In Turkey, Carved Skulls Provide the First Evidence of a Neolithic 'Skull Cult' (2 of 8) (IMAGE)

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

In Turkey, Carved Skulls Provide the First Evidence of a Neolithic 'Skull Cult' (2 of 8)

Caption

Anthropomorphic depictions from Göbekli Tepe. (A) Intentionally decapitated human statue (height, 60 cm). Credit: Nico Becker, Göbekli Tepe Archive, DAI. (B) The gift bearer holds in his hands a human head (height, 26 cm). (C) Pillar 43 (building D) with low relief of an ithyphallic headless individual, one arm raised (bottom right). This material relates to a paper that appeared in the June 28, 2017, issue of Science Advances, published by AAAS. The paper, by J. Greskyat German Archaeological Institute in Berlin, Germany, and colleagues was titled, 'Modified human crania from Göbekli Tepe provide evidence for a new form of Neolithic skull cult.'

Credit

[Credit: Dieter Johannes and Klaus Schmidt, Göbekli Tepe Archive, DAI]

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