Sanliurfa: The Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced the discovery of a stone sculpture dating back to the Stone Age, estimated to be about 11,000 years old, which is a statue of a human sitting on top of a leopard.
According to National Iraqi News Agency, Turkish Culture and Tourism announced a new discovery at the Karahantepe archaeological site in Sanliurfa province, southeastern Turkey. Archaeologists unearthed a rare stone sculpture during ongoing excavations at the site. They described it as a composite work, distinguished by a style never before seen at the site.
The sculpture, approximately 70 centimeters tall, depicts a human figure seated atop a leopard’s back, a composition unlike many other human and animal sculptures previously found in the area. It sits atop a stone platform alongside the wall of a circular building, about 3 meters in diameter, with a flat stone floor.
The discovery adds to its significance, as Turkish authorities indicate the sculpture was found in its original location, exactly where it was left by the area’s inhabitants thousands of years ago.
Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, stated that the sculpture exhibits a style never before seen at Karahantepe, adding that the discovery offers a new dimension to understanding life there. The symbolism and culture of the societies that lived in the region during the Neolithic period were also explored. The discovery of a person atop a predator raises the most intriguing question: what did this scene mean to the person who carved it 11,000 years ago? The image could be related to power or to the relationship between humans, nature, and predators.
Archaeologist Jens Nutroff stated that depicting humans in this way might suggest ideas of power or dominance, but the interpretation of the scene remains open, and there is insufficient evidence to definitively determine the purpose for which the sculpture was created.
This is where the significance of the discovery lies; the piece does not simply present an image of a single animal or human, but rather combines the two in a single scene, providing researchers with new material to study the symbolic world of the human societies that lived in that region.
It is worth noting that organized excavations at Karahan Tepe began in 2019, and since then the site has become one of the most important sources of Neolithic discoveries, with excavations revealing architectural structures, human and animal sculptures, and more than 250 T-shaped stone pillars.
Karahan Tepe is part of a project “Tash Tepeler,” or “Stone Hills,” encompasses a collection of archaeological sites in Sanliurfa province, including the renowned G¶bekli Tepe. These sites attract scholarly attention because they date back to a pivotal period in human history, witnessing significant shifts in settlement patterns, social organization, and the ways humans expressed their world.
The newly discovered sculpture adds another layer of mystery to this era. After 11,000 years, a human and a leopard can once again be seen, but perhaps even more intriguing than the sculpture’s age remains unanswered: Why did Stone Age humans choose to depict a person seated atop one of the most dangerous predators?