BCE
- Ebla (Tell Mardikh) c. 3500 BCE – 7th century CE; archives c. 2400–2300 BCE
Related
- Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) archaeological culture