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A carved human face has been identified on the bedrock base of a standing pillar at Sayburc, one of the Neolithic settlements included in the Tas Tepeler (Stone Mounds) Project near the city of Sanliurfa in southeastern Türkiye. The discovery was reported from ongoing excavations led by Associate Professor Eylem Ozdogan of Istanbul University’s Department of Prehistoric Archaeology and was first shared by Arkeolojihaber, a Turkish social media news channel.
The find comes from a region described as one of the key landscapes of the Neolithic period, the era in which human communities began to adopt settled life and produce their own food rather than relying solely on hunting and gathering. In this process, the northern parts of the Firat and Dicle rivers, and especially the area around Sanliurfa, have been highlighted as places where cultural change can be followed in a particularly striking way.
Archaeological and archaeometric studies carried out so far have helped researchers set out in detail the ritual practices, daily life, subsistence strategies, domestication processes, architectural achievements and production technologies of Neolithic communities. Within this broader framework, the Tas Tepeler Project brings together several early settlements – from Gobeklitepe to Karahantepe and from Sayburc to Sefertepe – and is presented as a major initiative to reveal the earliest traces of civilisation with exceptional depth.
Over the past five years, excavations, surveys and analytical work under the leadership of Türkiye’s General Directorate of Cultural Assets and Museums have produced data that, according to project statements, demonstrate how firmly and realistically the original goals of Tas Tepeler were defined.
At Sayburc, archaeologists have focused on two relatively small buildings, each around eight metres in diameter, positioned near the centre of the settlement. These structures stand out clearly from the surrounding domestic units through the number and arrangement of their pillars and their distinct architectural traits.
In the eastern building, human skeletons were found placed in niches cut into the interior of the walls. The presence of these burials inside the structure has been interpreted as a sign that the building carried a special function and may have been associated with particular ritual practices, rather than serving as an ordinary dwelling.
In the western building, which stands directly beside the one with the burials, archaeologists recorded the new discovery. One of the pillars inside this structure rises from a base carved directly out of the natural bedrock. On the front of this base, researchers identified a clearly recognisable human face.
The pillar with this carved base stands exactly opposite a large niche set into the interior of the building. In the same area, the inner faces of two neighbouring pillars carry depictions of a leopard and a pig. Taken together, the combination of the human face on the base, the animal figures on the pillars and the architectural emphasis on the niche suggests that these compact buildings may have had a symbolic or ceremonial role within the settlement’s social and ritual life.
Ongoing work at Sayburc continues to add new information to what is known about the social and ritual architecture of the region during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period, when communities had not yet begun to use ceramic vessels.
According to project evaluations, the landscape stretching from Gobeklitepe to Karahantepe and from Sayburc to Sefertepe shows that early communities in this part of southeastern Türkiye possessed a level of awareness in belief, ritual, social organisation and cultural production that goes far beyond what had previously been assumed.
Each new find obtained in the field is said to help researchers understand more clearly the historical and cultural importance of Tas Tepeler and to provide reliable contributions to the wider scientific community. Within this context, the carved human face at the base of the Sayburc pillar is presented as another important piece in a growing body of evidence.
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