Karahan Tepe · Structure
A reported well-preserved rectilinear building near Structure BD at Karahan Tepe, with high walls, benches and a north-wall stone vessel — but one for which little has yet been formally published.
01
02
Structure BH is described as a rectilinear building of roughly 9 by 7 metres with walls surviving up to about 3.5 metres high, standing near Structure BD; plaster and mudbrick traces at the wall bases indicate the interior was originally plastered. Reported features include two-tier benches running along the walls — some damaged by high heat — four broken T-shaped pillars placed symmetrically inside, and, along the northern wall, a large stone vessel with a channel running beneath it and a two-step platform. Strong burning traces were identified on the floor, and a small elevated room in one corner is still to be dug (planned for the 2026 season).
These are strong research leads, but they are reporting-grade. At the time of writing the checked formal literature does not independently confirm the 'BH' label, the exact loci, object counts, stratigraphy or the building's function. The heat traces, vessel, platform and channel together hint at some kind of activity or ritual use, but that reading is not yet established.
Karul's 2025 excavation report does not single out 'BH' by that label, but it documents the building type and the finds BH is reported to contain. It sets out Karahan's later rectangular and quadrangular buildings — plastered interiors, stepped benches of flat stones and reused pillars, and four T-shaped pillars arranged symmetrically (as in structures AH and AE) — exactly the plan reported for BH; and it treats large stone vessels and basins as a recurring find class, "predominantly found in domestic buildings". BH's north-wall vessel belongs to that published class, so its architecture and vessel are no longer isolated claims.
03
The building type and the stone-vessel find class are now published, so BH's broad features sit inside a documented repertoire. What the report does not confirm is the specific identity of 'BH', its exact loci, and whether its burning, channel and platform add up to a practical or a ceremonial use — questions the building's own publication will have to settle.
04
A stone vessel recorded in situ
The large north-wall vessel described for BH has not been separately published in photographs; no photograph of it is available at this time.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Full page →A tiered bench feature
A stepped, two-tier bench is reported for BH. No photograph of it is available at this time.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
05
The burning traces, the vessel, the platform and the channel together suggest concentrated activity — possibly practical, possibly ceremonial — but that reading is not yet established and the two are not easy to separate at Karahan.
Some reporting places BH within a Karahan pattern where liquids, vessels, benches, pillars and enclosed movement combined into a choreographed ritual-architectural experience, the vessel-and-channel arrangement handling liquid. This is a hypothesis offered at review-grade confidence, not an established function.
Until the excavation publishes BH, almost everything quantitative here is provisional. This entry is honest scaffolding, not a settled account.
06
The objects recorded for this building, gathered as one catalogue. Where a full object page exists, it is linked from the card.
Object
The large stone vessel of Structure BH
A large stone vessel reported standing against the north wall of Structure BH — a promising find that the excavation has not yet fully published, so its size, material and purpose remain open.
Wikimedia Commons
Full page →07
Full bibliography: the Taş Tepeler reference library →
Last reviewed 11 October 2026. Something wrong?