Skull found in Turkey with neat hole may have been the work of mystics

A 3,200-year-old skull was recently uncovered in Turkey’s eastern Van province. This find was made even more intriguing by the skull’s clearly man-made triangle-shaped hole, indicating that the deceased owner had undergone an ancient medical procedure now called trepanation.

Trepanation, a procedure that involves drilling a hole into the patient’s skull, is one of the oldest known surgical procedures in human history and a practice used by ancient humans all over the world. Archaeologists have found trepanned skulls in Europe, the Americas, Africa and China. 

Skull-drilling in the 21st century

The practice is still used today to treat subdural hematomas, but surgeons have refined the process and now refer to it as a craniotomy or a burr hole. 

Burr holes tend to be used in emergency situations after a traumatic head injury to relieve pressure due to fluid buildup in the skull which puts undue pressure on brain tissue. Craniotomies, per the National Cancer Institute, resemble ancient trepanation more so than burr holes; the surgeon removes a small piece of the skull in order to gain access to the brain.

This is sometimes used to relieve pressure, but can also be used to remove a tumor or a tissue sample, as well as to repair a skull fracture or brain aneurysm (a bulge in a blood vessel wall). 

Unlike in ancient trepanation practices, modern surgeons nearly always replace the removed piece of the skull once they have finished their procedure. 

What was the practice used for in ancient times?

According to the science news website Live Science, trepanation was used in ancient times to treat head injuries and pain, and some scientists believe it was used to ritually remove evil spirits from the body. 

A 2013 article published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology concluded that often, patients did survive the procedure and would heal after surgery. Researchers found scarring from trepanation, but the injury to the skull had healed. 

Researchers have not yet determined whether the skull found recently in Turkey belonged to a survivor or a victim of trepanation. They also do not yet know – and perhaps never will find out – whether the procedure was performed in order to treat a medical issue or exorcise demons. 

In Turkey’s Gedikkaya Cave, a stone figurine was discovered inside a 16,500-year-old votive pit

A stone figurine was discovered in a 16500-year-old votive pit belonging to the Epi-paleolithic period, the transition phase from the Paleolithic Age to the Neolithic Age, during the archaeological excavation carried out in the Gedikkaya Cave in the İnhisar district of Bilecik in northwest Turkey.

With the permission of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Museums, the rescue excavation started by the Bilecik Museum Directorate in the cave 1 kilometer away from İnhisar continues.

Traces of life were found in the cave at a depth of 180 meters, a height of about 20 meters, and a width of 30 meters, in two sections, the lower and the upper.

Bilecik Şeyh Edebali University (BŞEU) Faculty of Arts and Sciences Archeology Department Lecturer Assoc. Dr. Deniz Sarı, an ongoing study under the scientific consultancy of sheds light on the archeology of the region.

In the excavation, a flat ax made of diorite (rock type), grinding and hand stones, blades (stone chips), scraper, arrow and spearhead, ocher, spindle whorls, perforated ceramics (pottery), awl, a malachite ingot, and beads were unearthed.

In addition, important information was obtained about the craft branches such as stone and woodworking, mining and weaving carried out in the cave.

Finally, a votive pit dated to the Epipalaeolithic Period, 14500 BC was found in the cave.

Bilecik Museum Director Harun Küçükaydın told Anadolu Agency (AA) that the earliest human traces known in the cave date back to 16,500 years ago, and that a large number of finds dating from 7000 to 5000 BC were found in the radiocarbon analysis.

Küçükaydın continued as follows: ” A partially worked stalagmite was unearthed in this votive pit. We can associate the stalagmite with the Neolithic cultures of the Near East.”

“The seated human figurine carved from this stone can be considered a link between Venus figurines from the European Upper Paleolithic period and mother goddess figurines from Anatolian Neolithic cultures.”

Explaining that they determined that the earliest of the finds obtained during the studies in Gedikkaya Cave dates back to 16,500 years ago, Associate Professor Deniz Sarı said: “This period, of which we know very little, is a process by which European Upper Paleolithic cultures spread to the Balkans, the Caucasus, and the Mediterranean.

Excavations in the larger area will provide more concrete data about the location of Gedikkaya in this extension and the pre-human activity at the end of the Ice Ages. However, in 2022, we uncovered a votive pit in the cave in relation to the process in question.”

“We unearthed a naturally formed stalagmite inside the pit surrounded by rows of crescent-shaped stones. The stalagmite is partially embroidered, giving the appearance of a stele.

The pit was probably closed later. The finds inside the pit are extremely important and contain very new and extraordinary data in terms of prehistoric archeology.

One of them is this a stone figurine. The stylized figurine in a sitting position is depicted with its legs spread out to the sides. It is a stone and stylized example of a mother goddess figurine characteristic of the Neolithic cultures of the Near East. In this context, the studies in the cave will make new contributions to the literature in the context of Anatolian prehistoric archeology.”

11,000 year-old carving of man holding his penis is the oldest narrative from the ancient world

Research conducted in Göbeklitepe, which was considered “the place where history began,” has revealed the oldest narrative art in history. With a man holding his penis and flanking by leopards, the relief dates back to approximately 11,000 years ago, the study says.

Found in Sayburç, Şanlıurfa, archeologists also said that carvings on built-in benches were within a Neolithic (or New Stone Age) building.

It is approximately 2.5 to 3 feet (0.7 to 0.9 meters) tall and 12 feet (3.7 meters) long. Also, he is holding a snake or a rattle with his other hand, according to LiveScience.

The findings were published in Antiquity on December 8.

Mesopotamia, between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, is the birthplace of many ancient civilizations.

Between 12,000 and 9,000 years ago, southeastern Anatolia’s nomadic hunter-gatherers underwent a dramatic change in lifestyle as they progressively transitioned to sedentary living and eventually took up farming.

Excavations started in 2021

As reported by Science, Eylem Özdoğan, an archaeologist at Istanbul University and the study’s author, and her team started to carve the site in 2021.

They quickly discovered the remains of a town from the ninth millennium B.C.E., including a circular structure resembling those at Göbeklitepe. Only a portion of the building could be uncovered because the remainder was covered by new dwellings. However, on the edge of a stone bench within that exposed area, they discovered carvings of typical Neolithic subjects.

“It seems to reflect the struggle between two creatures,” Özdoğan says. In the other scene, two leopards flank a person depicted facing forward, and clutching an erect penis—in what Özdoğan calls “an indifferent stance” in the face of danger.

The artwork was intended to portray masculinity, according to Jens Notroff, a Neolithic archaeologist at the German Archaeological Institute who was not involved in this study.

The contrast between showing virility and vitality—the phallus presentation—on the one hand, and imminent danger—snarling predators with bared teeth—on the other is particularly remarkable here, he told Live Science.

Notroff said that this discovery could aid in the better understanding of Neolithic iconography in Turkey by archaeologists. He noted that while the Neolithic hunter would have quickly understood the message, “unfortunately, we still lack a comprehension of the actual tale.”

Digging more about Göbeklitepe

Göbeklitepe or Göbekli Tepe is the oldest known group of cult structures in the world, located near Örencik village of Haliliye district, 18 km northeast of Şanlıurfa city center in Turkey.

The site was discovered in 1963 during a survey carried out in partnership with the Universities of Istanbul and Chicago and was identified as the “V52 Neolithic Settlement”.

The real value of the area began to emerge with the excavations started after 1994. After these studies, it was understood that Göbeklitepe was a cult center dating back 12,000 years.

Study abstract:

A wall relief, comprising five figures carved on a bench in a communal building dating to the ninth millennium BC, was found in south-eastern Turkey in 2021.

It constitutes the earliest known depiction of a narrative ‘scene’ and reflects the complex relationship between humans, the natural world, and the animal life that surrounded them during the transition to a sedentary lifestyle.

11,000-Year-Old Carvings Uncovered in Turkey

In Sayburç, Turkey, not far from the famous settlement of Göbekli Tepe, an archaeologist discovered an 11,000-year-old scene carved into a wall. It’s one of the oldest narrative depictions in the archaeological record.

The narrative scene depicts five figures: two humans, a bull, and two leopards. One of the humans is holding a snake, or rattle, in its right hand.

The other human figure is holding its penis. A full description of the narrative scene, along with interpretations of its meaning for the Neolithic community that created it, is published in Antiquity’s Project Gallery.

“We have very little information about the community where this relief was carved,” said Eylem Özdoğan, an archaeologist at Istanbul University and the study’s sole author, in an email to Gizmodo. According to Özdoğan, researchers are still waiting on radiocarbon dates from the site, but they believe it dates to around the end of Göbekli Tepe—the ninth millennium BCE.

“The communities living in this region share a common cultural environment,” he added. “They certainly communicate with each other and share innovations, social ideology and a common culture.”

The ancient site of Sayburç was mostly covered by the modern town (whose name now applies to the site) in 1949. Excavations began last year and turned up a communal building from the Neolithic period—one wall of which includes the carved artwork. So far, only half the building has been excavated, and some modern structures are slated for demolition so that archaeologists can interrogate more of the Neolithic past.

The scene is not the oldest-known artwork. That honor, like art, is subjective; it depends on what you define as (or what can clearly be identified as) art. A 43,900-year-old painting of a warty pig in Indonesia discovered in 2021 may be the oldest known figurative art piece. In Tibet, a set of children’s’ hand and foot prints discovered in 2018 were dated to between 169,000 and 226,000 years old.

The prints are perhaps more tenuously ‘art’ than the painted pig, but both predate the Sayburç relief by tens of thousands of years. However, neither of those artworks were narrative scenes, or artworks meant to tell a story.

In 2011, archaeologists discovered a 12,250-year-old rock with stenciled depictions of birds and humans. Research published on the limestone etchings in 2019 described it as narrative art, but that conclusion is up for interpretation.

Based on the orientation of the figures, Özdoğan believes there are two scenes depicted in the relief. One features a human and the bull, and the other features a human figure and flanked by two leopards. Both of the humans in the scene are male, based on the apparent phalluses the artists took the time to carve. One of the leopards has a penis, too, but the other does not.

The building in which the narrative scenes were found was communal; benches lined the walls, and the carvings were found on the backrests of the benches. In the paper, Özdoğan notes that the artwork can be considered a reflection of the community’s collective memory, something to uphold its values. What those values were, exactly, might require some more investigation.

Archaeologists won’t know more about the community that lived at Sayburç—beyond its apparent connections to other Neolithic settlements in Anatolia and its style of artwork—until more excavations can be done. But it’s an exciting new twist for our understanding of some of the earliest settlements from the Stone Age.

A 7,800-year-old female figurine discovered in Ulucak Höyük in western Turkey

A 7,800-year-old female figurine was found in the Ulucak Höyük (Ulucak Mound) in the Kemalpaşa district of Izmir.

It was stated that the figurine made of clay was used in various rituals such as increasing abundance and fertility. Generally, such artefacts are found broken and the number of artefacts found as a whole is quite low. A very rare artefact. Third work ever found as a whole.

With the support of the Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism, İzmir Metropolitan Municipality, Kemalpaşa Municipality, and Kemalpaşa Organized Industrial Zone, excavations in İzmir’s oldest settlement, the 8,850-year-old Ulucak Höyük, started this year as well.

Trakya University Faculty of Letters Protohistory and Near Eastern Archaeology Faculty Member of the Department Professor Dr. Özlem Çevik took over the excavation directorship in 2009, and the first find of this year was unearthed during the work on the mound.

Earlier excavations revealed that Ulucak Mound hosted the first farmers of the Aegean Region; It had revealed that the first settlers built their houses on top of each other along the 7.5-meter cultural layer and settled in the same place for 1150 years without interruption.

Professor Özlem Çevik said the female figurine was 8 cm tall and about 7,800 years old.

Ulucak Mound, located in the Ulucak district of Kemalpaşa county on the 15th km of Bornova-Ankara road, was the location of one of the oldest settlements of Western Anatolia and it illuminates cultural history both by its architectural structure and its foundlings.

Excavations were started in 1995 and three cultural layers were identified.

These are the Late Roman period at the top; the Early Bronze Age layers underneath Early Byzantine settlements and the Late Neolithic settlement at the bottom.

In the excavations, a large number of ceramic pots, tools made of ganister, stone weapons, mother goddess figurines, and anthropomorphic pots were unearthed, some of which are exhibited in the Izmir Archeology Museum.

U.S. Repatriates Looted Artifacts to Turkey

The items of unique historical heritage, including the human-sized bronze statue of the Roman Emperor Lucius Verus and the columnar sarcophagus fragments from the ancient city of Perge in Antalya, have been returned to Türkiye from the United States.

Six artefacts, including nine pieces, which were taken from two different auction houses and a collector in the U.S., were taken under protection in the Antalya Museum.

The artefacts, which were returned to the county on Oct. 22, were introduced yesterday at a ceremony attended by the Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy.

The historical artefacts, which were illegally taken abroad from Anatolia, were returned to Türkiye as a result of the joint efforts of the Culture and Tourism Ministry, the Antalya and Burdur Museum Directorates, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Based on the work of Türkiye’s first female archaeologist, the late Professor Jale İnan, and the information provided by journalist and writer Özgen Acar, the ministry prepared a file for the return of the historical artefacts.

Examinations have been made in the archival and international publications and interviews were also made with the witnesses. Professor Ramazan Özgan and Professor Ertekin Doksanaltı made scientific reports.

The results of the examinations and the reports were sent to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Finally, the human-sized bronze statue of the Roman Emperor Lucius Verus, which was taken out of the country from the ancient city of Bubon in the southern province of Burdur, and the four-piece Roman-era sarcophagus originating from the ancient city of Perge in Antalya were returned.

The statue of Verus is one of the rare human-sized bronze statues that have survived to the present day.

The fact that many of the ancient bronze cast statues were melted and used for various purposes gives the statue of the emperor special importance.

Again, during the examinations, an early Bronze-Age marble Kusura-type idol, which was one of the schematized female figures common in Western Anatolia in the third B.C. and mentioned in both Greek and Roman mythology, and a silver figurine of Apollo from the northern province of Balıkesir that have been smuggled out of the country was found at an auction house in the U.S.

Also, a sitting Attis statuette and a terracotta earth plate from the ancient city of Pisidia Antiokheia of Isparta were found in another auction house.

The sale of four works that were determined to be smuggled from Anatolia was stopped. In total, six artefacts of nine pieces were returned to their homeland.

A 3200-year-old trepanned skull was discovered in eastern Turkey’s Van province

A 3,200-year-old skull was recently uncovered in Turkey’s eastern Van province. This find was made even more intriguing by the skull’s clearly man-made triangle-shaped hole, indicating that the deceased owner had undergone an ancient medical procedure now called preparation.

Trepanation, a procedure that involves drilling a hole into the patient’s skull, is one of the oldest known surgical procedures in human history and a practice used by ancient humans all over the world.

Archaeologists have found trepanned skulls in Europe, the Americas, Africa and China. 

Skull-drilling in the 21st century

The practice is still used today to treat subdural hematomas, but surgeons have refined the process and now refer to it as a craniotomy or a burr hole. 

Burr holes tend to be used in emergency situations after a traumatic head injury to relieve pressure due to fluid buildup in the skull which puts undue pressure on brain tissue.

Craniotomies, per the National Cancer Institute, resemble ancient trepanation more so than burr holes; the surgeon removes a small piece of the skull in order to gain access to the brain.

This is sometimes used to relieve pressure, but can also be used to remove a tumour or a tissue sample, as well as to repair a skull fracture or brain aneurysm (a bulge in a blood vessel wall). 

Unlike in ancient trepanation practices, modern surgeons nearly always replace the removed piece of the skull once they have finished their procedure. 

What was the practice used for in ancient times?

According to the science news website Live Science, trepanation was used in ancient times to treat head injuries and pain, and some scientists believe it was used to ritually remove evil spirits from the body. 

A 2013 article published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology concluded that often, patients did survive the procedure and would heal after surgery.

Researchers found scarring from trepanation, but the injury to the skull had healed. 

Researchers have not yet determined whether the skull found recently in Turkey belonged to a survivor or a victim of trepanation. They also do not yet know – and perhaps never will find out – whether the procedure was performed in order to treat a medical issue or exorcise demons. 

Sensational find in Ephesus: more than 1,400-year-old district discovered

During this year’s excavations at Ephesus in Turkey, archaeologists from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (AW) discovered an incredibly well-preserved early Byzantine business and dining space that had apparently been destroyed suddenly in AD 614/615.

The discovery, according to the head of the excavation Sabine Ladstätter, is the most significant one to have occurred in the ancient city since the discovery of its renowned hill houses.

Ephesus is one of the world’s largest and most impressive ancient cities, as well as one of Turkey’s most important ancient cities.

Its cultural and historical significance was highlighted in its addition to the UNESCO World Heritage Site list in 2015.

The remains of the city lie just 80 km inland from the popular seaside city of İzmir and close to the charming towns of Selcuk and Sirince.

The newly discovered neighbourhood is on Domitian Square, a prominent square directly adjacent to the Roman city’s political centre, the Upper Agora.

The excavations this year are part of a large research project on Ephesus’ changes between the Roman Empire and Late Antiquity.

Byzantine shops and workshops were built over a large Roman square complex, with the team focusing excavations on a structure consisting of several business premises that covers an area of around 170 square meters.

The researchers dug up filling material meters high and eventually arrived at a fire layer about half a meter thick. Sealed by this, a unique snapshot of life at the time was preserved at a depth of about 3.5 meters.

Individual rooms are preserved, containing thousands of pieces of ceramics, including whole bowls with the remains of seafood such as cockles or oysters, as well as amphorae filled with salted mackerel.

Also found were thousands of barrels, including whole bowls of seafood remnants such as cockles or oysters, amphoras filled with salted mackerel, peach, almond, and olive kernels, charred pulses, with more than 700 copper coins and four matching gold coins and gold jewellery.

Based on the finds, it was also possible to reconstruct the earlier use of the rooms. So it is a cooking shop, a storage room, a tavern, a workshop with an adjoining sales room, and a shop for lamps and Christian pilgrim souvenirs (indicated by the discovery of around 600 small pilgrim bottles that were sold to Christian pilgrims).

However, coin dating indicates that the bustling trade and craft industry abruptly ended in the year 614/15 beneath the half-meter thick layer of fire.

The scientists surmise a military conflict because there are no signs of an earthquake, such as shifted walls or vaulted floors. The numerous spearheads and arrowheads discovered also attest to this. The causes of this were unknown prior to this.

Based on the new finds, “this turning point in the history of the city of Ephesus will probably have to be associated with the Byzantine–Sasanian War”.