History

In 1983, archaeologists from the University of Heidelberg began emergency excavations at Nevali Cori, a mound on the Euphrates bank that fieldwork surveys had flagged as significant — and which lay directly in the path of the Ataturk Dam’s rising reservoir. What they found was a settlement from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period (PPNB), approximately contemporaneous with the early phases of Gobekli Tepe, containing domestic structures, evidence of craft specialisation, grain storage, and a communal building unlike anything previously recorded in the region.

The communal building — interpreted as a temple or cult house — was rectangular, sunk partly below ground level, with stone benches lining the interior walls and a series of T-shaped monolithic pillars standing in pairs across the floor. The pillars ranged from under one metre to over three metres tall. Some bore carved reliefs of human arms and hands — the first clearly anthropomorphic element to appear on this architectural form, anticipating the carved anthropomorphic pillars at Gobekli Tepe’s later phases. The temple floor contained human skull fragments, suggesting ritual use related to ancestor veneration or mortuary practice.

Among the loose carved objects recovered was the Urfa Man: a life-size seated figure carved from limestone, its arms clasped across its chest, the face serene and schematic, the eyes originally inlaid with obsidian (now lost). Radiocarbon dates place it at approximately 10,000 years old — several millennia older than any previously known life-size human sculpture. Every excavation season was a race against the rising waters. In 1991, the last season ended. In 1992, the reservoir filled. Nevali Cori, along with approximately 80 other ancient settlements in the Euphrates valley, was permanently and irreversibly submerged. The architecture could not be moved. What remains of Nevali Cori now lies 60–70 metres underwater.