An unassuming morning in 2020 brought an extraordinary discovery among the foothills of Turkey’s eastern Taurus Mountains. Strange stones embedded in garden walls in the village of Sayburç proved to be remnants of a prehistoric settlement filled with unanswered questions.

The T shaped stones were pillars resembling abstract human figures, carved roughly 11,000 years ago by hunter gatherers who lived before agriculture. Staff from the nearby Şanlıurfa Museum identified the pillars, and excavation began the following year.

Discoveries have emerged rapidly ever since, offering a clearer view of the Neolithic period and the transition toward settled life. As of 2026, archaeologists had uncovered roughly 70 Neolithic structures packed closely together across Sayburç.

The settlement contains both dwellings and communal buildings where people lived and died. Stone basins and grinding equipment indicate that residents processed grain and potentially made beer in what was among the earliest known villages.

One discovery has attracted particular attention. Five figures were carved across a stone bench inside one of the settlement’s five communal buildings, forming what researchers described as the earliest known carved stone depiction of a narrative scene.

At the left, a bull appears in profile, although its enormous horns are presented as if viewed from above. The horns point toward a slightly squatting male figure with a six fingered left hand raised and an object held in his right hand.

Another male figure stands between two enormous leopards whose curled tails and jagged teeth remain clearly visible. This central man, carved in high relief with bulging eyes and thick lips, faces outward toward the room.

Eylem Özdoğan, an Istanbul University archaeologist and the site excavation lead, discussed the carving in a 2022 paper published in Antiquity. Other Neolithic sites in Şanlıurfa province share similar architecture and imagery, but none has the same horizontal presentation of a linked story.

“If you look at the region, especially Göbeklitepe and Karahantepe, you will see all these figures as individual depictions,” Özdoğan told CNN’s Erica Hill. “But here you see them in relation. They are pieces of a story.”

The meaning of that story remains unknown. Interpretations include encounters between people and dangerous animals, initiation rituals, and coming of age tests involving the bull and leopards.

Other readings focus on fertility, survival and continuity because the man between the leopards holds an emphasized erect penis. Similar phallic imagery appears elsewhere across Taş Tepeler, including 10 upright pillars carved in phallic form inside Karahan Tepe’s Pillar Room.

Özdoğan welcomes different interpretations but does not insist on a single explanation. “Everybody has different stories, different imaginations, about what they see on the reliefs,” she said. “I think all of them are right and have some kind of truth in it, but it is not possible to know the exact story they were representing.”

For Özdoğan, the carvings reveal something about collective memory and shared values during the transition toward a more sedentary existence. Displayed publicly, the reliefs may have helped bind communities in a society with little separation between public and private life.

Death provides another source of mystery at Sayburç. Excavations revealed that bodies were often buried inside inhabited dwellings, sometimes arranged carefully beneath floors, while a small carved figure found last year apparently showed a deceased person with a sealed, stitched or closed mouth.

Human and animal bones were mixed in some locations. Alongside recurring images of scavenging birds across Taş Tepeler, including a Göbekli Tepe pillar showing a vulture beside a headless human body, the evidence has prompted theories about excarnation and possible sky burial practices.

The pillars also remain deeply intriguing. Some stand around or inside dwellings and feature carved arms and belts, suggesting they may have been treated as humanlike structures.

In a distinct building at the village center, one pillar bears a carved human face at its bedrock base. It faces a large wall niche and stands near other pillars carved with images of a leopard and a pig, an arrangement Özdoğan considers deliberate.

Because these communities relied on oral culture, Özdoğan said visible art probably helped preserve stories, norms and traditions for new generations. She is now involved in plans to transform Sayburç into an open air museum, helping protect the settlement and its mysteries for the future.