German Archaeological Institute

German Archaeological Institute

Nico Becker, Dieter Johannes and Klaus Schmidt, Göbekli Tepe Archive



Julia Gresky, Juliane Haelm, DAI.

Julia Gresky, Juliane Haelm, DAI.





The monumental rock pillars of Göbekli Tepe date back over 11,000 years and tower over a small hill in Turkey. Excavated just a couple of decades ago, these mysterious structures are part of the world's oldest known monumental religious complex. The pillars are covered in hundreds of images, including carvings of humans and dangerous animals like snakes and scorpions. Surrounded by nested, winding walls, these pillars suggest a complex spiritual worldview shared by hunter-gatherers in the region who added to it for roughly 1,600 years. Now, a team of archaeologists has revealed that decorated human skulls were part of the Göbekli Tepe rituals.

German Archaeological Institute paleopathologist Julia Gresky and her colleagues write in Science Advances about excavating bone fragments that suggest an ancient "skull cult" at the site. Though it sounds like something out of a pirate movie, a skull cult is simply an archaeological term that describes the ritualistic or religious alteration of multiple skulls.

Gresky and her colleagues found three skulls scored with deep cuts made by sharpened stones. The carvings bisect the center of the face, continuing up the forehead and all the way around to the back of the skull. One skull, painted with red ochre, also had a hole drilled in the top. A likely explanation is that the skull cultists were tying the skulls with cords, then threading another cord through holes in the skull, in order to suspend them from the stones.

None of these individuals died from their skull carvings. Evidence suggests the skulls were defleshed and carved shortly after the individuals died. There's no telling whether the skulls belonged to venerated ancestors or were trophies from defeated enemies.

There are almost no other human remains at Göbekli Tepe, making this find particularly remarkable. Archaeologists have uncovered hundreds of small bone fragments at the site, but the area was not used as a burial ground. Instead, it was likely a ritual location used by nomadic groups during special events, rites of passage, or celebrations. People built the monumental structures during a period in history when humans rarely lived in settled communities, and many anthropologists believe the place offers a rare look at pre-agricultural belief systems.

Gresky and her fellow researchers point out that carvings of headless people and severed heads are common themes on pillars at Göbekli Tepe. Some images show animals holding human heads, while others show headless men (we know they are men because they have erections, a common representation during this period in human history). It's likely these decorated skulls were part of a worldview elaborated in these stone carvings.

We may never know what the builders of Göbekli Tepe believed, but we can now imagine the sacred space they created in more detail. As people entered the space, winding between walls, they would have seen actual human skulls hanging beside representations of what those skulls meant to them.

Science Advances, 2017. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1700564 (About DOIs)

Listing image by Julia Gresky, Juliane Haelm, DAI.