Çatalhöyük:
Archaeology and Anthropology
At the conclusion of my doctoral researches, I had the great good fortune of becoming the Assistant, and then the Acting Director, of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. This was instrumental to my understanding. It gave me a profound insight into the way that archaeology is practiced. It also led to the possibility of my conducting fieldwork at the site of Çatalhöyük, which at that time was being reopened with Ian Hodder as its Director.
To this end, between 1995-2001, I spent a total of about a year at the site, and also in the local village, Küçükköy, where I examined the local understanding of the remains of the past. The village is situated in a flat plain, but dotted across the landscape are many prehistoric mounds, of which Çatalhöyük consists of two, a west mound and a larger east mound. The whole of the Çumra plain was rich in such mounds, and I often thought that it could become a heritage area in its entirety and attract immense interest from the outside world.
Key to the religious understanding of the region is the immense importance of the Mevlana, the tekke of the Mevlevi dervishes, and the resting place of Celaleddin Rumi, in whose name the Mevlevi brotherhood was formed. This tomb complex lies in the centre of Konya, about ten kilometres away. There is a very strong sense that the soul of the saint remains active, and able to intercede with God on behalf of those who approach him with a problem. This sentiment is reflected too in the villagers’ understanding of the mounds, which as they contained graves were thought potentially to be open to intercession by those who had been buried there. For the same reason, they tended to avoid ploughing through the mounds if they could avoid doing so. If for any reason a person had disturbed them, for example, to obtain earth from them or to search for buried treasure, they might expect misfortunate or illness as a consequence as revenge for disturbing the resting saint.
The cosmology that enfolds the mounds within its understanding is not confined to them. For example, if a person dreams that a holy person is buried in a certain location, it could then gradually attract worshippers even though there are no remains of the past there. From the point of view of the state, and the official interpretation of Islam, such an emphasis on divine inspiration as distinct from the revealed truth of the Koran is regarded as inappropriate but nevertheless often tolerated, and it remains a strong characteristic of Islam in the region.
It should also be realised that this religious or spiritual interpretation of the mounds, though strong, is not the only way that the villagers understand and integrate the material remains of the past. They may also, for example, trace the village’s history through the remains in the area. They also may take stone remains, particularly if they have writing on them, and use them in the foundations of houses or mosques. This means that there is a gradual process over time that tends to privilege the mud-based mounds in the landscape, whilst the Byzantine-Roman remains on the surface are successively reused for other purposes. The local villagers also had a close working relationship with the excavation team, which is detailed in successive reports by the site’s researchers.
References
Shankland, D. 1997 'The Anthropology of an Archaeological Presence', in Hodder I. (ed.) On the Surface: the re-opening of Catalhoyuk, Cambridge: MacDonald Institute, and London: British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, Çatalhöyük Project reports, Volume Two, 218-226.
Shankland, D. 2001 ‘Villagers and the Distant Past’ in I. Hodder (ed) Towards Reflexive Method in Archaeology: the Example at Çatalhöyük, Cambridge: MacDonald Institute, and London: British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, pages 167-176.
Shankland, D. 2005 ‘The Socio-Ecology of Çatalhöyük’, in Çatalhöyük Perspectives: Themes from the 1995-99 Seasons, edited by Ian Hodder, Çatalhöyük Research Project 6, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research/ British Institute at Ankara Monograph, pages 15-24.
Shankland, D. 2024 ‘Tension and Resolution in Archaeology in Turkey’ in The Long March of Archaeology in the Eastern Mediterranean. Political and Cultural Entanglements, edited by Björn Forsén, Giovanni Salmeri, and David Shankland. Rome: Arbor Sapientiae, pages 67-86.
See also the on-line brief report: Çatal Newsletter 8 (catalhoyuk.com)