Ancient Tomb Decorated With Stunning Reliefs and a Mysterious Inscription Discovered Beneath a Courtyard in Turkey

Archaeologists have found an ancient tomb carved into bedrock beneath an unassuming courtyard in Turkey.

Discovered in the yard of a house in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa, the one-chamber tomb is decorated with sculpted reliefs that provide new insights into ancient funerary practices. Şanlıurfa’s governor, Hasan Şıldak, announced the find on social media this week.

One of the rock tomb’s walls features a relief sculpture of a reclining man leaning on his elbow. Another carving in the chamber walls depicts two winged women. Such images “offer clues about the beliefs and lifestyle of the period,” writes Anatolian Archaeology’s Oguz Büyükyıldırım.

The inside of the chamber’s door featured a painted inscription, though damage has rendered it illegible. While researchers haven’t yet dated the tomb, Şıldak says that its decorations are unlike others found at ancient tombs in Turkey.

Per Anatolian Archaeology, ancient rock tombs found in Şanlıurfa usually date to the late Hittite and Roman periods. The Hittite Empire flourished in Anatolia (present-day Turkey) between about 1400 and 1200 B.C.E., while the Romans began establishing rule in the region around the first century B.C.E.

The rock tomb is the latest discovery from the Şanlıurfa Cultural Inventory project, which aims to identify new historical assets across the province, as Türkiye Today’s Koray Erdogan reported in October. The provincial government collaborated with Batman and Harran Universities to assemble a team of nine archaeologists, architects and art historians to conduct the research. They’re hoping to record thousands of cultural assets, including 1,700 historical sites that are registered but poorly documented.

As project leader Gulriz Kozbe, an art historian at Batman University, told Türkiye Today, a comprehensive database is essential to protecting cultural artifacts and sites, which are always in danger of sustaining damage from humans or natural disasters—like the earthquakes that struck southern Turkey in 2023.

“Without documentation, the loss becomes irreversible,” Kozbe told the publication. “Having a database would have accelerated restoration efforts in light of such disasters.”

The newly discovered rock tomb “is exactly the type of cultural asset the survey was designed to preserve,” as Artnet’s Adam Schrader writes.

The tomb’s centerpiece carving, the reclining man, resembles some examples of ancient funerary portraiture, according to the publication. He may represent the deceased individual who was entombed at the site, while the reliefs of the winged women could represent guardians watching over him from the afterlife. 

The practice of carving tombs into rock was somewhat common across the ancient world. Turkey is home to many of these ancient tombs, including the striking Lycian Rock-Cut Tombs near the southwestern coast and the remote Kapilikaya Rock Tomb in the mountains of the north.