Archaeologists have discovered an ancient, decorated rock tomb hidden in the courtyard of a house in Turkiye’s southeastern city of Sanliurfa, which in antiquity was known as the Greek city of Edessa, local authorities announced.
The single-chamber structure is of unique character and adorned with various relief sculptures. It includes a centerpiece featuring a reclining male figure leaning on his left arm and a pair of winged women. The presence of these reliefs alongside the reclining male, according to artnet.com, hints at complex funerary rituals, where guardians or emissaries of the afterlife were depicted watching over the tomb’s occupant.
While the exact date of this recent discovery has not been determined, it is believed to be roughly 2,300 years old. The announcement of the tomb’s discovery was made by Sanliurfa Governor, Hasan Sildak.
“On the inside of the entrance door there is an inscription made of ocher but cannot be read due to damage,” Sildak said. He added that the rock tomb, recorded for the first time, has a “different appearance” from those documented to date.
In the past, excavations in Sanliurfa, a city with thousands of years of history, have uncovered more than 100 tombs that have been carved into rock outcroppings, from the late Hittite period (9th to 7th century BC) through the Roman era (1st to 4th century AD).
The tomb has been registered under Sanliurfa’s ongoing Cultural Inventory Project, a comprehensive survey of heritage sites across the area. The project, led by experts of the governorship and partner universities, plans to document around 6,000 artifacts and locations with detailed descriptions and images, according to Turkiye Today newspaper.
“Without documentation, the loss becomes irreversible,” project coordinator Gulriz Kozbe has previously said.
Sanliurfa, home of the ancient rock tomb, has an astonishing millennia-old history
The city of Urfa, officially called Sanliurfa, in Turkiye’s southeastern region of Anatolia, is of great significance, not only for the Turkish people but also for the world. It was known as Edessa from Hellenistic to Roman times, and today is like an open-air museum.
Settlements in the area appeared around 9000 BC. In prehistoric times, the Urfa region was attractive for human habitation because of its dense grazing areas and the presence of wild animals on migration routes.
Around 3200 BC, the villages of Urfa and Harran began to transform into cities and by the Early Bronze Age (2900-2600 BC) Urfa had grown into a walled city. It was found as a city under the name Edessa by the Seleucid king Seleucus I Nicator in 302 or 303 BC.
Edessa became an important commercial center in the 3rd and 2nd century BC and according to ancient sources, it followed the typical urban plan for Hellenistic military colonies.
In 132 BC, following the decline of the Seleucids, Edessa became the capital of the kingdom of Osrhoene, which was ruled by the Abgarids. In 201 AD much of ancient Edessa, which was an eclectic melting pot of various religious groups, was destroyed by a major flood. In 2014, emperor Caracalla made Edessa a Roman colony, officially ending the autonomy it had previously enjoyed.
From the 4th through to the 6th century AD, Edessa went through its period of greatest prosperity, becoming again an important commercial center.
In 628 the Byzantine emperor Heraclius captured Edessa, which fell under Arab rule a few decades later.
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