Visitors to one of the oldest settlements on Earth in Turkey will soon be greeted by a 10,000-year-old statue of a man holding a phallus in both hands. The famous site of Tas Tepeler (German: Stone Hill) is already home to numerous archaeological finds. But the latest discoveries include one of the world’s oldest three-dimensional human statues, said Necmi Karul, head of Istanbul University’s prehistory department.
The found statue of a man sitting on a stone bench and apparently holding his penis in both hands dates back to 8,500 BC, according to researchers. The statue points to a Neolithic society that was even more cultured than previously thought, says Karul.
The region in southeastern Turkey is already known for the Göbeklitepe monoliths. The iconic T-shaped obelisks of the Neolithic period predate Stonehenge in England by several millennia. Göbeklitepe is considered one of the oldest temples in the world and was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2018.
Karul’s team is planning its first international exhibition of Tas Tepeler finds, including bones, stone pots and hunting traps, at Berlin’s Pergamon Museum, which will soon be completely closed for renovations for around four years.