Last time we ended our acquaintance with the history of ancient metallurgy with a story about Choirokitia - the center of the amazing culture of ancient Cyprus, whose inhabitants knew how to make dishes from stone, knew weaving and knew how to build houses, but did not own pottery. They did not know metal either, that is, urban culture and metalworking were not always connected, as it turned out. But somewhere, then, did the first man-made metal appear? Well, today this place is known for sure (although it may be that there are other similar places, we just do not know them yet), and it is called Chatal-Huyuk. Translated from Turkish, it means "pitchfork hill", well, it has become a "city under a hood" since a futuristic gable roof was installed over the excavation site, protecting this unique place from the riot of elements. This hill itself, by the way, is also artificial and appeared as a result of the construction of new dwellings, on top of the old ones, which took more … thousands of years!
Here it is - "the city under the hood"
How old is this city? Thus, archaeologist Ian Hodder, who began work here after its discoverer James Mallaart in 1993, came to the conclusion that it is even older than previously thought and existed for 1400 years (between 7000 BC and 6000 BC). BC), and according to the most recent data, from 7400 BC. NS. to 5600 BC NS.
The sizes of Chatal Huyuk in various sources indicate different, ranging from 32 acres (12, 96 hectares) and up to 20 hectares. Whether this is true or not, it is rather difficult to say for sure, but it is clear that in any case, Chatal-Huyuk is a territory of enormous size, from which only 5% have been excavated, no more!
To our great regret, the inhabitants of Chatal-Huyuk did not speak writing and therefore did not leave us any written messages about how they lived and what they did, what gods they worshiped and whether they were worshiped at all. True, archaeologists collected all the artifacts found at the excavation site and studied them in the most thorough way. But there are still many unsolved mysteries in this city. For example, why was it built in such a remote place from other settlements? Why are the entrances to buildings on roofs? Why were so many houses in the city decorated with images of bull's heads made of … plaster? Finally, who lived in ancient Chatal Huyuk and what did these people do in their daily lives?
However, we already know a lot about them, and we have known for a long time. Back in 1972, a book by E. N. Black "Metal-Man-Time", and, although since then both science itself and the views of this scientist himself have changed in many ways, Chatal-Huyuk on its pages he very well described. We seem to see this ancient city, consisting of many houses with crooked and very narrow streets, in which the houses themselves are made of adobe bricks. Their roofs are flat with plaster gutters for rainwater drainage. There were no ground level entrances. People entered and exited their houses through an overhead hatch or door, in a kind of hallway built on the roof. There were practically no areas free from building. If the houses were of different heights, then they were connected by wooden stairs. And the absence of doors at ground level in this case was its great advantage, since such a city did not need walls to protect its enemies, which archaeologists never found. After all, if you remove the stairs connecting the houses, then it will be almost impossible to climb up. Especially if its inhabitants are on the roofs with bows and spears with obsidian tips in their hands. In this case, it is not at all difficult for them to drive away any enemy from him. One way or another, but during its entire existence, the city has never been destroyed or burned (in any case, the archaeologists have not found any traces of this).
A modern view of the excavations at Chatal Huyuk.
If we were inside the Chatal-Huyuk house, we would see there smooth limestone walls, wooden pillars supporting the roof and framing the living area; a small stove that was heated "in black"; and at the walls there are "dumps" that served as sofas. People worked for them, slept, were born, died, and in addition they were used as containers for burials, since here, like in Choirokitia, it was customary to bury the dead in their homes.
Reconstruction of a house from Chatal Huyuk. A hole in the roof and a staircase are visible.
A small storeroom was usually attached to one of the walls of the house. There was also a tiny courtyard - a repository of various rubbish. Not only garbage was dumped here, but also all kinds of waste, which, however, were sprinkled with ash from above, obviously so that a bad smell would not spread from them.
Reconstruction of a house from Chatal Huyuk. Low platforms and a small storeroom are visible.
Pets at night were herded into special enclosures, which were, in all likelihood, on the outskirts of the village, since no traces of their presence in the houses and courtyards were found. That is, either all the animals were common, or … the inhabitants of Chatal-Huyuk somehow distinguished their animals from strangers!
In one of the houses, a wall-painting fresco was discovered depicting a peculiar plan of this "city". It clearly shows the longest rows of houses depicted at the foot of the erupting Hasandag volcano. The extinct volcano Karajidag is visible next to it.
Reconstruction of the "sanctuary" at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.
The inhabitants of Chatal-Huyuk were mainly engaged in cattle breeding and agriculture. Almost nothing is known about the organization of their economy, but the grains of various cereals and the seeds of the fruits indicate that wheat, peas, barley, and spelled were grown in the adjacent fields. Osteologists studied the bones selected in the excavations, and found that the basis of the city herd was cattle and small ruminants - cows, sheep, goats. Osteologists also pointed out one more curious detail: the Chatal-Huyuk inhabitants hunted deer, wild donkeys, bulls, pigs and leopards.
Moreover, the residents' table consisted not only of flour and meat dishes. The multitude of grape seeds picked up from the remains of houses suggests that they might have consumed wine (although, of course, the grapes themselves were also eaten).
James Mellaart believed that, despite such a developed manufacturing economy, trade for the inhabitants of the city was no less, if not even the main source of their income. It is possible that in this area they had a kind of monopoly on the obsidian trade - volcanic glass. This material, like flint, is easy to work with. An excellent military and ceremonial weapon was made from it, which was in demand far beyond the borders of Southern Anatolia. Well, the "suppliers" of this material were the Karajidag and Hasandag volcanoes, which were very close. Obsidian represented value and capital, so its reserves were stored in houses under the floors.
Those who get to know the culture of Chatal Huyuk are usually particularly impressed by the artwork created by its inhabitants. First of all, these are the most diverse figurines: sitting and standing people, animals (rams, bulls, leopards), men and women with animals and sitting on animals. Some of them are very schematic and primitive, while others are executed in a brilliant realistic manner from greenish stone or from burnt clay. A very common image of a woman who was worshiped in Catal Huyuk. It is here that the most ancient figurines of the Mother Goddess have been found so far, whose cult later spread also in the Balkans and even in the Northern Black Sea region.
This is how bull horns and skulls, plastered with plaster, look in the ground.
But the inhabitants of Chatal-khuyuk also revered a male deity, which was depicted both as a boy - perhaps the son or lover of the goddess, and as an elderly man with a beard and the head of a bull (an animal sacred in ancient Anatolia). It was the deity of hunters, with its roots going back to the Paleolithic. His cult was widespread among the earliest inhabitants of the city, and why this is so, it is quite understandable - hunting played a big role in their life then, and then it all the time decreased until after 700 years it stopped completely. Evidence of this is the disappearance of the upper layers of the soil of the bones of wild animals, and with them the male figurines also disappear. But the cult of fertility - the cult of the Mother Goddess, flourishes even more magnificently. Special buildings-sanctuaries appeared with bright polychrome paintings on white limestone walls, which were often renovated (new images are revealed under layers of plaster), and inside them huge - up to two meters in height - bas-reliefs depicting people or animals. (Gypsum was applied to the skeleton of straw or clay and after hardening it was painted. Moreover, if it was necessary to depict the head of a horned animal, then the skull with horns was taken as a basis, that is, the then Chatal-Huyuk people thought very rationally, one might say, simply in a modern way.)
Obviously some kind of "holy place".
Archaeologists have found rows of bull heads with huge horns, located along the edges of the couches in their homes. Bull heads hang from the walls, and under them are sculpted female breasts and depicted birds of prey spread out in flight attacking a person. Every burial is a new version of the painting. Scenes of death alternate with scenes of life. Realism of images and crude schematism go hand in hand and, by the way, why this is so is not clear.
But Chatal-Huyuk is interesting not so much for its paintings, figurines and houses. From its cultural layers, starting from horizon IX and higher, archaeologists have extracted quite a lot of metal objects - copper and lead things. These were small awnings and punctures, oxidized and lying under the ruins of houses, as well as beads and tubes found in burials and, as it is believed, attached as adornments to women's clothing.
Bull heads in the interior.
Unfortunately, all of them did not have a very attractive appearance, and purely outwardly, no doubt, they could not stand any comparison with everything else. Perhaps that is why Mellaart reported about them somehow casually, just as curious finds and did not even give their drawings - they found, they say, and found. Although these "trinkets", as he calls them, today are the oldest copper products on the planet!
But the most important thing is that a piece of copper slag was also found here. And this means that the inhabitants of Chatal-Huyuk were able not only to process metal, most likely native, but also, according to the same Mellaart, knew how it can be smelted from ores.
So it was the finds in Chatal Huyuk that destroyed all the archaeological schemes, according to which metallurgy had never appeared before the production of ceramics. Metallurgical production, that is, the smelting of metal from ores, was repeatedly made dependent on the art of firing ceramics in special furnaces and the ability to obtain a temperature sufficient to recover copper from ore. Here this dependence was refuted. True, Mellaart discovered the first fragments of badly burnt and rough clay vessels at the very bottom of the Chatal-Huyuk strata, but soon they disappeared, apparently unable, according to the scientist, to compete with beautiful wooden and bone vessels and leather wineskins. Later, from layer VI "a", ceramics reappears. There is a lot of it and it was made at a higher technological level, but the fact that a number of rather early layers do not contain ceramics, but contain metal items is a fact!
Pottery from Chatal Huyuk.
But it is especially interesting that these discoveries were made in Anatolia - an area that serious researchers of the Neolithic era considered a completely abandoned outskirts. Just a few years before the discovery of Chatal Huyuk, in the book of the largest English archaeologist Gordon Child, "The Ancient East in the Light of New Excavations", due to the lack of materials about this area, did not write anything at all. This book was published in London in 1952, and four years later its translation appeared in the USSR. However, only nine years passed, and James Mellaart was able to write literally the following: “It can be said without exaggeration that Anatolia, long considered the outskirts of the countries of the Fertile Crescent, is now established as the most important center of Neolithic culture in the entire Near East. The Neolithic civilization discovered at Chatal Huyuk shines like a masterpiece amid a rather dull retinue of simultaneous agricultural cultures."
Fabric from Chatal Huyuk.
Well, and then he will also excavate a small settlement in Western Anatolia - Khad-jilar, where metal of the 6th millennium BC will be found. That is, it turns out that the technology of metal processing in this area and at that time was known to the inhabitants of not one, but several settlements at once, well, and the very first metals they dealt with were lead and copper!
Here it is - the oldest metal from Chatal Huyuk!
P. S. As a postscript, I would once again like to draw the attention of VO visitors to the works of E. N. Chernykh is a famous Russian archaeologist, head of the laboratory of natural scientific methods of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the author of many significant works on this topic. A complete list of them here hardly makes sense to give when it is on Wikipedia on his biographical page. A person works at the forefront of historical science, uses the most modern research methods and "dug" everywhere. Naturally, his opinion matters much more than the opinion of all those who simply have nothing to do with all this!
