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A Stunning Taş Tepeler Discovery: 12,000-Year-Old Human Faces Emerge from Sefertepe
https://arkeonews.net/a-stunning-tas-tepeler-discovery-12000-year-old-human-faces-emerge-from-sefertepe/...
The new season’s results underscore that the Taş Tepeler landscape, which includes Göbeklitepe, Karahantepe, Sayburç, Sefertepe, and several lesser-known mound settlements, represents one of the earliest interconnected cultural zones in the world. Rather than a cluster of isolated ritual sites, the region now appears to be a dense constellation of communities developing complex architectural forms and experimenting with visual language more than twelve millennia ago.
Among the most striking revelations came from Sefertepe, where researchers uncovered two carved human faces on neatly dressed stone blocks—one executed in high relief, the other in low relief. Their contrasting techniques, stylistic choices, and unusual proportions immediately set them apart from previously known representations at Göbeklitepe, Karahantepe, and Sayburç. The subtle differences in cheek curvature, brow structure, and the treatment of the nose suggest that Sefertepe may have cultivated its own local sculptural idiom within the wider Taş Tepeler sphere.
Minister Ersoy also shared another unexpected find from the same area: a double-sided human motif carved into a black serpentinite bead. The tiny object, polished to a soft sheen, depicts two faces emerging from opposite sides of the stone. Its craftsmanship implies that small, portable items may have carried symbolic meanings just as complex as the monumental pillars for which the region is famous. This bead, together with the newly revealed relief faces, deepens the impression that Sefertepe was a place where ideas about identity, representation, and possibly even personhood were actively explored.
...
As scientific work accelerates, southeastern Türkiye is emerging as one of the most revealing prehistoric landscapes on Earth. With the newest faces from Sefertepe joining the expanding corpus of early Neolithic imagery, the story of humanity’s first artists—and the beliefs carved into stone at the dawn of communal life—continues to grow richer and more intricate with each season of discovery.
The new season’s results underscore that the Taş Tepeler landscape, which includes Göbeklitepe, Karahantepe, Sayburç, Sefertepe, and several lesser-known mound settlements, represents one of the earliest interconnected cultural zones in the world. Rather than a cluster of isolated ritual sites, the region now appears to be a dense constellation of communities developing complex architectural forms and experimenting with visual language more than twelve millennia ago.
Among the most striking revelations came from Sefertepe, where researchers uncovered two carved human faces on neatly dressed stone blocks—one executed in high relief, the other in low relief. Their contrasting techniques, stylistic choices, and unusual proportions immediately set them apart from previously known representations at Göbeklitepe, Karahantepe, and Sayburç. The subtle differences in cheek curvature, brow structure, and the treatment of the nose suggest that Sefertepe may have cultivated its own local sculptural idiom within the wider Taş Tepeler sphere.
Minister Ersoy also shared another unexpected find from the same area: a double-sided human motif carved into a black serpentinite bead. The tiny object, polished to a soft sheen, depicts two faces emerging from opposite sides of the stone. Its craftsmanship implies that small, portable items may have carried symbolic meanings just as complex as the monumental pillars for which the region is famous. This bead, together with the newly revealed relief faces, deepens the impression that Sefertepe was a place where ideas about identity, representation, and possibly even personhood were actively explored.
...
As scientific work accelerates, southeastern Türkiye is emerging as one of the most revealing prehistoric landscapes on Earth. With the newest faces from Sefertepe joining the expanding corpus of early Neolithic imagery, the story of humanity’s first artists—and the beliefs carved into stone at the dawn of communal life—continues to grow richer and more intricate with each season of discovery.