Catal Huyuk in Turkey was a large Neolithic town dating between 7000-5000 BCE that has provided insight into early urban living. It had no streets, with houses built adjacent to one another and accessed through openings below the roof. Trade, especially in obsidian, supported the town's wealth. Numerous shrines decorated with paintings, reliefs, and skulls have also been found intermingled with houses, suggesting the religious importance. Wall paintings depicted human figures and groups in a variety of poses, showing early advances in representational human art.

1. Farming communities, like Catal Huyuk in Anatolia (Turkey) date back to the
mid-7th millennium BCE...the remarkable fortified town of Jerich is even
older...
Skulls with restored faces...modeled and with inlaid seashells for eyes and
painted hair...gives a strikingly life-like appearance...skulls were not only
detached from bodies, but buried separately...there must have been special
significance to these heads and mark the beginning of monumental
sculpture in the ancient near east...
Catay Huyuk was a neolithic town with no streets. It was the site of a
flourishing neolithic culture between 7000 and 5000BCE...it is possible to
trace, on a single site,in an unbroken sequence, the evolution of the
culture over a period of 800 years...only one of 32 acres has been
excavated!
The source of Catal Huyuk’s wealth was trade, especially in obsidian, a
glass-like volcanic stone which was easily chipped into fine cutting edges
and highly valued by Neolithic toolmakers. It is one of the first experiments
in urban living. The regularity of its plan suggests that the town was built
according to some predetermined scheme. One feature is its complete lack
of streets.
The houses adjoin one another and have no doors. Openings just below the
roofs provide interior access. The openings also served as chimneys to
ventilate the hearth in the combination living room/kitchen that formed
the core of the house. The attached bldgs were more stable than free-
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2. standing structures...and formed a perimeter wall well suited to defense
against human or natural forces. If enemies breached the the exterior wall,
they would find themselves not inside the town, but above the houses with
defenders waiting on the roofs.
The houses were constructed of mud brick, strengthened by sturdy timber
frames and varied in size, but according to a plan. Walls and floors were
plastered and painted, platforms along the walls served as surfaces for
sleeping, working and eating. The dead were buried beneath the floors. A
great number of shrines have been found intermingled with standard
houses. Varying with the different bldg levels, the average ratio in the
excavated portion is high, with about one shrine to every 3 houses. This
suggests their importance.
The shrines are distinguished from the house structures by the greater
richness of the detail of interior decoration, which consisted of wall
paintings, plaster reliefs, animal heads and bovine skulls (bucrania)...Bulls’
horns are widely though to be symbols of masculine potency and adorn
most shrines. In some rooms they are displayed nest to plaster breasts,
symbols of female fertility, projecting from the wall. Statues of stone or
terra cotta (baked clay) have also been found in considerable
numbers...most are female figures, 2 to 8” high.
Although evidence of animal husbandry is well established, hunting
continued to play an important part in the economy of Neolithic Catal
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3. Huyuk...this is reflected in older shrines wall paintings depict hunting
scenes.
What is strikingly new about the paintings at Catal Huyuk, is the
predominance of the human figure over animals in the scenes. Not only
singly, but also in large, coherent groups in a wide variety of poses and
settings...
In the Catal Huyuk hune, the group of hunters shows a tense exaggeration
of movement and a rhythmic repetition of basic shapes...the painter took
care to distinguish important descriptive details such as bows arrows and
garments. The heads have clearly defined noses mouths and
chins...The heads are in profile view, as are the animals...the torsos are
viewed from the front---the most informative viewpoint---while the profile
view is the choice for the legs and arms. This composite view is quite
artificial because the human body cannot make an abrupt 90 degree turn at
the hips...but it is very descriptive of what a human body is...artists
overwhelmingly preferred the composite view of the human body for
millennia—until the Greeks rejected it...
Pigments were applied with a brush to a white background of dry
plastered walls...this careful preparation of the ground is in sharp
distinction to the direct application of pigment to the rock face in a cave
and a significant step towards the modern notion of easel painting...
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