Çatalhöyük ("Chah-tahl-hew-yook") is the name of a site on the Konya Plain in south-central Turkey dating from the Neolithic Period in the Near East. The site is estimated to be from around 7500 BC and is often referred to as an early, sometimes even as the first, city. Catalhoyuk had agriculture and trade, houses of mud brick, plastered shrines or temples and fortifications made out of mud brick. House and shrine walls were decorated with paintings, mounted bullheads covered in plaster, and many female (often referred to as "mother goddess") figurines were found at Catalhoyuk.
The discovery of Çatalhöyük
Çatalhöyük was first discovered in the late 1950s and excavated by James Mellaart between 1961 and 1965. The site quickly became famous, not only because of the large size and dense occupation of the settlement, but also because of the spectacular wall paintings and other art that was found inside the houses. Since 1993 an international team of archaeologists led by Ian Hodder, has been working on new excavations and more research.
Çatalhöyük: Home of the goddess?
Çatalhöyük is surrounded by myths and has been embraced by the goddess movement as their sacred place and while many people take an interest in Çatalhöyük, those who believe the site is the origin of the Goddess movement are among those with the keenest interest.
An Anecdote
Pia Anderson wrote the following anecdote in a 2003 archive report:
"She was one of "them", one of them whom we - the archaeologists working at the site - usually and a little irreverent bundled together under the label "the mother goddess people".
"As she came down and stood on the floor, her eyes filled with tears, her legs started to shake and her steady stream of words suddenly came to an end. She was overwelmed by standing on the same floor which once, thousands of years ago, the people of the Mother Goddess had stood upon. Her experience was very strong. For me, as I stood there on the very same floor, the contrast between her experience and mine became very clear. Here I stood, among my working tools, longing for a break, with a headache caused by the 30-degrees heat and some layer difficult to interpret. And there she was, having a strong religious experience...With a trembling voice she couldn't stop thanking us. This had been the most important moment during her journey." (Berggren 2003 as cited by Pia Andersson, 2003)."
In Closing
Despite all the claims of mythology and goddesses, no one really knows what symbolic or ideological role the female figurines found at Çatalhöyük had in the lives of the people who lived there. Maybe they were indeed "goddess" figurines, but they might have been toys, good luck or fertility charms, or something different altogether "Mother goddess" may just be our modern conceptions imposed on the artifacts found at the site.
What do you think of the new Goddess movement? Tell me about it! or post in our discussion forum.
References
Pia Andersson (2003). Holy place or wor...and working place. The challenges of multivocality in the meeting of science and religion at Catalhoyuk today. Available online at:
http://www.catalhoyuk.com/archive_reports/2003/ar03_19.html
