Körtik Tepe
Körtik Tepe · Kortik Tepe · Kortiktepe
PPNA to early PPNB (Late Epipaleolithic → Neolithic)·Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPNA, Upper Tigris forager-cultivators)·🇹🇷 Diyarbakır Province, Bismil Plain, Batman River, Turkey
About
About Körtik Tepe
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A-B (c.11200–9500 cal BP) village with dense commingled intramural burials under round-house floors — largest known PPNA burial population (c.400 interments) in Upper Tigris, excavated 2000–2016 by Vecihi Özkaya (Dicle University) under Ilısu Dam salvage. Round subterranean pisé/stone houses with plastered floors, obsidian and limestone vessels; early bean/lentil cultivation but wild fauna dominant. Bridges Hallan Çemi → Çayönü/Göbekli horizon. Tell 0.5 ha but buried cemetery extends under slope. Now protected hillside above Batman reservoir.
Why it mattersLargest PPNA intramural burial corpus in Upper Tigris; anchors Upper Mesopotamian sedentism before Göbekli — mortuary and subsistence reference for 12kya transition.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Why 400 packed burials — epidemic vs ancestor cult accumulation over 1500 yr?
- 02Round→rectangular shift absent here — isolation or early abandonment?
Theories
- 01Özkaya kin-group burial house model vs Rosenberg Hallan Çemi social differentiation
- 02Watkins ‘ritual village’ vs full sedentism debate
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.11200 cal BP earliest round-houses; PPNA 11200–9500 BP; PPNB sparse re-use
- Period
- PPNA to early PPNB (Late Epipaleolithic → Neolithic)
- Culture
- Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPNA, Upper Tigris forager-cultivators)
- Builders
- PPNA forager-cultivator kin groups
- Purpose
- Subterranean round-village with intramural burial and communal storage
- Abandoned
- c.9500 BP gradual abandonment as Çayönü regional centre grows
- Rediscovered
- Salvage excavated 2000–2016 Özkaya (Dicle Univ. & Diyarbakır Museum)
- Excavation
- Excavated
2000
Özkaya opens Körtik under Ilısu survey with dense burial horizon
2016
Salvage ends; cemetery publication: 400 burials, oldest seed cache
On the ground
Structures & features
37.8190° N · 40.5890° E · 560 m · 3 mapped features
PPNA round-house cluster (Building 17)
settlement4 m subterranean round-house with 12 burials under floor
37.8192° N · 40.5892° ECemetery cone below mound
necropolis400 burial locus under village slope
37.8188° N · 40.5891° EStone vessel workshop
workshopLimestone and obsidian vessel floor with debitage
37.8191° N · 40.5895° E
Gallery