More on That 9000 Year Old "Ritual Wand"

Prior post (March 15, 2014).

Archaeologists in Syria find ancient 'wand' engraved with human faces

The 9,000-year-old item, made of cow-bone, likely depicted 'powerful supernatural beings,' archaeologists say.

By Haaretz | Mar. 17, 2014 | 3:46 PM

 

Archaeologists have discovered a 9,000-year-old 'wand' near an ancient burial site in southern Syria, with two human faces engraved on it.

                      

The item, made of cow bone, is thought to date from the late 9th millennium BC. Archaeologists excavated it from Tell Qarassa, an Early Neolithic site. This is among the few archaeological sites not damaged in the fighting in Syria, which on Saturday marked its third anniversary.

                      

The wand was found near a burial site, where 30 headless skeletons were discovered previously. Archaeologists say the findings shed light on the rituals of people who lived in the Neolithic period. Other findings at the site indicate that its inhabitants in the Neolithic period were some of the world's first farmers.

                      

"The find is very unusual. It's unique," study co-author Frank Braemer, an archaeologist at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France told Livescience.

"Earlier traditions of figurative art had avoided the detailed and naturalistic representation of the human face. Fundamental changes occurred during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic with the famous plastered skulls of Jericho and other sites," International Business Times cited the archaeologists as saying. "Statues, masks and smaller carvings also appeared," they said in the findings, which were published in March in the journal Antiquity.

The cow-bone wand, found by archaeologists during digs at Tell Qarassa in 2007 and 2009, was possibly used in a burial ritual, archaeologists believe. "This small bone object from a funerary layer can be related to monumental statuary of the same period in the southern Levant and south-east Anatolia that probably depicted powerful supernatural beings," the experts said.
                      
"It may also betoken a new way of perceiving human identity and of facing the inevitability of death. By representing the deceased in visual form, the living and the dead were brought closer together."
With the fighting in Syria ongoing since 2011, there have been illegal excavations at UNESCO World Heritage sites in the country, including the Ancient Villages of Northern Syria, Bosra, Crac des Chevaliers, Palmyra, Damascus and Aleppo.

*************************************

At the risk of repeating myself, I'm much more focused upon the use of a COW BONE to carve this so-called "magic wand" and -- is it just a coincidence that Hat-Hert ("Hathor", the cow goddess) -- was developing via her predecessor, the warrior Goddess Neith, her own cult around the same time in the delta region of Egypt?

I believe it safe to say that many sacred cults of cow and bull worship developed during this period throughout the Fertile Crescent, focusing upon Sun and Moon worship, co-existent with cults that manifested separately (and may predate the worship of cows/bulls) the worship of felines (lionesses and lions).  Hat-Hert, for instance, turned into a voracious devouring lioness to destory evil mankind. Ancient Chinese goddesses (whose dates are yet uncertain) manifested themselves as tigress/females who could turn upon mankind at any second.  We should not ever forget the "lion" throne that was found with the rotund female sitting upon it, at Catal-hoyuk (Turkey, part of the Fertile Crescent), as well as the numerous aurochs' heads, either (approximately 7500 BCE - 5700 BCE). 

Add 2000 years, and what do you get -- development of such cults of worship more or less all around the same time...

Intact Containers Containing Barley Uncovered at Catalhoyuk

Holy Hathor!  I love that ongoing excavavations are taking place at this site.  What else will be uncovered as time goes on...

From PAP Science and Scholarship in Poland

Poles discovered an over 8 thousand years old grain storage in Turkey

20.01.2014

The largest so far known in the Middle East amount of grain of the Neolithic period in a perfect state of preservation has been discovered by Polish archaeologists in Çatalhöyük, a famous archaeological site in Turkey.
 

Çatalhöyük is one of the largest urban centers of first farmers and one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world.

"In a small room with an area of approximately 7 m2 we discovered four clay containers. Each contained barley" - explained project pleader Prof. Arkadiusz Marciniak from the Institute of Prehistory, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.

In total, from each of the two studied containers archaeologists recovered almost 5 kg of grain. Such amount and such a good state of preservation is a global scale phenomenon. In addition, a different grain cluster was discovered in the room. Archeobotanical analysis showed that it was an extinct species of wheat, popular in Neolithic times in the Middle East and Europe. The room in which the discovery was made was situated in the north-eastern part of the homestead - it belonged to a larger residential building, inhabited 8,200 years ago. It was the final period of the large settlement. According to Prof. Marciniak, only few inhabited households remained on the hill at the time.

The entire structure will be exploted in the coming research seasons. It is known already that the grain storage must have burned down: grain was charred at the temperature of several hundred degrees. Nevertheless, archaeologists were able to determine that the walls of the room were whitened from the inside. In addition to the grain containers, archaeologists found several ceramic vessels, also used for storage.

Çatalhöyük is located in the southern part of the Anatolian Plateau (central Turkey). So far, Polish excavations have focused in the central part of the tell - an artificial hill formed as a result of centuries of settlement. Currently, during the second season, archaeologists explore a part of the south slope.

The first excavations at Çatalhöyük were conducted in the 1960s by British archaeologists James Mellaart. The research was resumed only in 1993. International team is headed by Prof. Ian Hodder of Stanford University. Polish archaeologists joined the project in 2001.

Çatalhöyük was inhabited continuously for 1200 years between 7200 and 6000 BC. It is estimated that during its heyday, the densely built-up settlement with an area of dozens of acres had 6000 residents. The site became famous due to the paintings which decorated the walls of houses and other plastic interior decorations. They depicted human and animal figures as well as geometric motifs. An interesting fact is that the dead were buried under the floors of houses.

Last year's excavations continued from June to August. The work was possible with financial support of the National Science Centre under the Harmony programme.

PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland, Szymon Zdziebłowski

szz/ agt/

tr. RL

Cyber Archaeology Being Used at Catal Hoyuk Continuing Excavations

This is one of those "wow" articles -- really cool!



I also learned, for the first time since hearing about Catal Hoyuk perhaps 20 years ago (or more), how the name is actually pronounced!  It is "Sha-tal" or "Cha-tal" with a soft "c" sound, similar to an "s" sound.  Now that brings a whole new meaning of the place name to me.  All these years, I was pronouncing the name with a hard "c" (a "k" sound)!!! 

Where are the board games -- will any of those ever be found at Catal Hoyuk?  Professor Forte spoke of the people at Catal Hoyuk as the first "modern" type of civilization that we (today's people) could relate to -- the first to settle into one place, plant and reap, domesticated sheep and evidently attempted to domesticate cattle as well, with a civilization that lasted for "thousands of years."  [Note:  According to an article on the site at Wikipedia, Catal Hoyuk existed from approximately 7500 B.C. to 5700 B.C. -- so, if these dates are approximately correct, less than 2,000 years.]

There is a great site online, the Catalhoyuk Research Project, that has project reports available dating back to 1993, when excavations of the large mound area were restarted, including a searchable data base. 

Mommy Dearest:

"Seated woman with two lions" - excavated in one of the
later layers at Catal Hoyuk. 

Description (English): Seated Mother Goddess flanked by two lionesses from Çatalhöyük (Turkey), Neolithic age (about 6000-5500 BCE), today in Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara.  Wikipedia Commons - source. 

Catalhoyuk: New Wall Art Discovered!

This is just a short article but it made me go "hmmmm...."  See for yourself.  Frankly, darlings, I don't think these drawings are representing "bricks." Roads to - somewhere - maybe.  Remember "follow the Yellow Brick Road, follow the Yellow Brick Road..."  Or maps...

From BAR.com

Remarkable Wall Paintings Discovered at Catalhoyuk

Bible and archaeology news

Biblical Archaeology Society Staff • 09/22/2011

Archaeologists excavating the important Neolithic site of Catalhoyuk^* in central Turkey’s Konya Plain have uncovered an elaborate 9,000-year-old wall painting depicting an enigmatic arrangement of brightly-colored geometric shapes. “[The painting] is by far the most intricate and elaborate painting we have found during our excavations here since the mid-90s,” said British archaeologist Ian Hodder of Stanford University who directs the project. “We’ve been waiting quite a long time for something so elaborate.” Hodder remains puzzled over what the painting depicts, although he says it could be a representation of bricks used to form some sort of stylized structure.

Archaeologists excavating the important Neolithic site of Catalhoyuk in central Turkey’s Konya Plain have uncovered an elaborate 9,000-year-old wall painting depicting an enigmatic arrangement of brightly-colored geometric shapes.

^* Shahina Farid, “Excavating Catalhoyuk,” Archaeology Odyssey, May/June 2005.

You can find more information from an article at The New York Times:

Into the Stone Age With a Scalpel: A Dig With Clues on Early Urban LifeBy SUSANNE FOWLER
Published: September 7, 2011

“An interesting aspect of some of the paintings at Catal,” Dr. Hodder said, “is that they are very enigmatic and full of ambiguity and difficult to read.

“But the two main contenders for what this new discovery might show are that it’s simply a geometric design whose meaning is not clear,” he said. “An alternative is that it’s not just a geometric design, but that it is a representation of bricks, some sort of structure,” maybe an early blueprint of some sort.
Houses were “a very important symbol socially and a focus of life at Catal,” he said. “Maybe they were trying to draw the relationship between them and the house but it’s not easy to make sense of it. We have to do more work on it.”
Catalhoyuk — where people occupied mud-brick houses from about 7400 B.C. to about 6000 B.C. — is 60 kilometers, or 37 miles, southeast of Konya in central Turkey. The area is dotted with gently rising mounds that obscure the ancient roots of urbanization and draw archaeologists from around the world.
. . .

“One sort of pattern that we noticed is that the paintings seem to be concentrated around burial platforms,” Dr. Hodder said. “We don’t really understand what that relationship is. Is it a way to communicate with the dead? Another idea would be that the paintings are there to protect people from the dead, or to protect the dead from people.”
. . .

Over more than 1,400 years, as many as 16 layers of housing were formed, each serving as many as 8,000 people. Dr. Hodder’s team has dug through all 16 layers to reach a lake bed from the Pleistocene era.
. . .

The terrain should be ripe for discoveries in the years to come. “We’ve only excavated 4 percent of Catal,” Dr. Hodder said. “What we’ve done is like digging a very small part of New York and then inferring from that what life was like.”

Yeah, Right!

This is the sort of ridiculous article with absolutely no scientific merit that millions of people will end up believing. So sad. Shame on you Mr. David Derbyshire - if that is your real name. Shame, shame on you for putting your name to this drek! (Image: The 9000-year-old figurines dug up in Turkey are thought to have been used as educational toys - from article. Do these look like dudes to you?) Ancient figurines were toys not mother goddess statues, say experts as 9,000-year-old artefacts are discovered By David Derbyshire Last updated at 12:57 AM on 10th September 2009 They were carved out of stone and squeezed out of clay 9,000 years ago, at the very dawn of civilisation. Now archaeologists say these astonishing Stone Age statues could have been the world's first educational toys. Nearly 2,000 figures have been unearthed at Catalhoyuk in Turkey - the world's oldest known town - over the last few decades. The most recent were found just last week. Made by Neolithic farmers thousands of years before the creation of the pyramids or Stonehenge, they depict tiny cattle, crude sheep and flabby people. In the 1960s, some researchers claimed the more rotund figures were of a mysterious large breasted and big bellied "mother goddess", prompting a feminist tourism industry that thrives today. But modern day experts disagree. They say the "mother goddess" figures - which were buried among the rubbish of the Stone Age town - are unlikely to be have been religious icons. Many of the figures thought to have been women in the 1960s, are just as likely to be men. Archaeologist Prof Lynn Meskell, of Stanford University, said: "The majority are cattle or sheep and goats. 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." Out of the 2,000 figurines dug up at the site, less than five per cent are female, she told the British science Festival in Surrey University, Guildford. [And how many were male???] "These are things that were made and used on a daily basis," she said. "People carried them around and discarded them." Catalhoyuk is one of the most important archaeological sites in the world. Established around 7,000 BC, it was home to 5,000 people living in mud brick and plaster houses. Their buildings were crammed so tightly together, the inhabitants clambered over the roofs and used ladders to get into their homes. The town dwellers were early farmers who had domesticated a handful of plants and kept wild cattle for meat and milk. Cattle horns were incorporated into the walls of their homes. The town contains the oldest murals - paintings on plastered walls. Unlike later towns, there is no obvious hierarchy - no homes for priests or leaders, no temples and no public spaces. The dead were buried in spaces under homes, rather than in cemeteries. Some researchers believe it was an equalitarian society. The town survived for around 2,000 years. It is not known what happened to its inhabitants, but they may have been killed by invaders or driven away by the loss of nearby farmland. ************************************************************************************* Ahem - so what if the "majority" of the little clay artifacts found were of sheep and cattle? What has THAT to say about the female figurines that were discovered at Catalhoyuk? Short answer: Nothing. It is well known to anyone who has read practically anything about the excavations at Catalhoyuk that both male and female figurines were excavated there, something the article does NOT mention, but I understand the findings were the ratio of female to male figures was much greater, also something the article does NOT mention. It is also well established that not only at Catalhoyuk, but at many sites excavated in the Middle East and in Greece (and perhaps elsewhere in the world, I just cannot think of them at the moment, but it's late and I'm not a professor of archaeology so these facts do not come as readily to my mind as pawn to e4) thousands of figurines were "sacrificed" as votive offerings to goddesses (and gods, too), often (but not always) smashed and thrown into pits that were conveniently situated at central places of worship. Catalhoyuk people worshipped within their homes. It makes sense that such sacrificed offerings would be found in the middens and garbage pits of the homes! This isn't anything new. In looking at the figurines in the image in the article, my inexpert eyes - and common sense - say at least three of the four are females, for these reasons: -- Three of the four are holding their hands under their breasts - a well-known pose that travelled down through the millennia to depictions of Astarte, Asherah and Aphrodite, to name just a few goddesses who struck similar poses. The fourth figure, on the far left, is either resting its arms along its sides or could, perhaps, be supporting its stomach (very much like a heavily pregnant woman does), but the hands are not visible, and so it is inconclusive. I would like to see a photo of that figurine from the side - to see whether there is a baby-bulge. -- There are no penises on any of the figurines shown in the image. Men have penises. No penis - not a man. Unless someone wants to argue that these were "instructional toys" about eunuchs? -- Why use flabby models? Weren't there any buff 20-somethings around if "instructional toys" were the goal? It is well known, however (I could teach a college course on this) that women who were heretofore buff start to "spread" once menopause hits. It then becomes a losing battle against "pinch an inch." -- Surely no one in his or her right mind is going to suggest that the figurine excavated at Catalhoyuk of a quite buxom and hefty female figure sitting upon a throne flanked by two felines (some say the figurine is in the process of giving birth) is a MAN. Just take a look at her, and compare the figurines shown in the photo in the article, and draw your own conclusions as to their femaleness. I could go on - but you get the idea. One final thought for the night -- who are the other archaeologists mentioned in the article who support this er, reinterpretation of the archeological evidence? Are there any? If so, why weren't they named? Is this just puffery?

6th-7th Century CE Stone Goddess Found in Kashmir

(Image: Gajalakshmi From Bharhut and Sanchi, 3rd - 2nd Century B.C. The article is a fascinating history of the lotus in India. This is not the Gajalakshmi in the article. Notice, however, the dual elephants arising out of the center of dual lotuses - an allusion to a very old Indian creation myth. Out of the midst of endless waters, the lotuses appeared, and opened. Out of the center of their flowers appeared the elephants, which I assume represent an allusion to earth or land mass - something big and solid out of the midst of the waters. The Egyptian creation myth is remarkably similar, with a primeval mound of earth arising out of the midst of the waters, as is the description of how land came to "arise" out of the midst of the waters in the Biblical account in Genesis. See Pavel Bidev's article for some interesting analysis of the water element in the ancestor of chess. ) Story at Taragana.com Sixth century stone sculpture of Hindu goddess discovered in Kashmir September 4th, 2009 SRINAGAR - An ancient sculpture of Hindu Goddess of wealth Gajalakshmi has recently been discovered at Nagbal Lesser village in Jammu and Kashmir. The sculpture, carved out of brownish limestone, is now kept for further examination at the office of Archives Archaeology and Museum in Srinagar. It will be shifted to Sri Pratap Singh Museum for public display later. “As far as the object (sculpture) is concerned it is very important. According to our earlier examination, the statue dates back to the 6th or 7th century. It’s of brownish colour and from the perspective of craftsmanship, it is finely chiselled out,” said Khurshid Ahmad Qadri, Director, Archives Archaeology and Museums of Jammu and Kashmir. The statue, measuring nine inches in height and five inches in width, is seated on the lotus throne placed between two lions. The main sculpture is enclosed in a stone frame, the top of which projects the shape of elephant motifs towards the head of the deity. The idol holds a lotus in her right hand and cornucopia in her left hand. The other end of the drapery covering the lower body of the sculpture does not go behind its shoulder but is wrapped around in pleats beneath the chest of the deity. The carving and costumes of the sculpture speak volumes about skilled craftsmanship of the ancient Kashmiri art. “As far as its art is concerned, this art form connects it to the Gandhara School of Art. The Gandhara School of Art was founded in the first century BC. The theme cultivated by Gandhara artists later reached Kashmir. The costume we get to see in this sculpture shows a confluence of Greek and Indian art forms,” said Iqbal Ahmad, a historian. This is the only sculpture found from the Lesser Kokernag area of Kashmir so far. However, the presence of pottery in an around the Lesser village reveals presence of some ancient settlements. By Afzal Bhat (ANI) I would love to see a photograph of this little goddess. The tip off that she might have something to do with an elephant was the "gaja" at the front of "Lakshmi," who is the goddess for good luck, wealth and good fortune. The clothing she wears definitely links her to the Gandhara tradition - so I'm wondering if this tentative dating is too late,or the Gandhara influence lasted longer that I'm aware (I'm sure no expert!) Notice the lotus - used twice. First, as a throne, and then as a emblem in her right hand. The lotus tradition is very ancient and links Egypt and India in a unique way. And even more intriguing, the goddess is seated on the lotus/throne between two lions! Shades of the Mother Goddess from Catalhoyuk (dates to some 9,000 years ago), who is seated on her throne between two felines! The feline throne for the goddess was a recurring theme from Catalhoyuk onward, across many cultures. Did it spread through cross-cultural contact and exchange, and thence absorbed into local legends, myths and religious iconography as time went on? Or was it independently invented again and again as an iconic image of the Mother Goddess over thousands of years, with no reference to the usage in other cultures? Here's a final thought as I drift off to la-la land - could the name Catalhoyuk (pronounced Chatal--), the place where we first see the Mother Goddess on a throne flanked by twin felines, possibly be related to Caturanga (prounced Chatur--) and the land where a new image of Gajalakshmi seated on a throne flanked by two lions was discovered?