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CITIES
& TOWNS |
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This period reveals
a new step in the history of mankind with the development of the established
and settled societies and production of food. Anatolia once again gives
the most comprehensive sites in the world for this age with Cayonu, Hacilar,
Catalhoyuk
and Koskhoyuk excavation sites. The Cayonu settlement which is not far
from the city of Diyarbakir has been unearthed by the expedition teams
under the leadership of Cambel, Braidwood, Mehmet Ozdogan, Wulf Schirmen
and it is dated back to 7250-6750 BC. In the middle of the settlement
is a center and around it are monumental, rectangular structures and houses.
The foundation of the structures is stone and above is sun-dried brick.
The inhabitants of Cayonu were the first farmers of Anatolia. They raised
sheep and goat, and domesticated the dog. The woman figurines among the
finds discovered are the earliest traces of the Mother Goddess cult. The
Hacilar Settlement, brought to the daylight by James Mellart, located
25 km southwest of Burdur, is dated back to 5700-5600 BC. The walls and
the floors of Hacilar houses which are made of mud-brick on stone foundations
are lime mortared and red painted. Wooden poles for supporting flat roofs
and ladders suggesting that some structures had two stories have been
discovered. In every house, there are goddess figurines made of clay,
in standing and sitting postures. Different from other settlement areas,
the dead are buried outside the cities. The pottery in Hacilar is well
fired and comes in red, brown and yellow colors. The
Catalhoyuk settlement, 52 km southeast of Konya and north of the town
of Cumra, is dated back to 6800-5000 BC and it is the most developed center
of the Near East and the Aegean. The excavations have shown that the city
with ten different settlement levels was built according to a designed
plan. This is achieved by arranging the rectangular planned houses next
to one another around the courtyards. There are no stone foundations in
Catalhoyuk and all the houses carry flat roofs. Houses were made up of
mud brick and they all were built according to the same ground plan. They
have no doors. Instead the entrance to them is through windows on the
ceilings by using portable ladders. The windows for air and light are
placed on the topmost part of the walls near the roofs. The houses are
composed of wide living rooms, storage rooms and kitchens. In the rooms
there are seats and furnaces. The dead are buried under the seats in the
houses after having been dried in the sun.The walls of the houses are
decorated with bull heads and paintings. These paintings which signify
the rituality in the community are placed in a corner in the houses rather
than in a special separate location within the settlement area. Bull heads
are formed in high reliefs, like statues, and some of them are made by
covering original bullheads with clay. In the formation of the wall paintings,
red, brown, black, white and pink dyes on top of the gray mud brick are
used. Among the motifs used are geometrical designs, flowers, stars, circles
and in some parts depictions of life as well as human hands, deities,
human figures, hunting scenes, bulls, birds, vultures, leopards, wild
deer and pigs, lions and bears. A depiction of the eruption of a volcanic
mountain (very likely, Mount Hasan, near Cappadocia) is the oldest known
scenery painting. In Catalhoyuk, we can also trace the early stages of
farming. This is also accompanied with the worship of the Mother Goddess
along with the holy animal, the bull. The Mother Goddess stands for fertility
and multiplication of man. In the excavations carried in Hacilar and Catalhoyuk,
hundreds of Mother Goddess statutes have been found. She, with her sexual
organs in exaggeration is almost always depicted nude and lies down in
the postures of crouching, and specially in the process of birth-giving
. The fact that similarly designed Mother Goddess statues could also be
found in the Near Eastern and Aegean cultures signifies the existence
of matriarchal societies in these regions in the same time periods. The
Goddess Kybele comes into sight around the 7000 BC. Most of the finds
from this period are on display in Ankara Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.
As for Koskhoyuk; during the excavations carried by Ugur Silistre in Koskhoyuk,
near Nigde, ornate pottery pieces and statues have been discovered. |
