Mert Woodard
History 1910
Professor Tracy
Religion in Çatalhöyük The Neolithic period is undoubtedly one of the most imperative ears in history. It was a pivotal period in which farming, technology and human culture made very significant advances. There are many important settlements from this period, and one of the most significant is the site known as Çatalhöyük. Çatalhöyük, meaning “mound at the fork” in Turkish, is located in South Central Turkey, a region known by many as Anatolia. Çatalhöyük is now a large mound covering thirty-two acres and reaches sixty feet at its highest point. The people of Çatalhöyük built houses out of mud brick and would knock them down and rebuild over many years. This rebuilding would accumulate land higher and higher, thus the mound. The site’s layers, representing each “city”, are numbered from the top, 0, to the bottom, X. The oldest level has been dated to about 6500 B.C. The mound was first excavated in 1958 by British archaeologist James Mellaart, and after over thirty years the excavations are being led by fellow Englishman Ian Hodder. The discoveries made by Mellaart and Hodder, as well as their interpretations, shed light on what the people of Çatalhöyük were like. The excavation of the site can tell us what they ate, how they lived, and what they may have believed. Religion is one of the most widely debated topics concerning the settlement and its inhabitants. Mellaart strongly believed that the people of Çatalhöyük had a distinct religion, and more specifically, that Çatalhöyük was a matriarchal society. The excavations led by Hodder decades later led him disagree with Mellaart’s interpretation. The art found at the site, and interpreting what it meant, led the archaeologists to what they believe. It is very important in detail what the archaeologists found and what they thought. Only then is it possible to determine whether Çatalhöyük had distinct religion and whether it was a matriarchal society. As Mellaart first set foot on the mound in 1958 he immediately noticed shards of pottery and obsidian. Mellaart saw the same pottery and obsidian at other Neolithic sites in Turkey he had worked on previously, and immediately deemed Çatalhöyük as Neolithic. In 1961 he assembled a team and the first excavations of Çatalhöyük were underway. It is very important to note that Mellaart excavated at a rigorous pace, uncovering nearly 200 buildings. Throughout the 4 seasons Mellaart excavated Çatalhöyük, he uncovered many artifacts. These artifacts range from plaster reliefs and wall paintings to sculpted figurines. While excavating the site Mellaart quickly made a distinction among the buildings of the settlement. Most of the buildings looked very similar in terms of layout and size, but Mellaart found many so called “shrines.” In order to be classified as a shrine, a building must have wall paintings of an elaborate nature that have religious significance, plaster reliefs depicting deity, and other artifacts. Mellaart also believe that there were greater shrines and lesser shrines. The greater shrines featured many artifacts and were orientated North and South. The lesser shrines only featured a single wall painting or a single animal head. Mellaart concluded that the lesser shrines may have been secondary to the greater shrines or the homes of religious leaders lower in the hierarchy. In a few of the burials found in shrines at Levels VI-IV three women are found buried with obsidian mirrors. Mellaart believed that it is possible that these three women could have been priestesses. One of the paintings found in a shrine also led Mellaart to a clue about religion. There was a painting depicting a skeleton with its head removed and vultures circling above. Mellaart believed that this person was of high importance because they were not buried right away and they were beheaded. They were left outside so the vultures could eat away at the flesh and tendons and only after that was the body buried. Mellaart believed that the section of Çatalhöyük that he was excavating was the “priestly quarter.” Plaster reliefs were also quite prominent at the site. These reliefs are put on walls or on benches. Most of these reliefs depict the heads and horns of bulls and also the famous mother goddesses. Many animals seen on the wall paintings (vultures, dogs, cattle) are not depicted in reliefs. Mellaart believes that the omissions of the other animals in reliefs show the significance of the woman-like figures and the bulls. The first reliefs are found in the form of animal heads, appearing first in Level IX. The first reliefs of animal heads were made of molded clay and plaster, but the actual heads and horns of bulls are seen after Level VII. One shrine on Level VII contains a large bull’s head with two smaller bulls on one side. A pair of what appear to be breasts hangs above the large bull’s right horn. Plaster reliefs of women, which Mellaart would later deem to be mother goddesses, were found in many buildings at Level VII. One building was reconstructed to show twin mother goddesses on one wall with the head of a bull underneath them. Another building featured a goddess that had been repainted white may times, but on one of the layers the red hand of a child was on the breast. Many of the goddess figures depicted in plaster reliefs featured outstretched arms and legs. Also, “…before abandoning their houses, the Neolithic settlers had made most of the figurines ‘ritually harmless’: that is, they had taken away their powers by obliterating their faces and sometimes their hands and feet as well.” The most famous of Mellaart’s discoveries come in the form of the mother goddess sculptures. In 4 seasons Mellaart excavated the site, he and his team found dozens of carefully sculpted figurines of women in the buildings Mellaart classified as shrines. These figures were sculpted using materials such as limestone, alabaster, and white marble. The sculptures were not very large, averaging from five to twenty centimeters in height. One of the most notable goddess figurines was found in a shrine from Level III. The goddess is sitting down on a throne with her hands on the heads of two leopards on either flank. The woman appears to be pregnant and giving birth to a child. Interestingly, this statue was found in a grain bin. Mellaart believed the artifacts found in the shrines were religious in nature and that the people of Çatalhöyük went to shrines to worship these figures. Mellaart believed that the goddess statues were the clearest indication of religion at Çatalhöyük. Because many of the goddess are shown with animals, Mellaart concluded that the goddess figures were worshipped to provide game for hunting and to ensure the hunt was successful. Also, some statues were found in shrines with paintings of crops, indicating that the goddess had power over plant life. Mellaart also believed that the mother goddesses were worshipped in association with fertility. Many of the statues illustrate a larger woman with a protruding stomach, intimating pregnancy. Some of the plaster reliefs also portray child birth. One relief in Level VII shows a woman with outstretched arms and legs giving birth to a male, represented by the bull head. Since the goddess represented life, it is only fitting that it represented death. Also, some of the reliefs portraying breasts, “…incorporate skulls of vultures, fox and weasel or the lower jaws of boars with enormous tusks, eminently symbolic of the scavengers which thrive on death.” Not only did Mellaart believe that the people of Çatalhöyük worshipped goddesses of fertility and agriculture, he also made a very controversial proposition: The goddess cult of Çatalhöyük was led by women. “None of Çatalhöyük’s figurines, relief sculptures, or wall murals, he noted, showed the sexual organs of the figures they represented. The absence of phalluses and vulvae was remarkable, Mellaart thought, because they were often portrayed in the art of the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic cultures outside Anatolia. In Mellaart’s view the meaning of this was simple: since ‘emphasis on sex in art in invariably connected with the male impulse and desire,’ he concluded, the goddess cult at Çatalhöyük was led by women, not by men.” In 1993, nearly thirty years after Mellaart’s last season at Çatalhöyük, Ian Hodder returned to the Neolithic site to resume excavation. Hodder amassed an impressive team of experts and was planning to excavate Çatalhöyük on a grand scale. But unlike Mellaart, Hodder did not excavate buildings at a blistering pace. Instead, his team started by doing surface work for 4 seasons until 1995. Later in the project Hodder and his team spent one entire season excavating one building. Technology and excavation methods made significant advances since Mellaart last dug at the site. The process was more meticulous as opposed to simply getting to the digging right away. Surface work was done to determine where the best place to begin digging was. Hodder and his team uncovered much to dispute Mellaart’s claims. Initial surface work indicated to Hodder that the best place to begin was at the Northern end instead of the Southern end where Mellaart did his work. After the third season of surface work at Çatalhöyük, Hodder and his team collected enough information to dispute one of Mellaart’s claims. Hodder already knew that Mellaart believed some buildings at Çatalhöyük were indeed shrines. Hodder and his crew uncovered close to thirty buildings in the first three seasons of work in an area covering around two thousand square meters. The buildings were nearly mirror images of the buildings Mellaart excavated at his “priestly quarter” on the other side of the mound. Hodder and his crew also did work in a building from Level VII, a building Mellaart classified as a shrine. While examining blocks from the floor under a microscope, Hodder and his team saw the remains of cereals, grasses, berries, and animal dung. (Commonly used as fuel) This suggests that domestic activity took place in these so called shrines. This discovery challenged Mellaart’s claim that there were certain buildings of worship. Hodder and his team also examined the mother goddess sculptures Mellaart discovered, as well as artifacts of their own. Hodder’s team tracked down nearly all of the sculptures Mellaart discovered, including the goddess figures. Nearly half of the sculptures depicted animals of some kind, some of which were very hard to identify. The goddess figures made up a very small percentage of the total. Hodder’s team figured out that Mellaart’s goddess figures did not make their appearance at Çatalhöyük until Level VI, with most of them appearing after Level V. Hodder’s team also made another significant discovery about the goddess sculptures. Many of them were found in midden areas and not shrines, as if they had been thrown away. Also, of the figures Hodder found in the Northern end of the mound appear outside the houses in midden areas. If this is true it would seriously challenge Mellaart’s claims that these mother goddesses where worshipped. Hodder and his team also uncovered many other clues that would shed light on the possibility of religion or matriarchy at Çatalhöyük. Hodder’s team found plaster reliefs similar to the ones Mellaart found at the Southern end of the mound. They found many bull heads and horns as well as what appeared to be breasts. They also found reliefs similar to the goddesses Mellaart found with outstretched arms and legs. But Hodder’s team found a small sculpted figure that was very significant. In 2005 Hodder’s team found a sort of clay “stamp seal” in a building from Level V. The stamp seal featured outstretched arms and legs, just like Mellaart’s goddess plaster reliefs, only the stamp had a head. None of Mellaart’s goddess figures with outstretched arms and legs had heads; they had always been cut off. This stamp seal had its head intact, and it was what appears to be the head of a bear. The analysis of Mellaart’s excavation, as well as discoveries made during his own excavation, led Hodder to distance himself from Mellaart’s claims that Çatalhöyük was a goddess worshipping cult and a matriarchal society. Hodder wrote this in one of his reports: “It is difficult to argue against the importance of women in the symbolism. Especially in the later levels at the site, the image of the enthroned or seated woman is powerful. There do not seem to be equivalent images of men…most of our representations of humans are sexless-there is nothing on most figurines and clay models of humans to tell us whether they are men or women. The number of clear men and women is not large. What is more, when we find these clay figures, they do not occur special places. They seem to occur most frequently in midden places. They do not occur in burials or locations that would suggest special importance…” Both James Mellaart and Ian Hodder’s positions on whether or not Çatalhöyük had a distinct religion worshipping goddesses or whether the ancient settlement was a matriarchy are well known. In all probability it will never be certain what the people of Çatalhöyük did or did not believe in, but from the artifacts gathered at the site we can infer whether or not Çatalhöyük was a goddess cult in which women were the leaders. But before we can do that, it is necessary to distinguish what constitutes a religion. It is my opinion that a religion must have all of the following components: a shrine or temple of worship, a large group of followers, religious leaders, and belief in a higher being. Mellaart and Hodder’s excavations, and the interpretation of their discoveries lead me to believe that Çatalhöyük was indeed not a goddess cult and was not a matriarchy. Mellaart immediately categorized certain buildings at Çatalhöyük as shrines because they were more heavily adorned with decoration than the other buildings. Mellaart was adamant these buildings were shrines and that he luckily excavated the “priestly quarter” of the mound. (It should be noted that Mellaart only excavated a mere three percent of the mound.) Ian Hodder and his team excavated the other side of the mound and compared the buildings they found with those Mellaart uncovered. Both sets of buildings were nearly identical. Hodder’s team also did work on Mellaart’s shrines and found that domestic activity took place in these buildings. Why would people conduct normal everyday activity in a so called place of worship? The plaster reliefs of goddesses with outstretched arms and legs can also be called into question. How could Mellaart be so sure that these sculptures were human, let alone women? It is possible that they were women, but how could Mellaart be so sure? Hodder’s team has uncovered a smaller figurine with the same outstretched arms and legs, but their discovery featured a head. It was not the head of a woman, but instead of an animal which appears to be a bear. This discovery dismisses Mellaart’s notion that the wall reliefs with no heads were goddess sculptures. The burials found at Çatalhöyük can also help discern whether not women played the leading role in society. Many bodies have been found at Çatalhöyük buried after they had been beheaded. It is thought that in ancient times humans had been beheaded after death if they were of high importance. The beheaded skeletons at Çatalhöyük are found in nearly identical numbers of men and women. This may indicate that neither sex was dominant, and may help to dismiss Mellaart’s theory that women were the leaders at Çatalhöyük. The most significant discovery at Çatalhöyük is Mellaart’s now famous mother goddess figurines. These sculpted pieces have helped bring a lot of attention to the site. Mellaart believed that the sculptures were worshipped in the name of fertility and subsistence. He found many sculptures of what appear to be pregnant women giving birth. Hodder and his team found many other sculpted figurines, the majority of which were not women. Also, Mellaart left out many details as to where the goddess figures where found at the site. Hodder’s team uncovered these details. Hodder’s team found that many goddess figurines were not found in Mellaart’s shrines. Instead, the figurines were often found seemingly thrown away in midden areas, not shrines or houses. This discovery should go a long way in dismissing Mellaart’s claims that these sculptures were sacred. If they were so sacred, why were the not found in shrines, but instead thrown away? Hodder’s discoveries that there were no shrines, Mellaart’s goddess reliefs most likely were not even women, and the location of the goddess figurines should dismiss Mellaart’s claims that Çatalhöyük was a goddess worshipping cult and a matriarchy. Mellaart’s claims seem mostly like guesswork, either as a result of the technology and excavation methods available to him, or due to his own agenda. Whereas Hodder’s interpretation seems far more plausible due to new methods and technology, excavating different areas of the mound, and a larger team with more experts, the funding available, and his team’s analysis of Mellaart’s work. It is entirely possible that the plaster reliefs, wall paintings, and goddess sculptures were part of a sort of ritual or magic, but Çatalhöyük was not a goddess cult led by women.

Works Cited 1. The Goddess and the Bull: Çatalhöyük by Micheal Balter 2. Çatalhöyük: A Neolithic Town in Anatolia by James Mellaart 3. Çatalhöyük Perspectives: Reports From the 1995-99 Seasons by Ian Hodder 4. Excavating Çatalhöyük: South, North, and KOPAL Area Reports From the 1995-99 Seasons by Ian Hodder 5. Official Çatalhöyük website, Çatalhöyük.com

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[ 2 ]. Michael Balter, The Goddess and the Bull: Çatalhöyük, 38
[ 3 ]. James Mellaart, Çatalhöyük: A Neolithic Town in Anatolia, 183
[ 4 ]. Balter, Goddess and the Bull, 40
[ 5 ]. Balter, Goddess and the Bull, 322