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Stylites or pillar ascetics and their Syrian prototype, Symeon the Elder (d. 459), are well known from our literary sources and have been studied extensively within late antique historiography. This is in contrast to the far more limited attention that has been paid to the archaeological evidence of the stylites’ pillars, their spatial setting and infrastructure, their representations and other material forms of evidence. This article seeks to outline what has been achieved so far on the archaeology of the stylites and proposes a possible agenda for future research, particularly in Syria and Mesopotamia. Such work, desperately needed, could also pave the road for a better understanding of the stylites’ Lebenswelten, function and liturgy.