The Raging Male – Contextualizing explicit Masculinity in Upper Mesopotamian early Holocene Iconography

Abstract This article attempts to interpret the phallocentric artworks known from Early Holocene sites, such as Göbekli Tepe, Karahantepe, and Sayburç, in the Harran plain (Şanlıurfa, southwest Türkiye), as possible relics of rituals centered on male-coded rites of passage from youth to adulthood. The absence of female elements together with the explicit exposure of male sexuality is compared to contemporary tribal initiation rites in the frame of cultural morphology. The diachronic review of key elements initiated is finally placed in a broader context, arguing for a slowly fading hunter-gatherer population on the threshold of new lifeways that exposes their cultural legacy more explicitly.