Another New Stone Figure Discovered at Çatalhöyük – Were They “Mother Goddesses” or Kids' Toys?
In light of the recently-discovered male figurine from Çatalhöyük, mentioned yesterday—as well as other finds from the site—archaeologists are refining their view of these statuettes.
“Archaeologists are now suggesting that the figurines may simply have been kids’ educational toys – kind of like a Neolithic equivalent of the Playmobil Egypt range. Many of them actually depict farm animals; the number of women represented in the collection might be as little as 5%, since a lot of the females could just as easily be males (certainly there’s no debating the sex of the latest hirsute find). Additionally, the artefacts haven’t been discovered in particularly ceremonial locations.
“‘The majority are cattle or sheep and goats,’ archaeologist Professor Lynn Meskell, of Stanford University, told the Daily Mail. ‘They could be representatives of animals they were dealing with – and they could have been teaching aides. All were found in the trash – and they were not in niches or platforms or placed in burials. These are things that were made and used on a daily basis. People carried them around and discarded them.’”
