Hoard finds appear throughout the European Bronze Age with distinct chronological and chorological peaks. While there is some consensus on seeing hoards as an expression of cultic behaviour, especially the large ‘scrap metal’ hoards still provoke interpretations as raw material collected for recycling. With socketed axes whose sockets were int…[Read more]

The paper explores the possibilities of an archaeology of religion at Göbekli Tepe, being an answer to E.B. Bannings contribution “So Fair a House: Göbekli Tepe and the Identification of Temples in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Near East” in Current Anthropology 52(5), 2011.

Although their early evolution is largely obscure, socketed axes are among the most numerous artefacts of
the Southeastern European Late Bronze Age. They seem to appear all at once in a horizon of hoards conventionally
parallelized with the Central European Bz D phase. Some researchers have tried to explain this sudden occurrence as
the result…[Read more]

An extensive preliminary report on Göbekli Tepe´s Enclosure H – in German.

In 2011 a special object was discovered at Göbekli Tepe in one of the excavation trenches in the tell´s northwestern depression. The artefact was described preliminarily as a ‘spatula’ made from a rib bone. It measures 5.3 x 1.9 x 0.3 cm and carries a carved depiction that is only partially preserved. The image is unclear, however the upper part…[Read more]