The Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük (also Çatal Höyük) is a baked-clay nude female form seated between feline-headed arm-rests. The figurine is 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) long, 11 centimeters (4.3 inches) wide, 12 centimeters (4.7 inches) high, and weighs 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds). It is generally thought to depict a corpulent and fertile
Mother goddess in the process of giving birth while seated on her throne, which has two hand rests in the form of feline (lioness, leopard, or panther) heads in a
Mistress of Animals motif. The statuette, one of several
iconographically similar ones found at the site, is similar to other corpulent prehistoric goddess figures,
[Noted in Honour and Fleming 2005 "Ch.1: Before History"] of which the most famous is the
Venus of Willendorf
The Venus of Willendorf is an Venus figurine estimated to have been made years ago. It was recovered on 7 August 1908 from an archaeological dig conducted by Josef Szombathy, Hugo Obermaier, and Josef Bayer at a Paleolithic site near Willendorf ...
.
It is a
Neolithic
The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...
sculpture shaped by an unknown artist, and was completed around 6000 BC. It was unearthed by
archaeologist
Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
James Mellaart in 1961 at
Çatalhöyük, Turkey. When it was found, its head and hand rest of the right side were missing. The current head and the hand rest are modern replacements. The sculpture is at the
Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in
Ankara
Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...
, Turkey. Mellaart claimed that the figure represented a fertility goddess worshipped by the people of Çatalhöyük.
See also
*
Cybele
Cybele ( ; Phrygian: ''Matar Kubileya, Kubeleya'' "Kubeleya Mother", perhaps "Mountain Mother"; Lydian: ''Kuvava''; ''Kybélē'', ''Kybēbē'', ''Kybelis'') is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible forerunner in the earliest ...
*
List of Stone Age art
*
Venus figurines
A Venus figurine is any Upper Palaeolithic statue portraying a woman, usually carved in the round.Fagan, Brian M., Beck, Charlotte, "Venus Figurines", beliefs '' The Oxford Companion to Archaeology'', 1996, Oxford University Press, pp. 740– ...
Notes
References
*Mellaart, James : ''Çatal Hüyük, A Neolithic Town in Anatolia'', London, 1967
*Guide book of "The Anatolian Civilizations Museum"
*Lecture of Dr. R. Tringham, The Neolithic World of Çatalhöyük, at the University of Leuven
External links
When the Goddesses Ruled - Çatal Hüyük
The Goddess Uncovered
6th-millennium BC works
1961 archaeological discoveries
Prehistoric sculpture
Mother goddesses
Ceramic sculptures
Neolithic Asia
Konya Province
Archaeological discoveries in Turkey
Prehistoric art in Turkey
Ancient Near East art and architecture
Çatalhöyük
Sculptures of goddesses
{{Turkey-archaeology-stub
Venus figurines