What is there
Structure BB is reported as a fully excavated dwelling in the southern residential area of Sayburç. It has a bedrock floor, a bench, a niche and a hearth, along with grinding stones and pestles in food-preparation contexts — the ordinary equipment of a lived-in house. Its distinguishing feature is a central T-shaped pillar carved with human features, standing inside the domestic space.
That detail matters for how Sayburç is read. Özdoğan notes that the same monolithic pillars appear in both domestic and communal buildings at the site, with houses typically holding a single stone and public buildings arranging one or two prominently at the centre. Structure BB is the clearest domestic example of that overlap — a reminder that at Sayburç the symbolic and the everyday were not kept in separate places. Details here come from preliminary reporting and may be refined in fuller publication.
Sources & further reading2 references
- Özdoğan, E. (2024). Sayburç: a mid-9th millennium BC site in the foothills of the Eastern Taurus. Documenta Praehistorica 51: 44–58. Open-access preliminary report of the first excavation seasons; source of the lettered special buildings. doi:10.4312/dp.51.23
- Özdoğan, E. (2022). The Sayburç reliefs: a narrative scene from the Neolithic. Antiquity 96(390): 1599–1605. doi:10.15184/aqy.2022.125
Full bibliography: the Taş Tepeler reference library →