New discoveries, including a stone phallus and a colorful boar statue, have been made in a vast, arid region of southeastern Turkey that is home to some of humanity’s oldest archaeological sites.
For researchers, a sculpture of a man sitting on a bench decorated with leopards and clutching his penis in both hands offers a new clue to the mystery of the beginnings of humanity.
The 2.3-metre piece was discovered in late September in Karahantepe, the centre of a complex of around 20 archaeological sites where thousands of people lived during the Stone Age.
Karakhantepe is part of the network surrounding Göbekli Tepe, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Göbeklitepe is the place where our prehistoric ancestors gathered for worship, more than 7,000 years before Stonehenge and the oldest Egyptian pyramids.
Necmi Karul, head of Istanbul University’s prehistory department, discovered the toppled statue, broken into three parts.
“We have found several statues of this kind, but this is the first time we have found a phallic statue,” said the archaeologist, who is coordinating work on the project, which focuses on settlements in the area.
The man lay in one of the first rectangular buildings, probably as a pillar supporting the wooden roof. This is a clue to how people used the place.
Karul said the settlements were evidence of “a new social order that emerged after the Ice Age.”
“The main reason for starting a new kind of architecture is to build a new kind of society,” he said.
Another 150 years of work
Göbekli Tepe, which some experts believe was never actually inhabited, is a vast sacred site surrounding nearby hilltop ruins that archaeologists believe may be even older. It may be part of a beautiful landscape.
But a modest photo of the statue, first released by Turkey’s Culture Ministry, led local media to question censorship in the Islamic state, which has taken a conservative turn under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Ta.
“We are archaeologists. There is no censorship! We haven’t found a phallus yet,” the archaeologist said with a laugh.
But the discovery has hidden implications.
“They (residents) were smashing pillars and statues before leaving the site, and earlier they had broken noses and phalluses,” he said.
The site was then reclaimed and buried under tons of sand and soil.
Its function is still unknown, as is the reason why it was suddenly abandoned and destroyed after hundreds of years of use.
The largest room on the site, surrounded by smaller rooms, was a kind of gathering hall, accessed through a narrow passage supported by a forest of phallic-shaped columns topped with a man’s head carved from the rock. It seems like it was.
“The people who came in here knew the symbols… They knew the meaning, it told them a story, and we don’t know that,” he said. He added that the woman had not been found.
Perhaps they were made of wood, he suggested, but speculation was dangerous.
No sooner had Karl unearthed the Karahantepe man than he made another discovery at Göbekli Tepe in the same week.
Archaeologists discovered a portrait of a boar measuring 1.2 meters long and 70 centimeters high, with red eyes and teeth and a black and white body.
This 11,000-year-old wild pig is the first painted sculpture of this period ever discovered, Karl said.
The site was inhabited for approximately 1,500 years before being abandoned.
Only nine of the 20 regional sites of the Tash Tepe (Stone Hills) project, which Karl is coordinating, are spread over 120 kilometers (120 kilometers) not far from the Syrian border, but only nine have been excavated.
“Work for the next 150 years,” Kalulu said, adding that both the man and the boar decided to stay where they emerged, taking the necessary steps to protect them.
