Archaeologists excavating Karahantepe, a Neolithic site in southeastern Türkiye's Şanlıurfa province, have uncovered a 70-centimetre-high stone sculpture showing a human figure seated on the back of a leopard. The discovery was announced on August 25, 2026, by Türkiye's Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy as part of the country's Heritage for the Future archaeological programme. The sculpture was found in situ on a stone bench inside a circular structure measuring about 3 metres across, with a floor paved with flat stones. Its composition is particularly unusual because previous human-leopard sculptures discovered at Karahantepe showed the animals positioned on people's backs rather than beneath them. The newly discovered piece therefore introduces a different arrangement into the site's established artistic repertoire, adding another example to the remarkable collection of human and animal imagery produced by communities in southeastern Anatolia more than 11,000 years ago. Researchers say the find could offer fresh insight into the symbolic role animals played in the belief systems of early Neolithic communities.
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