Ancient temple found in Turkey's Niğde

Located in the province’s Yeşilyurt district, excavations started at Kınık Mound in 2010, and this year a team of 30 archaeologists from Italy and Turkey are continuing to work in the field. 

The temple was found when the team was working to unearth a 6,000-year-old, 13-meter-high monumental wall, which was realized two years ago. The temple has four rooms and statues of various animals inside. 

New York University academic Prof. Lorenzo D’Alfonso, the head of the excavations, said, “A Persian temple had not been found so far in the Central Anatolia. This is why this a very important find. We found lots of artifacts in the temple including an Iranian artifact. But the most important ones are Turkish artifacts. For example, we found a solid stone hawk statue as well as [a] cow and birds. These things are normal for a temple but they have not been found in Anatolia before. The most important find here is the hawk statue because it is hard to find it in the center of a temple.”


Unlike other temples 

Italian Pavia University postgraduate student Andrea Trameri said they had been working in the mound for four years. She said that they had found the four-room structure in a 100-square-meter field, adding, “This temple is different from the others because there is a local tradition here. For example, ancient Greek temples have only one big room for the statue of [a] god; there are many rooms here. It draws our attention because there are many worship tools here.”