Another New Stone Figure Discovered at Çatalhöyük – Were They “Mother Goddesses” or Kids' Toys?

Another carved stone figurine has been discovered at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey, adding to an already large collection of over 2,000 pieces that has raised conflicting theories among scholars about their prehistoric purpose. The find, made last week, is of a six inch-tall reclining man with a large beard and oversized nose.

Back in the 1960s, it was speculated that the prevalence among the carvings of females with big breasts and bellies (similar to the likes of the much older Venus of Hohle Fels, found recently in Germany) were indicative of a cult of worshipping “mother goddesses” at Çatalhöyük, which was one of the world’s earliest farming communities 9,000 years ago. The area became a feminist tourist hotspot as a result, and remains so today.

Archaeologists are now suggesting that the figurines may simply have been kids’ educational toys – kind of like a Neolithic equivalent of the Playmobil Egypt range. Many of them actually depict farm animals; the number of women represented in the collection might be as little as 5%, since a lot of the females could just as easily be males (certainly there’s no debating the sex of the latest hirsute find). Additionally, the artefacts haven’t been discovered in particularly ceremonial locations.

“The majority are cattle or sheep and goats,” archaeologist Professor Lynn Meskell, of Stanford University, told the Daily Mail. “They could be representatives of animals they were dealing with – and they could have been teaching aides. All were found in the trash – and they were not in niches or platforms or placed in burials. These are things that were made and used on a daily basis. People carried them around and discarded them.”

The densely inhabited settlement of Çatalhöyük was abandoned after around 2,000 years. No one is certain why – some have speculated it may have been due to the loss of farmland, or because of harassment from foreign invaders. Certainly, violent death was a prominent feature of life in the ancient town, at least if the figurines are any evidence to go by. Many of them represent people who have been decapitated, while others gorily show exposed body parts such as ribs, hip bones and pelvises. The learning curve for youngsters in ancient Çatalhöyük was clearly a steep one.

Picture from Wikimedia Commons.

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