Perhaps the most important ritual practice in the houses was of burial. in all the houses and shrines burial takes place Bodies are placed under the main raised platform. This is always plastered with white,covered with a mat and is sometimes framed by two wooden plastered posts.(m) Burials were secondary (except sometimes for neonates. 1
Taken from Mellaart, on the left is a burial of an infant (neonate), on the right burials under the platform in one of the shrines 2
Bodies were buried after they have reached a state of complete or near dessication, and placed in graves at an average of 60cm below the platform, wrapped in cloth (often of sedge) and sometimes placed on a mat. Grave goods accompany them, often fine necklaces for women, cosmetic sets, finger-rings,amulets and pendants while the men have less jewellery but more tools, knives, firestones,mace=heads of polished stone etc. 3
Examples of grave goods 4
Children/babies (neonates) however were more usually buried in baskets of(made of wild grass not sedge) and were sometimes placed under the opening to the roof. As a further celebration/ritual/rememberance paint was used in many of the burials. One noted by Hodder was of a woman holding a plastered skull painted in red ochre. And as well as red ochre (possibly cinnabar for red paint) green paint (malachite) and a bright blue azurite paint were also used for some burials, both those in the houses and in the shrines 5
Some burials..(from Hodder) woman holding skull and a multiple burial 6
Possibly after death the bodies could first have been carried to a place outside the town and exposed on platforms.. This seems to be indicated by the so-called,vulture, murals. Possibly then cared for by relatives. The head in particular may have been placed in a basket, perhaps protected, as one mural indicates. Ceremony and rituals possibly accompanied this, as would also the eventual re burial of the body within the house While we think this is what MAY have happened..of course we don,t actually KNOW! It is worth noting however that certain religious groups still carry out the practice of exposure before final burial.. 7
This mural Mellaart suggests might be represent a mortuary structure built of bundles of reeds and matting (the process of excarnation suggested by the skulls shown beliw). 8
On the right detail of the dead man s head(east wall of shrine EIV,I the head is black-haired and bearded with closed eyes, red-smeared brow and open mouth (and may have been carried by a figure of which only the torso is preserved). 9
Defending a relative s or friends corpse against vultures?..note the one figure is drawn with a head, the other is headless 10
The experience of friends and relatives visiting the mortuary cannot have been pleasant as these murals seem to show. 11
Vulture murals are found in shrines which are exceptional..both in their ornate and elaborate murals, wall carvings, and also in the number of burials under the floor. 12
13
In this more complicated mural two vultures appear to be fighting over the body of a headless person. However the adjoining wall shows another favourite motif that of an auroch s (bull or cow) head cast in plaster and clay with smaller heads beside it. (more on this later). lying on the floor below are several skulls (while underneath there are burials) Are the two connected? What is the symbolic meaning of the skulls? 14
A photograph from part of the wall showing the red ochre colouring of the vultures. Paintings of vultures were found only on the East and North walls of the shrines/houses burials also being most common beneath platforms against the East and North walls. As these paintings also contain headless corpses, a spatial link is here suggested. (Hodder) 15
The murals depicting vultures(and presumably the first rites of death) were repeated through several layers, continually plastered and reworked. (continuing for approx 500 years at least underlining there importance) Red ochre found painted on the bones of one burial by Hodder signifies however the importance also of the final burial in house ie under the platform within the house Where possibly the last rituals would take place. 16
While in house burials was fairly common at this time in Anatolia, in later milleniums (eg 6 th Millenium) it tended to move to outside the houses. Hodder notes that Catal Hoyuk is,conservative, in this respect keeping them in house. Several layers of burials was not uncommon, the longer a building was occupied the greater the number of burials found, the house serving( Mellaart notes) as a family/kin burial site. No burials were found in the courtyards/middens, nor outside the town. So the houses and the more elaborate shrines, perhaps kept in touch with their ancestors, lineage, in this way? 17
Hodder notes that some of the elaborate buildings excavated by Mellaart contained large numbers of burials Eg, one building contained 62 individuals) Also large numbers of obsidian cores suggest some preferential access and Hodder suggests that perhaps these houses may be linked to continuity and the preservation of collective 18
Hodder s later excavations also took in the northern hill of the East Mound, while also taking an area within Mellaart s excavations and continuing down to find the base of the mound. Further trenches and excavations have been continuing in both southern and northern areas of the mound. This has resulted in Hodder tentatively suggesting Mellaarts shrines, as dominant in terms of individual/group 19
So thus.. Hodder s suggestion that these more decorated houses/shrines were important for the community in terms of their history, ancestry. 20
Perhaps the removal of the heads(and presence of skulls in shrines) is part of a ritual linking the dead to living a philosophical as well as a historical link. suggests professor Huyssteen of Columbia University Many questions Was the head removed before the body went to the mortuary? Why the head? Is this where the individual s essential spirit was seen to lie?..(like the Egyptian ka )? Or the sense of selfhood? Did it act like a guardian after the person died as an ancestor spirit? Etc.etc?! 21
The Historical element in some of the continually repeated murals in the shrines/houses through different levels seems clear here. 22
In this mural when they had recovered it and examined the surviving paint to recover the actual picture it depicted 23
It resulted in a picture on this shrine wall, a picture seemingly of a nearby volcanic mountain (twin peaked) erupting.t 24
The volcano is possibly Can Hasan.. which has two peaks as identified in the mural. But WHEN it erupted (assuming the town is Catal Hoyuk) we can t tell. This is because murals in the shrine rooms were repeated continually when plastered over usually not overpainted. So dating it by the Level date doesn t help.. 25
A reminder however that the land was still subject to violent changes. People living at this time could not rely on there being always stability (as we tend to do). At this time remember further north in Europe Britain was still joined to the continent, the Dogger Bank an island in the North Sea. Perhaps..it has been suggested, it was this very uncertainty that encouraged adaptability,invention, and also trade and travel 26