Karahan Tepe

The big buzz in the world of archaeology the past few years has been about the excavations at Karahan Tepe, which is located in SE Turkey near the border with Syria.  This site was built by hunter-gatherers and dates back to 12,000 BC., making it possibly older than Gobekli Tepe.  It has been known about since 1997, and surveyed after that.  Up until 2019 when the official excavations began, all that was seen there were many  t-shaped pillars sticking out of the hillside, numerous cupules in the bedrock, some oddly shaped stones laying about, and an unfinished huge t-shaped pillar on the west side of the hill.  This is what it looked like when I visited in October 2018. 

This was the scene we encountered a few weeks ago in April of 2026.  Notice the excavation on the top of the hill.  Since this was spring, the vegetation was green and lush. 

A small visitor’s center has been built where the land owner’s house used to be.  I am assuming that they and their herd if goats have been relocated nearby.

Before getting to the site, we visited the fabulous Sanliurfa Museum to view artifacts that had been dug up and were on display and for safe keeping.  Just the energy of those artifacts affected me greatly.  Here are some of them.

This picture from a TV screen shows a stone carving at the site that I was curious to see.  Hugh Newman has documented this part of the location as being a winter solstice sunrise site.  More about this below. 

So here are some photos of Karahan Tepe.  We were lucky to visit before the proposed roof is built..

A very important pillar with a carved face.

I looked all over for that other carved face to no avail. This is what I was looking for.

Here are Hugh Newman's photos of the winter solstice sunrise light passing over the face.

It wasn’t until I had a chance to review my photos that I saw it hiding in the deep shadow of the late afternoon sun.  Not the best photo, but at least I got it, from the side. This enclosure is called the Pillars Shrine.  

So there you have it.  We had one more stop to make that day, to the world famous Gobekli Tepe.