Anatolian tells reveal origins of religion and state in Neolithic and Bronze Age

In the Upper Euphrates Valley, wind-swept hills conceal tells—artificial mounds formed by millennia of human settlement. The most famous, Göbekli Tepe, dating to 10,000 BCE, is the oldest known monumental complex, featuring six-meter T-shaped pillars carved with animal reliefs. Excavated since the 1990s by the late German professor Klaus Schmidt, it represents the birthplace of organized worship. Fifty kilometers south, Karahan Tepe, under the direction of Istanbul University prehistory professor Necmi Karul, contains interconnected ritual chambers, including a room with eleven phallic columns and a serpent-headed figure symbolizing metamorphosis, likely used for fertility rites. Artifacts are housed in the new Şanlıurfa Archaeological Museum. Across the Taurus Mountains, Arslantepe near Malatya, excavated for sixty years by Italian missions led by Sapienza professor Marcella Frangipane, reveals the emergence of the state. A 2,000-square-meter palace from the fourth millennium BCE features bureaucratic systems using clay sealings (cretulae) to track rations, marking the birth of social hierarchy and economic inequality. The site also yielded the earliest known swords, indicating organized violence. Arslantepe, a UNESCO World Heritage site since this year, maintains strong community ties, with locals protecting it from looters.