Short answer
Special Building 15 is a communal, non-domestic building at Çakmaktepe — best known because the 2025 excavation found more than thirty burnt gazelle skulls deposited outside its wall.
In the Taş Tepeler world, 'special building' is the standard term for the larger structures that stand apart from ordinary houses, and Çakmaktepe has such buildings alongside its roughly fifty rock-cut homes. Almost everything published about SB15 so far concerns the animal-head deposit against its exterior wall rather than the building itself; its plan, size, interior and chronology have not yet been published.
What a 'special building' is
Across the Taş Tepeler sites, archaeologists distinguish ordinary houses from 'special buildings' — larger, more elaborate structures that seem to have served the community rather than a single household. The great enclosures at Göbekli Tepe and the rooms at Karahan Tepe are the famous examples.
At Çakmaktepe the same distinction appears at a more domestic scale: around fifty small circular houses cut into the bedrock, alongside larger rock-cut buildings up to about 16 m across with open interiors, benches and postholes. Special Building 15 belongs to that second, communal class.
Where SB15 fits at Çakmaktepe
The number is a clue to how the site is recorded: the excavators catalogue and number the structures they expose, and SB15 is one of them. It came to attention in the 2025 season.
What is reported about it is specific but limited. It has an exterior wall, and it was along the ground in front of that wall that the 2025 deposit was found. Beyond that, its full plan, dimensions and interior arrangement have not been published.
Known mainly through what was placed at it
SB15 is, for now, defined less by what is inside it than by what was found lying outside it: more than thirty burnt gazelle skulls, with five wild sheep heads, across an area of roughly 10 by 3 metres in front of its exterior wall, the gazelle horns reported intact.
That deposit is the reason the building is discussed at all. But the deposit and the building are two different subjects, and they are best kept apart — the deposit has its own dedicated page, where its placement, species and possible meanings are set out in full.
Why the 'special' label matters, and where to be careful
Calling something a special building is already an interpretation. It signals that archaeologists read the structure as communal or ceremonial rather than an ordinary home — a reasonable reading given its likely scale and the deliberate deposit at its wall.
But it is a label applied early in the study of the building, and it should be held lightly. Until a plan and a stratigraphy are published, how SB15 was used, and how the deposit relates to its construction, use or abandonment, remain open.
What is not yet published
The building's plan, size and interior features. Its place in the site's sequence and its absolute date. Whether the exterior deposit belongs to the building's use or its closure. And how SB15 relates to the other special buildings and the earlier interior head deposits at the site.
This is an honest gap. SB15 is a genuinely interesting structure known so far through a single, striking find — which is a reason to watch the excavation, not to over-read what little is published.
Common questions
What is Special Building 15 at Çakmaktepe?
A communal, non-domestic 'special building' at Çakmaktepe, catalogued among the site's structures and brought to attention in the 2025 season by a deposit of burnt gazelle skulls found outside its exterior wall.
What was found at Special Building 15?
More than thirty burnt gazelle skulls and five wild sheep heads, in front of its exterior wall across an area of about 10 by 3 metres. The deposit is covered in full on the burnt animal-heads page.
What does the building itself look like?
Not yet published. It has a reported exterior wall, but its plan, dimensions, interior and chronology have not been released, so its architecture cannot yet be described in detail.
Is SB15 the same thing as the burnt animal heads?
No. SB15 is the building; the burnt animal heads are a deposit found outside it. They are related but separate topics, and each has its own page.
Sources & further reading3 references
- Şahin, F. et al. (2023). Çakmaktepe Kazısı 2022 Yılı Kazı Çalışmaları. Kazı Sonuçları Toplantısı (Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism excavation reports).
- Clare, L. (2020). Göbekli Tepe, Turkey. A brief summary of research at a new World Heritage Site (2015–2019). e-Forschungsberichte des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 2020(2): 81–88.
- The Tepe Telegrams (official research blog of the Göbekli Tepe Project, DAI). The Tepe Telegrams. Deutsches Archäologisches Institut. link Accessible, authoritative running commentary from the excavation team.
Full bibliography: the Taş Tepeler reference library →