This NEW 11,000-Year-Old Karahan Tepe Building is HUGE!!

Just a couple of weeks ago I visited Karahan Tepe for the very first time, the 11,400-year-old site in SE Turkey. I looked down into the amazing pillared building, gazed across at the huge central stucture AD, and then I got to walk around the entire site.

And it’s an active excavation site, with dozens of people hard at work, carefully pealing back the layers of soil, stones and rubble to unveil the incredible architecture and artefacts that have been lying in wait for thousands of years.

You only have to look at aerial photos to see the transformation of what once looked like an ordinary limestone hill, albeit with a handful of bizarre T-shaped pillars poking through the surface, stones that were once believed to be tombstones of an historic cemetery.

Every year the excavation expands and this year it is advancing westwards up the hill, building on the work from 2023.

At one point I watched for what felt like ages as two men were carefully excavating a T-pillar towards the top of the hill, close to the amazing 2.3-metre-tall human statue that was discovered last year.

But whilst observing the detail, I had totally overlooked the bigger picture. I soon realised I wasn’t just watching the excavation of a pillar, but a pillar that was part of another large oval building at Karahan Tepe.

In this video I'll show you and tell you everything we know about this huge 11,000-year-old building that's currently being excavated and why it's set to change everything we thought we knew about Karahan Tepe.

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Video Contents:
0:00 Introduction
0:26 My visit to Karahan Tepe
1:47 The New Large Enclosure
2:43 It's Location in the Settlement
3:06 What's Been Discovered So Far
5:00 The Altar
7:00 More Perimeter Pillars
7:27 The Size and Shape of the Building
8:09 Concluding Remarks

[AncientArchitects]

This building/enclosure at Karahan Tepe is still less than a quarter excavated but it’s large, and it sits at the top of the hill. It could be the heart of the ancient settlement!

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[johnswindale]

Thank you. I hope your realise how much we appreciate your work.

[Sevenigma]

This channel highlights some of the reasons why this platform and others like it are so important

Discoveries like this normally would only fetch a few words in a newspaper and would take years for a detailed report to come out to the public. Having real time coverage of things like this is really an amazing thing and we shouldnt take it for granted

[joconnor]

This excavation is amazing. Thanks again for sharing your trip and the work being done at the site.

[fablouis]

Wow, this people didnt joke. Even for today, its a massive job to achieve.

[phoneguy]

the Tepe site is one huge bottomless treasure chest. amazing!

[lornalong]

Thank you so much.
As a 62 year old with foot issues, I will never visit these places myself. Yet I have an intense interest in these discoveries and the many other wonderful ancient structures being discovered with new technologies such as LiDAR.

I will continue to watch your adventures to these wonderful places.

[ShortbusMooner]

How cool, to have been able to watch them actually working on it! 👍

[alianbaba]

You are becoming our new history Channel. Always exciting viewing your videos on our big screen TV

[brettmuir]

By Jove, you make me want to return badly. I worked on a site near Diyarbakir 22 years ago....
What fun.
I love this channel. Thanks for putting in the work

[edgarsnake]

It keeps getting more and more interesting. Thanks, Matt.

[UkuleleBobbyKemp]

Fantastic mate - must've been amazing for you to finally see it, after poring over so many photos, documents (and even the 3D printed model...).

[kevinhickman]

I had not heard of Karahan Tepe before, and very much appreciate your efforts to bring this live report to us. This will be exciting news for years as the development is revealed and perceptions of its contents are debated. Thank you!

[barrywalser]

Fantastic! Good to see the excavation progress. Thanks Matt!

[fearlessjoebanzai]

7:39, at a 45⁰ angle down to the right of the indentation you're talking about it looks like you can see another indentation of a similar circumference! And possibly a few others around the site as a whole.There is obviously so much more to be found, which is hopefully going to be a boon for archaeologists over the next decade and beyond!

[tw]

St u n n i n g. By far my most favorite pocast. The whole world is watching this. Greetings from California.

[banditbaker]

Many thanks for the update, the glimpse that we get of a long-forgotten past that we see in these Teepillar sites is truly awe inspiring👏👏👍👍

[lyarrastark]

It always amazes me how much we underrate our Stone Age ancestors and it makes me happy when evidence is found, such as in Karahan Tepe or Göbekli Tepe, that shows how advanced people already were 11, 000+ years ago.

[RubyRayArt]

I've been following you for years, but this episode really got my heart pumping - wow! We had no idea so much was going on then! What a site to decipher over the next decade! Our human history is incredible!

[NMGH]

What wonderful views of the site you have given us. Thank you so much!