Nevalı Çori

A Neolithic sanctuary on the Euphrates

Nevalı Çori was an early Neolithic settlement on the middle Euphrates, in Şanlıurfa Province in south-eastern Turkey. Dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period, roughly 8400–8100 BC, it belongs to the group of early sites now called the Taş Tepeler. It is famous for holding some of the world's oldest known temples and monumental sculpture, and — together with the nearby, earlier Göbekli Tepe — it transformed scholarly understanding of the Neolithic. The oldest domesticated einkorn wheat was identified here.

A rescue excavation against the clock

The site sat about 490 metres above sea level in the foothills of the Taurus, on both banks of a Euphrates tributary. It was excavated from 1983 to 1991 as a rescue dig during the construction of the Atatürk Dam, by a University of Heidelberg team under Professor Harald Hauptmann. When the dam filled, Nevalı Çori — like many neighbouring sites — was flooded, and it now lies beneath the reservoir.

Temples and sculpture

The settlement had five building levels of long rectangular houses raised on thick stone foundations, pierced by under-floor channels for drainage or cooling. In the north-west, a cult building had been cut into the hillside, its dry-stone walls set with T-shaped monolithic pillars like those at Göbekli Tepe, and two free-standing pillars three metres high. The local limestone was carved into striking works — a more than life-sized human head with a snake-like tuft, a statue of a bird, and pillars bearing reliefs of human hands.

• Location: Şanlıurfa province, south-eastern Turkey (middle Euphrates)

• Age: Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, c. 8400–8100 BC; a Taş Tepeler site

• Notable: Among the world's oldest temples and monumental sculpture; earliest domesticated einkorn wheat

• Status: Excavated 1983–91; now submerged by the Atatürk Dam reservoir

• Visiting: The site itself is inundated; finds are held in museums