Decorated stone vessels have been found at Early Neolithic sites throughout Northern / Upper Mesopotamia.1 The small, thin-walled and often decorated bowls have sometimes been summarized under the term ‘vessels of the Hallan Çemi type,’2 3 In a paper discussing craft specialization during the Early Neolithic, Köksal-Schmidt and Schmidt4 have highlighted one of the roles of these vessels: as a medium to dis- play a complex symbolic system. They have further pointed out a large number green-blackish rock variety, decorated with incisions. Although such vessels were 5 and although their number has continually risen through further excavations, they have not been the topic of a dedicated study so far. Here, we report on 83 vessels, or rather fragments of vessels, made from ‘greenstone’ varieties, discovered at Göbekli Tepe (Table 1).
