Gre Fılla
Gre Fılla · Gre Filla · Ambar Höyük · Gre Fılla Höyüğü
PPNA to Early PPNB·Upper Tigris PPN (Göbekli sphere northern fringe)·🇹🇷 Diyarbakır Province, Southeastern Anatolia (Upper Tigris), Turkey
About
About Gre Fılla
Urgent Ambar Dam salvage (Diyarbakır University) that exposed a full PPNA–PPNB village with three T-pillar buildings (one cruciform like Göbekli), plastered skull cult deposits, and a still-standing 0.5 ha mound 7–8 m high of burnt mudbrick. The stelae quarries lie 800 m away, proving T-pillars were cut upstream on the Tigris system — first direct quarry-to-temple link. Buried under dam reservoir backfill now, but archived casts live in Diyarbakır Museum.
Why it mattersNorthernmost Göbekli-type T-pillar site; quarry provenance resolves megalith transport debate.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Skull cult — ancestor veneration or trophy taking?
- 02Why three pillar halls in one small village?
Theories
- 01Seasonal pilgrimage node between Göbekli plain and Karacadağ basalt sources
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.9300–8000 BCE
- Period
- PPNA to Early PPNB
- Culture
- Upper Tigris PPN (Göbekli sphere northern fringe)
- Builders
- Upper Tigris hunter-cultivators
- Purpose
- Ritual-residential complex with pillar halls and skull caching
- Abandoned
- c.8000 BCE
- Rediscovered
- 2010–2018 Ambar Dam salvage (Aytaç Coşkun)
- Excavation
- Partially excavated
2017
T-pillar Building B skull cache uncovered
2018
Ambar Dam flooding Halts work — site backfilled for preservation
On the ground
Structures & features
38.3600° N · 40.5200° E · 680 m · 3 mapped features
Building B (skull building)
templePPNA hall with T-pillars and plastered skull deposit
38.3602° N · 40.5203° EQuarry outcrop
quarryLimestone bed where T-pillar blanks were cut, 800 m SW
38.3545° N · 40.5140° EResidential burnt layer
housePPNB burnt mudbrick domestic zone capping ritual halls
38.3597° N · 40.5200° E
Gallery