Çatal Hüyüka mysterious mound excavated in Turkey in the 1960s was to revolutionize archaeological thinking. For a large community had flourished on the ancient site 2000 years before the onset of civilization in Egypt and Mesopotamia.
IN 1961 A TEAM OF BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGISTS led by James Mallart travelled to the Konya plain in Anatolia, to a site about 320km (200 miles) south of the Turkish capital, Ankara. The purpose of the expedition was to excavate an artificial mound, known in Turkey as a Hüyük, which rose beside the Caramba river more than 1,000m (3,281ft) above sea level.
As the digging proceeded, it became clear that this man-made hill – Çatal Hüyük – was the site of the largest, most important, and most fascinating Neolithic (Late Stone Age) settlement ever discovered in the Middle East. There were substantial dwelling-houses, cult-centers or shrines, and evidence of arts and crafts, and of extensive trade – mostly in local produce and artefacts, but also in more exotic articles. Initially, radiocarbon dating placed the foundation of the settlement between 6250 and 5400 BC. But using a method called dendrochronology, counting rings in tree trunks to double-check radiocarbon dating, it became clear that it was established even earlier – between 7200 and 7100 BC.
A STONE AGE COMMUNITY
Çatal Hüyükconsists, in fact, of two separate eastern and western mounds, divided by a branch of the “River Caramba”. Archaeologists have concentrated on the Neolithic eastern mound; the settlement shifted to the western mound in the succeeding Chalcolithic period. Only a small section of the 13ha (32 acre) eastern mound was excavated between 1961 and 1965, but since 1993 a large international team has expanded the investigations.
At the time of its discovery, Çatal Hüyükwas unique. In recent years, similar contemporary sites have been discovered, including Umm Dabaghiyah in northern Iraq, Zagheh in northern Iran, Bouqras and Abu Hureyra in Syria, and Can Hasan, Suberde, and Erbaba in Turkey itself. But none of these settlements has shown quite the cultural and technical achievements of Çatal Hüyük-the site which gave archaeologists the first, tantalizing glimpse of an early farming settlement whose people cultivated cereals, crafted religious figurines, and traded with distant communities.
Mellaart’s excavations of the eastern mound uncovered one complete block of houses and shrines, part of another, similar block, and part of a third block which contained only houses. To the 1960s team, the shrines – rooms cluttered with relics such as bulls’ horns and statuettes – seemed clearly distinguishable from the houses. But recent investigations have shown that most houses had domestic areas with hearths, beds, and storage bins in their southern section, and ritual features such as elaborate wall decoration in the northern section.
LIVING IN A MUD-BRICK MAZE
Each mud-brick house was surrounded by walls built directly up against its neighboring buildings. It remained detached, though, and so could be demolished and rebuilt easily. Clusters of box-like, rectangular houses formed vast blocks, like cells in a honeycomb, interspersed with courtyards. A system of gutters molded from plaster took the rainwater off the roof into the nearest courtyard and kept the house dry. There were no streets, so there were no front doors – houses were entered via the roof.
The reasons for using this method of building remain a puzzle. Evidence from other settlements in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and elsewhere in Turkey suggests that roof-entry may have been widespread in the Middle East in the 8th and 7th millennia BC. It may have been the best way to protect food and portable property from scavenging animals and light- fingered neighbors.
THE DAILY ROUND
Hundreds of everyday domestic objects were found in Çatal Huyuk’s houses and tombs – homely items that give a vivid insight into the daily life of the settlement. The majority of the objects are carved out of wood or bone, or fashioned from clay. Particularly fascinating are several little bone spatulas, carved in the form of a fork, which the women used to apply make-up to their faces. Archaeologists also discovered wooden kitchenware in the form of large dishes with handles, plates, and bowls. Food was cooked in tall, double-handled clay pots which were placed directly on the hearth or put into an oven to bake their contents,
There are 14 known levels of building in Çatal Hüyük, spanning 800 years of cultural development, yet the basic design of the houses remains virtually unchanged throughout that period. Each house consisted of a main room, generally measuring about 6m (20ft) by 4m (13ft), with a storeroom along one side. On the roof was a small, ramshackle extra story built of sticks and plaster which served as additional storage space and as a porch.
Wooden stairs or a ladder led from the roof to the kitchen area positioned at the southern end of the house. This consisted of a hearth or ovens and a fuel store.
Cooking pots were kept in holes in the floor, and smoke escaped through a hole in the roof. Some of the pots contained ancient ‘pot-boilers’ – stones heated in the fire then dropped into the pots to cook their contents.
Reed matting covered the center of the floor. On two sides of the room, at the northern end, raised platforms covered with mats served as sofas and workbenches during the day and as beds at night. The discovery of traces of material suggests that felt was used to make bedding. The platforms had one further use they also acted as family sepulchers.
The plaster surface of platforms was broken open to allow the burial of bones beneath them, 1.5m to 1.8m (5ft to 6ft) below the surface. The dead were buried with funerary gifts such as armlets, bracelets, copper beads, necklaces, obsidian mirrors, and weapons, as well as a wide variety of baskets and wooden vessels, which suggests a belief in life after death.
Their bodies were laid to rest in a contracted position inside the platform, which was then plastered over again. More than half of the bodies found at Çatal Hüyükwere of young children. Each platform seems to have been the burial place of a nuclear family. In several cases the latest burial was of a mature adult male whose interment was followed by the abandonment of the house, which probably then became an ancestral shrine.
THE DOMESTICATION OF THE HUNTER-GATHERER
The contents of each house were generally the same: the remains of food and matting; vessels made of pottery, wood, and occasionally stone; and beads, tools, and weapons made of obsidian – a glassy and extremely hard volcanic rock – or, more rarely, from flint.
The people of Çatal Hüyükkept domesticated dogs to guard their houses and, as one wall-painting shows, for sheep herding and for hunting. Human teeth from the site indicate that meat made up a large part of their diet; there is little evidence of the worn teeth that are prevalent among people who subsist mainly on cereals. The meat came from domestic stock and wild game. The number of bones found suggests of oxen. Copper and lead also came from the Taurus Mountains. The obsidian used for implements such as arrowheads and knife-blades came from Cappadocia to the north-east. Sea-shells from the Mediterranean were also found at the site, along with Syrian flints, and a fragment of Syrian pottery.
The Çatal Hüyükcraftsmen used many other materials not available in the local environment – they must have imported pigments such as red and yellow ochre; hard stone for toolmaking; limestone, shale, and aragonite; and minerals such as carnelian and blue and green apatite, which were fashioned into beads.
These finds are evidence of trade with faraway places. The discovery of Çatal Hüyük pottery in Cilicia, 160km (100 miles) to the south-east, suggests that the cultural influence of the settlement extended well beyond the Konya plain, perhaps even into the mountains surrounding it, across an area that may have been as large as 30,000km2 (11,580 sq miles). that mutton was their main protein, supplemented by other meats and fish. From wall-paintings as well as bones, it is clear that the Çatal Hüyükresidents hunted wild goats, horses, and cattle, as well as wild boar and deer. Leopards, onagers (a species of wild ass), lions, gazelles, bears, and even wild cats were tracked down and killed for their skins.
Deposits of grain of different types suggest a fairly advanced system of cultivation and a variety of cereal foods. Grain was sometimes made into bread, but was more commonly served toasted, or in soup. The farmers also grew vegetables, and there is evidence that they processed oil from a type of mustard seed called shepherd’s purse.
Foods eaten regularly included acorns, capers, crab apples, grapes, pistachios, and walnuts, gathered from swampy areas near the settlement and the forests on the edge of the Konya plain. Recent excavations have revealed that tubers were also an important element of their diet, including the marsh Scirpus, a bulrush that grew locally.
DIVERSE TRADE WITH DISTANT LANDS
Apart from food, the Konya plain had few natural resources beyond reeds and clay. Virtually everything else was imported. Timber – juniper, oak, and pine – was probably floated down the Çarsamba river from the Taurus Mountains about 80km (50 miles) to the south, then hauled to the settlement by teams.
THE ROLE OF RITUAL IMAGERY
It seems likely that the stability of the community at Çatal Hüyük, and its links with other communities, owed much to a common religion. The shrines in the houses were elaborately decorated in three ways: with wall-paintings, plaster reliefs (frequently painted), and silhouettes etched into the plaster.
The wall-paintings range from simple red panels and geometric patterns to complex designs featuring symbolic figures and human hand shapes. Others depict vultures hovering over human corpses, a man defending himself from a vulture, a man carrying two human heads, a deer hunt, and an erupting volcano with a settlement in the foreground. Two of the shrines show bull-baiting and hunting dances.
The plaster reliefs explore a limited number of themes, which are frequently repeated. The most common figure is that of a goddess shown in the posture of childbirth, with her legs and arms lifted. Birth is a recurrent motif: there is a large female figure giving birth to a bull’s head, and next to it is another female giving birth to a ram’s head. In this second relief, three superimposed bulls’ heads appear below the ram’s head. Whether these represent previous births, or the ‘heraldic’ supporters of the goddess, is still not clear.
Bulls’ heads appear in a great many of the buildings. In some cases, their horns are real; in others they are molded out of clay and plaster. The bull almost certainly represents the male element which, in the reliefs, is never portrayed in human form. The female element is represented in various forms apart from the figure of the goddess. Some figures are pregnant; others are slim and elegant. One particularly skillful image represents a woman whose arms and legs fit into sockets, like a child’s doll. Many of the figures have no faces, suggesting that masks or headdresses may have been hung on pegs above the heads.
The third form of decoration, the silhouette style, depicts bulls, deer heads with antlers in profile, wild boars, and cows. Bulls’ heads also appear with offerings laid beneath them, ranging from precious objects and weapons to cuts of meat and, in one case, a human head in a basket. An exact interpretation of this religious imagery is impossible. In general terms it seems to celebrate the cycle of birth and death, a theme maintained in carrying two human heads, a deer hunt, and an erupting volcano with a settlement in the foreground. Two of the shrines show bull-baiting and hunting dances.
The plaster reliefs explore a limited number of themes, which are frequently repeated. The most common figure is that of a goddess shown in the posture of childbirth, with her legs and arms lifted. Birth is a recurrent motif: there is a large female figure giving birth to a bull’s head, and next to it is another female giving birth to a ram’s head. In this second relief, three superimposed bulls’ heads appear below the ram’s head.
Whether these represent previous births, or the ‘heraldic’ supporters of the goddess, is still not clear.
Bulls’ heads appear in a great many of the buildings. In some cases their horns are real; in others they are molded out of clay and plaster. The bull almost certainly represents the male element which, in the reliefs, is never portrayed in human form. The female element is represented in various forms apart from the figure of the goddess. Some figures are pregnant; others are slim and elegant. One particularly skillful image represents a woman whose arms and legs fit into sockets, like a child’s doll. Many of the figures have no faces, suggesting that masks or headdresses may have been hung on pegs above the heads.
The third form of decoration, the silhouette style, depicts bulls, deer heads with antlers in profile, wild boars, and cows. Bulls’ heads also appear with offerings laid beneath them, ranging from precious objects and weapons to cuts of meat and, in one case, a human head in a basket. An exact interpretation of this religious imagery is impossible. In general terms it seems to celebrate the cycle of birth and death, a theme maintained in ritual objects found at the site. Small statuettes – most less than 20cm (8in) tall and made of stone, though some are of baked clay – depict gods and demigods. They were found in the shrines, placed in groups, obviously to suggest some kind of connection between each set of figures. Several statuettes represent a bearded man, probably a god of hunting, sitting astride crudely carved animals. But the most remarkable sculpture is of the female deity seated on an animal throne, giving birth to a human child. The richness of the ritual imagery at Çatal Hüyük hints at a high level of religious consciousness. Its nameless deities are the prototypes of later Anatolian gods and goddesses associated with birds, leopards, bulls, and deer.
MAKING A MARK ON HISTORY
So where did Çatal Hüyük‘s original settlers come from? On the south coast of Anatolia, traces have been found of the late Paleolithic (Early Stone Age) culture that preceded the civilization of Çatal Hüyük.
In the caves of Kara’In, Öküzlü’In, and the rock shelter of Beldibi, there are wall-paintings and engravings of bulls, deer, ibex, and small human figures which may be the precursors of the art at Çatal Hüyük. It is possible that the first builders of Çatal Hüyükabandoned these caves and journeyed up to the plateau to found a new settlement.
The region continued to prosper for several thousand years. During the Early Bronze Age, there was a great increase in the number of settlements established in the Konya plain.
By 3000 BC, cities began to emerge, but by then the descendants of the Çatal Hüyükpeople had moved on to other sites. Strangely, shortly before 2000 BC, the region was virtually abandoned. A tiny trace of the Çatal Hüyükculture does, however, survive to this day.
The simple geometric patterns painted on the walls of the Çatal Hüyükhouses – layers of red panels, with the imprints of human hands can be seen in six modern villages near Çatal Hüyük: a creative idea which, astonishingly, has survived for 9,000 years.