Sorgun Karakız and Kazankaya Hittite Sculpture Workshops

In the Karakız neighbourhood of Yeniyer town in Sorgun district, about 500 metres north of the municipal service building, a rocky outcrop contains a carved lion statue together with numerous finished and unfinished basalt blocks. These finds indicate that the site served as a quarry and stone-carving workshop during the Hittite period, when the area's hard basalt rock was evidently favoured by stonemasons for producing sculptures and architectural elements. About one kilometre south of the Karakız-Kadışehri road, a second cluster of finds at the Kazankaya locality includes a two-metre-diameter rock-cut water cistern along with more semi-processed basalt blocks; the cistern may have supplied water for the workshop's craftsmen or served a role in the stone-working process itself. The presence of both finished and half-worked stones side by side suggests that different stages of the carving process took place here simultaneously, or that work at the site was interrupted abruptly. Located roughly 17 km from the centre of Sorgun district, these two open-air sites together offer one of the rare tangible glimpses into Hittite-period stone-carving practice in Anatolia, preserved in their natural rocky setting and accessible to visitors today.