Archaeologists Uncover a Neolithic Sculpture of a Human Riding a Leopard That's 'Unlike Anything We Have Encountered Before'

The artifact was found during excavations at Karahan Tepe, an 11,000-year-old site in southeastern Turkey. Created long before the invention of writing, the 2.3-foot-tall sculpture’s purpose is a mystery September 10, 2026 10:09 a.m. The statue of a human riding a leopard was found during excavations over the summer. Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism About 11,000 years ago, a Neolithic artist living in modern-day Turkey carved a 2.3-foot-tall sculpture of a human riding on the back of a leopard. The circumstances of the artwork’s creation have been lost to time. But the artifact has survived for centuries, buried at an archaeological site known as Karahan Tepe, where researchers unearthed it during recent excavations. “We have brought to light an 11,000-year-old statue with no known parallel,” Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, Turkey’s culture and tourism minister, says in a statement shared with the Bulgarian News Agency’s Ayshe Sali and Petya Dikova. “We discovered a composite figure unlike anything we have encountered before.” Archaeologists say this statue is the first artifact of its kind found at Karahan Tepe. Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism The sculpture was positioned on a platform running along a wall of a round structure. Measuring nearly ten feet in diameter, this structure featured a floor made from flat stones. Ersoy adds that the artifact could provide new insights into early human history. “Leopards were common feline predators in the region,” Jens Notroff, an archaeologist at the German Archaeological Institute, tells Live Science’s Kristina Killgrove. “They are vigorous, dangerous animals, so probably challenging game for skilled hunters. That might have added to their symbolic meaning.” Notroff theorizes that the newly discovered artifact may have signified strength. A sculpture of a human “apparently mastering” such a dangerous creature “could be read as maybe a symbol of power,” he adds. The image of a human riding a leopard is unique. Previously, however, archaeologists at Karahan Tepe revealed a curious artifact showing this dynamic in reverse: a statue of a human carrying a leopard on his back. Discovered in 2021, this artwork is now in the collections of the Sanliurfa Museum. A statue of a human carrying a leopard unearthed in 2021 Dosseman via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0 Both leopard artworks were crafted in an abstract style, similar to “known prehistoric mural paintings in continental Europe,” Ergun Lafli, an archaeologist at Turkey’s Dokuz Eylul University, tells the Art Newspaper’s Hadani Ditmars. As such, they provide rare evidence “for the cultural unity and a common iconographic language of prehistory.” Built in the tenth millennium B.C.E., Karahan Tepe is located about 22 miles east of Göbekli Tepe, another Neolithic site often described as one of the earliest known temples in the world. Twice as old as Stonehenge, the site features pillars decorated with “intricate carvings of abstract symbols and wild animals, including lions, foxes, gazelles and birds,” according to History.com’s Jennifer Nalewicki. “Göbekli Tepe is more famous than the Karahan site where this sculpture was discovered,” archaeologist Elizabeth Carter, a professor emerita at the University of California, Los Angeles, tells the Art Newspaper. “Although animal sculptures have been identified before on benches within the buildings at Göbekli Tepe, I don’t know of a human astride an animal.” Quick facts: Examining Göbekli Tepe Designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2018, Göbekli Tepe was built between 9600 and 8200 B.C.E. Researchers think the Neolithic monuments at the site likely served a ritual purpose, though the details are unclear. “Trying to pick out symbolism from prehistoric context is an exercise in futility,” archaeologist Gary Rollefson told Smithsonian magazine’s Andrew Curry in 2008. Archaeologists have been digging at Göbekli Tepe since the 1990s, but excavations at Karahan Tepe began only in 2019. Last year, officials announced the discovery of a human face carved into a pillar at the site. At that time, Necmi Karul, the archaeologist leading the dig, explained that artworks depicting humans became more common as our ancestors transitioned from hunter-gatherer lifestyles to early settlements. “As communities became more sedentary, people gradually distanced themselves from nature and placed the human figure and the human experience at the center of the universe,” he told Agence France-Presse. These Neolithic artworks date to “a period before writing,” and we know very little about the figures depicted in them, Karul added. “But as the number of such finds increases and as we learn more about the contexts in which they appear, we gain the opportunity to conduct statistical analyses and make meaningful comparisons.” You Might Also Like Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday. More about: Animals Archaeology Art Artifacts Arts Asian History Cool Finds Discoveries History Human Origins Rituals and Traditions Sculpture Statues Turkey