A limestone pillar nearly two metres tall, carved so that several beings stand one above another: a large animal over a human figure, with smaller heads worked into the stone. It reads, unmistakably, as a totem — long before that word had a world to belong to.
The stone is about 1.9 metres high and was found reused in the fill of a later building at Göbekli Tepe. Three main figures are stacked: a carnivore at the top with teeth bared, a human below it whose head is now lost, and further heads and arms carved in low relief. Its form closely echoes a known totem pole from nearby Nevalı Çori.
Stacking beings vertically is a way of saying they belong together — a lineage, a story, a hierarchy of power between animal and human. We read this stone as a claim about relationship: that people here saw themselves as part of the animal world, held above and below by it, not standing apart from it.
Offered as interpretation; the figures are worn and their exact roles are debated.
A form that outlived the site
The same idea — figures carved one on top of another — turns up again at Nevalı Çori and echoes down the millennia into totems recorded across the world. Göbekli Tepe's version is among the oldest known. It is a reminder that the impulse to stack beings into a single story is very, very old.
- Limestone pillar about 1.9 m tall.
- Stacked figures: a predator over a human, with smaller heads.
- Found reused in the fill of a later building.
- Closely paralleled by a totem pole from nearby Nevalı Çori.
- Among the earliest 'totem-pole' forms known anywhere.
Sources & further reading5 references
- Schmidt, K. (2012). Göbekli Tepe: A Stone Age Sanctuary in South-Eastern Anatolia. Berlin: ex oriente. The foundational monograph by the site's first excavator.
- 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.
- Notroff, J., Dietrich, O. & Schmidt, K. (2014). Building Monuments, Creating Communities. Early monumental architecture at Pre-Pottery Neolithic Göbekli Tepe. In J.F. Osborne (ed.), Approaching Monumentality in Archaeology: 83–105. Albany: SUNY Press.
- 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.
- Haklay, G. & Gopher, A. (2020). Geometry and Architectural Planning at Göbekli Tepe, Turkey. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 30(2): 343–357.
Full bibliography: the Taş Tepeler reference library →