[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/512384-96F9648CDB5BB2AC46E7467160B50B57F7E39184-0.jpeg?w=1000″]<\/p>\n
\n\tAn 11,000-year-old statue depicting a person on the back of a leopard was unearthed by archaeologists at a Stone Age site in southern Turkey, the country\u2019s Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced in a statement on August 25. <\/p>\n
\n\tThe find from the Neolithic site Karahan Tepe measures about 28 inches tall and would have sat on a platform along the wall of a larger round building roughly 10 feet in diameter. Notably, the style of the composite statue is \u201cunlike anything seen before,\u201d Turkey\u2019s Minister of Culture and Tourism, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, said.<\/p>\n
\n\tExperts believe the statue may have symbolized masculinity, virility, strength, and courage. \u201cLeopards were common feline predators in the region,\u201d Jens Notroff, a Neolithic archaeologist at the German Archaeological Institute, told Live Science<\/em>. \u201cThey are vigorous, dangerous animals, so probably challenging game for skilled hunters. That might have added to their symbolic meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHe added, \u201cAn individual fearlessly shown among these animals [\u2026] or even apparently mastering one, as in this new sculpture from Karahan Tepe, could be read as maybe a symbol of power, of control over this vigor and danger.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tA similar statue was found at the same site years before entering the \u015eanl\u0131urfa Museum\u2019s collection. Still, this latest discovery raises questions and offers new information about the region\u2019s earliest human settlements.<\/p>\n \n\tConstructed around 9750 BCE in the Urfa (or \u015eanl\u0131urfa) province, Karahan Tepe is one of the oldest known villages in the world, alongside others like G\u00f6bekli Tepe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/stone-age-statue-person-mounting-leopard-unearthed-karahan-tepe-turkey-1234796108\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/512384-96F9648CDB5BB2AC46E7467160B50B57F7E39184-0.jpeg?w=1000″] An 11,000-year-old statue depicting a person on the back of a leopard was unearthed by archaeologists at a Stone Age site in southern Turkey, the country\u2019s Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced in a statement on August 25. The find from the Neolithic site Karahan Tepe measures about 28 inches tall and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2116225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2116225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2116225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2116225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2116225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}