As many of you will already know, KarahanTepe is an archaeological site in Şanlıurfa Province in Turkey and is often dubbed the sister site of the famous Göbekli Tepe.

Archaeologists led by Dr Necmi Karul have been excavating the site fsince 2018, and although so much still remains hidden below ground, there are already a number of breathtaking finds, including an enormous communal structure, a smaller pillared enclosure, a shallow basin-like enclosure with a deep pit, many domestic structures, T-shaped pillars, vessels, tools, statues and so on.

The site dates back to at least 11,400 years ago and some speculate it is even older, which makes the achievements of the ancient people so incredible, almost unbelievable based on the known timeline and development of human civilisation.

The site was only discovered in 1997 and it’s located on hillsides in the Tek Tek Mountains, and so, before many important pictures and videos get lost to time, we wanted to put together this short video, showing the site before and during excavations – how it looked before the incredible archaeology was uncovered.

Sit back and enjoy this look at Karahan Tepe, one of the most impressive archaeological sites in the world and we’re sure its importance will only grow with more work that’s done.