TECHNOLOGICAL
SPECIFICATION
AT CATAL HUYUK c. 6400 BC
This
archeological site at the south edge of the Anatolian Plateau
in modern Turkey was excavated by James Mellaart between 1961
and 1963. He described Catul Huyuk as a major Neolithic site,
yielding rich evidence of a remarkable advanced civilization
that flourished in the seventh and early sixth millennium BC.
The
following extract from The Shining Ones quotes Mellaart’s
key observations.
Very
few signs of industry have been found in the priestly quarter
excavated at Catal Huyuk, apart from such normal domestic operations
as the preparation of food, the baking of bread and slingstones
in the ovens, the cutting of wood for fuel, awls for the mending
of clothes, and bodkins for the repair of mats and basketry
– primary operations that did not need skilled labour.
On
the other hand, there is no evidence that any of the more specialised
crafts were performed in this quarter – such as the chipping
of obsidian tools and weapons, the polishing of stone tools,
the drilling and manufacture of beads, the weaving of cloth
etc. The objects found in the houses and shrines of the quarter
are all finished products, and the area of the workshops where
these times were made, sold or bartered, must lie elsewhere
on the mound. The amount of technological specialization at
Catal Huyuk is one of the striking features in this highly developed
society which was obviously in the vanguard of Neolithic progress.
The result of this specialization is equally apparent, for the
quality and refinement of nearly everything made here is without
parallel in the contemporary Near East. The priests and priestesses
evidently did not bother to weave their own cloth or chip their
own tools, they went to the bazaar and utilised the handiwork
of others. Nor did they reap their own grain or spin their own
wool, and the idea of a home-industry was evidently frowned
upon by these elegant sophisticates [our emphasis]. Out of over
two hundred rooms we have but one sickle and less than a dozen
cores of obsidian, a single spindle-whorl and not a single loom-weight.
However, there was evidence for fourteen cultivated food-plants,
a great deal of cloth and hundreds of finely finished obsidian
weapons. Consequently one is better informed about the actual
artefacts which these people used than about the technology
of their manufacturing processes, many of which remain to be
studied.
How
for example, did they polish a mirror of obsidian, a hard volcanic
glass, without scratching it and how did they drill holes through
stone beads (including obsidian), holes so small that no find
modern steel needle can penetrate? [our emhasis] When and where
did they learn to smelt copper and lead, metals attested at
Catal Huyuk since level IX, c 6400 B.C..
James Mellaart,
in this passage, has attested to the presence in Catal Huyuk
of an elite class of elegant sophisticates with an unexpected,
and anachronistic, level of technological expertise. He calls
these sophisticates priests and priestesses, without
any substantial justification. He just appears to be following
the norms of modern archaeological reasoning, form which any
practice not understood is classified as religious, and
any figure or figurine not immediately recognisable as of standard
human form becomes a deity, or a cult object. This reasoning
does not allow for any experimentation or imagination on the
part of the sculptor. The sometimes grotesque drawings of younger
school-children can only rarely be termed religious.
In our terms,
and in the context of this study, we have to call these sophisticates
– Shining Ones, or Anannage, or Angels – the
subordinate colleagues of Anu.
From The
Shining Ones by Christian and Joy O’Brien
Ancient
Technology Index
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