Category موضوعي
The sacred before writing
Ritual, symbols and burial before written sources.
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Original photograph
Researcher
Ian Hodder
An archaeologist who directed the Çatalhöyük project from 1993 to 2018 and read its buildings as houses of dwelling and memory, not necessarily separate temples.
The south area at Çatalhöyük in 2003, under a modern shelter, during the project Ian Hodder directed. Not his portrait and not the houses while they were occupied
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Original photograph
Researcher
Marc Verhoeven
An archaeologist at RAAP in the Netherlands who on 13 June 2025 published a study of humans and animals in Göbekli Tepe’s imagery.
A wild-boar sculpture from Göbekli Tepe in a Şanlıurfa Museum display. It illustrates the animal imagery Marc Verhoeven discusses, not his portrait and not the central pillars
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Original photograph
Researcher
Oliver Dietrich
An archaeologist on the Göbekli Tepe project since 2005, writing on its pillars, feasting and Urfa Man.
Building D at Göbekli Tepe, one of the buildings whose pillar arrangement Oliver Dietrich discussed. The roof, walkway and braces are modern protective structures. Contextual site photograph
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Original photograph
Researcher
Klaus Schmidt
A German prehistorian who directed the Göbekli Tepe excavations from 1995 until his death on 20 July 2014.
Klaus Schmidt, the Göbekli Tepe archaeologist, at the Monumento fair in Salzburg on 16 January 2014. Not a photograph from the excavation
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Original photograph
Site
Karahantepe
An excavation area in the Taş Tepeler project in southeastern Anatolia, where a faced T-shaped pillar was announced in 2025.
The Karahantepe excavation on 22 August 2024. Ropes and work supports are modern. The T-shaped pillar in this frame is not the faced pillar announced in 2025, and the photograph is not a reconstruction of the Neolithic site
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Original photograph
City
Şanlıurfa
A modern city in southeastern Turkey, near Göbekli Tepe, whose museum displays Urfa Man.
A modern view of Şanlıurfa from Urfa Castle, 5 July 2006, including a mosque and minarets of the later city. It shows the contemporary city, not Göbekli Tepe or the Neolithic period
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Original photograph
Study
Jericho’s Plastered Skulls: Faces of the Dead and the Limits of Ancestor Interpretation
From bone and plaster to imaging and facial reconstruction: evidence for mortuary treatment and hypotheses about memory, kinship and worship.
Plastered skull from Jericho, Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, displayed at the British Museum. An ancient modeled face on human remains, not a modern facial reconstruction
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Original photograph
Entity
Plastered skulls
Human skulls with material added to model a face, sometimes with shell eyes; postmortem treatment distinct from modification during life.
Plastered skull from Jericho, Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, displayed at the British Museum. An ancient modeled face on human remains, not a modern facial reconstruction
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Original photograph
Site
Jericho / Tell es-Sultan
Archaeological mound near present-day Jericho in Palestine’s Jordan Valley, preserving early Neolithic settlement and Bronze Age layers.
Plastered skull from Jericho, Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, displayed at the British Museum. An ancient modeled face on human remains, not a modern facial reconstruction
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Original photograph
Study
The Warka Vase and Head: When the Sacred Became Recognizable
Offerings, Inanna’s emblems and authority at Uruk, alongside a female face probably from a composite statue: what the objects establish and how far goddess, priestess and ruler can be identified.
Warka Head, white marble, about 21 cm high; late fourth millennium/ca. 3000 BCE. Eye and eyebrow inlays lost. Possibly Inanna; lighting warms the stone’s colour. Iraq Museum, photo, 2019
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Illustration
Study
Why Did People Elongate Their Children’s Skulls? From Neolithic Head Shaping to Ubaid Figurines
Head-shaping evidence from the Zagros, Jericho and Tell Zeidan, and possible identity, beauty and status motives: what bones establish and how far they explain Ubaid figurine heads.
Modern guide to vault growth, morphology and diagnostic limits. It gives no procedure for head shaping, represents no archaeological skull and reconstructs no site-specific equipment
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Illustration
Study
Houses and Ancestors at Çatalhöyük: When Architecture Became Memory
Subfloor burial, architectural continuity and the kinship of the dead: what the evidence reveals about memory and affiliation, and the limits of ancestor and descent interpretations.
Modern building-biography guide: construction, occupation, transformation and closure. Some sequences preserve rebuilding in place; memory is an interpretation to test, not a belief recovered from a plan
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Original photograph
Study
Living Above the Dead: Subfloor Burial Before Çatalhöyük
From Aşıklı and Balıklı to Boncuklu: burial, kinship and building continuity, and the limits of interpretations involving memory, ancestors and the underworld.
Boncuklu today: replica houses, visitor-centre interior, interpretative garden and pond, Figure 6 of the 2026 study. Modern facilities, not an excavation photograph or burial-ritual reconstruction
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Illustration
Concept
Secondary burial
Redeposition of remains after earlier mortuary treatment or deposition, established from context.
Modern guide: primary and secondary burial require anatomical and stratigraphic context. Isolated bones may result from transfer, disturbance or erosion; pigment does not identify a doctrine
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Illustration
Concept
Intramural burial
Deposition of the dead within a settlement’s built area; burial beneath a domestic floor is one form.
Modern abstract section: a burial cuts the floor, which is closed and used again. A grave physically below the house does not establish the origin of a cosmic underworld. Not an excavated-house plan
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Original photograph
Site
Boncuklu Höyük
A Konya Plain Neolithic settlement with oval houses and burials associated with continued building use.
Boncuklu today: replica houses, visitor-centre interior, interpretative garden and pond, Figure 6 of the 2026 study. Modern facilities, not an excavation photograph or burial-ritual reconstruction
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Illustration
Site
Balıklı
A central Anatolian Neolithic site with floor and wall burials and special skull treatment.
Modern Balıklı guide: changing counts in the 2024 and 2025 reports, with floor and wall burials. An entrance in one better-preserved building prevents universal claims of roof access
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Illustration
Site
Aşıklı Höyük
A Neolithic Cappadocian settlement with successive buildings and selected subfloor burials.
Modern Aşıklı guide: 2021 counts, some close relatives and selective burial. Proposed roof hatches are architectural inferences, not evidence of a heaven or underworld doctrine
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Original photograph
Study
The Natufians: What Happened to Religion When People Began to Settle?
Houses, graves, ornaments, feasts and place memory before fully developed agriculture: Natufian evidence and its limits for reconstructing rituals, ancestors and gods.
Aerial view of Shubayqa 1, northeast Jordan, Figure 1 in Richter et al. (2017), with a location map. Natufian architecture; no specific religious function is established
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Illustration
Concept
Calibrated years before present (cal BP)
A calendar dating convention anchored to 1950, distinct from an uncalibrated radiocarbon age.
Modern guide: BP is anchored to 1950; cal BP is calibrated calendar age. BCE examples are rounded. Uncalibrated radiocarbon ages require calibration, not simple subtraction
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Illustration
Site
Raqefet Cave
A Mount Carmel cave with plant-lined burial evidence and mortars whose possible use for brewing has been debated.
Modern diagram separates Raqefet’s plant-lined grave evidence from mortar residues interpreted as brewing. The latter was subsequently debated; no preserved beer was recovered
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Illustration
Site
Hilazon Tachtit
A Late Natufian burial cave in Galilee, with an exceptional woman’s grave and deposits interpreted as funerary feasts.
Modern evidence guide for Hilazon. Finds, age and skeletal abnormalities are observations; shaman is the excavators’ interpretation. Not a reconstruction of the burial or woman
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Illustration
Site
Hayonim Cave
A Galilean cave with Natufian graves and ornaments; its long funerary use informs research on identity and place memory.
Modern diagram of Hayonim burial duration, Grave XVII phases and ornaments. Memory and identity interpret the evidence; duration does not establish one continuous group or ancestor worship
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Illustration
Concept
Sedentism
Reduced residential mobility and prolonged or recurring occupation; architecture alone does not establish year-round residence.
Modern diagram: buildings, equipment and repeated burial indicate investment in place. Year-round residence needs additional evidence; settlement alone does not establish a temple
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Original photograph
Period
Natufian culture
A late Epipalaeolithic Levantine archaeological culture, with some long-duration settlements before fully developed agriculture.
Aerial view of Shubayqa 1, northeast Jordan, Figure 1 in Richter et al. (2017), with a location map. Natufian architecture; no specific religious function is established
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Original photograph
Study
Did Writing Appear Suddenly at Uruk?
From tokens, envelopes and seals to Uruk’s tablets: how proto-cuneiform emerged, and why fuller linguistic representation took centuries.
Grain account, Met 1988.433.2, ca. 3100–2900 BCE; probably from Uruk, not the first known tablet. Display copy removes empty background around the object
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Original photograph
Study
Eridu: Can We Watch the Temple Being Born?
From eighteen architectural levels to the evidence at XI: what does Eridu’s sequence reveal about temple formation, and where does architectural continuity stop short of identifying Enki?
Eridu ziggurat remains, photographed by David Stanley on 11 April 2016. The visible architecture postdates the Ubaid; it is not a photograph of its earliest temples or evidence of their deity’s identity
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Illustration
Concept
Tripartite plan
Architectural arrangement with an elongated central space and lateral sections or rooms. Describes spatial organization, not necessarily three rooms. Found in houses and ritual buildings; does not alone determine function.
Modern conceptual diagram: 1 central hall, 2 side rooms. Explains tripartite planning; not an excavation plan or reconstruction of an Eridu temple, and not ancient room counts or dimensions
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Original photograph
Study
Ubaid Figurines: Why Do Their Faces Look Nonhuman?
Elongated heads, slit eyes and a nursing mother: how can we understand Ubaid figurines through artistic tradition, cranial modification and burial without turning a reptilian resemblance into an assumed identity?
Two female Ubaid figurines from Ur; British Museum, 122872 and 122873. At right, a nursing woman whose head is missing. Photograph: Zunkir, CC BY-SA 4.0; appearance alone does not establish identity
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Original photograph
Site
Ain Ghazal
Neolithic site near Amman, Jordan, known for large Pre-Pottery Neolithic plaster statues. Faces and decorated eyes are recognizable, but the figures’ names and religious function remain unresolved.
Head of a plaster statue from Ain Ghazal, Pre-Pottery Neolithic, Jordan Museum, Amman. Photograph: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin, CC BY-SA 4.0. A comparison from another community, not direct evidence of an Ubaid maker’s skill
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Original photograph
Concept
Cranial modification
Alteration of head shape through bodily practices in early childhood, documented in multiple communities. It may relate to affiliation, status or beauty, but an elongated figurine head alone does not prove the subject underwent it.
Skull with Toulouse-type modification, Muséum de Toulouse, MHNT.ANT.2003.85. Photograph: Didier Descouens, 2011, CC BY-SA 3.0. Comparative French example, not an Ubaid skull or proof of figurine identity
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Original photograph
Concept
Figurine
Small three-dimensional representations of people, animals or other beings. Size and appearance alone do not establish a toy, portrait, ritual object or deity; manufacture, discovery context and use require study.
Woman holding an infant to her breast, Ur, Ubaid period; British Museum 122873, excavation U15376. The mother’s head is missing; the surviving head belongs to the child. Zunkir, CC BY-SA 4.0. Nursing alone does not prove divinity
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Original photograph
Study
Ubaid Culture: The World Before Sumer’s Cities
Pottery, water, houses, networks and Eridu: how can we read the transformations preceding Sumer’s cities without assigning Ubaid communities an unproven language, state or divine names?
Ubaid bowl from Eridu cemetery, grave 136; mid-sixth–fifth millennium BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 49.133.2. A specific archaeological object, not a representation of all Ubaid pottery
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Original photograph
Concept
Stamp seal
A carved surface pressed into soft material to leave an impression that may distinguish a person, object or procedure. Unlike a rolled cylinder seal; imagery alone makes it neither writing nor evidence of a creed.
Ubaid stamp seal and modern impression; Syria or Anatolia, sixth–fifth millennium BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1984.175.13. The rectangular block on the right is a modern impression, not an ancient tablet
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Original photograph
Period
Ubaid culture
An archaeological designation for material traditions originating in southern Mesopotamia with regional diffusion. Broad southern frame c. 6500–3800 BCE; not a known linguistic people, with limits varying by region and phase.
Ubaid bowl from Eridu cemetery, grave 136; mid-sixth–fifth millennium BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 49.133.2. A specific archaeological object, not a representation of all Ubaid pottery
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Original photograph
Study
Çatalhöyük: Where Was the Sacred Without a Known Central Temple?
Houses, burials, horns, colour and memory: how can we interpret ritual life at Çatalhöyük, and what does the 2025 kinship study add, without turning archaeological remains into an unrecorded creed?
House remains in an excavated area of Çatalhöyük, photographed on 12 June 2013. Architectural layers are visible; the photograph does not identify this building as a temple or a “history house”
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Original photograph
Concept
History houses
A modern concept for certain Çatalhöyük houses accumulating rebuilding, burials and elaboration over time. It concerns a place’s history and group, without making the house a temple or every building identical.
House remains in an excavated area of Çatalhöyük, photographed on 12 June 2013. Architectural layers are visible; the photograph does not identify this building as a temple or a “history house”
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Original photograph
Concept
Bucrania
Bull heads or skulls with horns displayed or incorporated in architecture. At Çatalhöyük they occur among the installations of some houses; they do not by themselves establish a ritual’s meaning or a bull god.
A bull head from Çatalhöyük displayed in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara, photographed on 22 May 2006. The museum display is not its original position within a house; the bull’s presence does not establish a divine identity
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Original photograph
Study
Göbekli Tepe’s T-Shaped Pillars: Humans, Ancestors or Gods?
Hands, dress, abstraction and the central pair: what do Göbekli Tepe’s pillars establish about human form, and what remains open about ancestors and gods? With Urfa Man and the 2025 Karahantepe announcement.
A carved arm beside a fox relief on a pillar in Building D at Göbekli Tepe, photographed in 2019. Human and animal features occur together; the photograph does not establish a divine identity
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Original photograph
Artifact
Urfa Man
A Neolithic human statue from Yeni Mahalle in Şanlıurfa, with a face and obsidian-inlaid eyes but no represented mouth. It was not found at Göbekli Tepe; its original function remains uncertain.
Urfa Man in the Şanlıurfa Archaeology Museum, photographed on 20 September 2019. The statue was found at Yeni Mahalle in Urfa, not Göbekli Tepe. Facial features, eyes and hands are visible; a mouth and separate legs are not represented
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