Re: Catal and vultures

Hello to you Sabine,

>
> Hello again,
> Gerry, you wrote:
> >What types of agriculture was conducted at Catal Huyak? And were the
> workers prisoners (living in their cells) when they weren't in the
> fields or were they simply religious followers of the "chief"? <
> As I've mainly looked at the frescoes when looking into the Catal Hoeyuek
> story I can't tell you very much. The inhabitants of the town were growing
> wheat, barley, peas and vetch, kept sheep, goats and cows and held dogs (but
> they also traded, I don't know what they gave (may have been their artistic
> beads and baskets) but they owned material from far away (flint from Syria,
> marble from the Aegean).
> Why do you think of workers as prisoners? I don't understand the question,
> sorry.
>

Gerry here: The reason I ask about the folks at Catal Huyak is because
of the ladders that were needed to enter the structures. I know that
the Inca in Peru used "workers" as corvee labor and also used "workers"
to make cheecha (sp) or beer. In my estimation, these "workers" were
more slave than freeperson. But thinking about the definition of the
words "slave" and "worker" one of the only differences appears to be
that one was indentured and the other was not.

I also examined the "housing" for the Maya in Mexico and was very
surprised to find how tiny the accomodations were -- room for a slab of
concrete that was raised from the floor and likely used as a "bed".

And examining the archaeological from Ur, I was amazed to find the large
number of females who were ?sacrificed or sentenced to death for their
"Queen".

Even in Egypt, the workers who were used to build the pyramids -- were
they free or not free?

BTW, you called Catal a town and not a city. Is there a particular
reason for this label?

> I've been thinking a lot about their burial rites where the dead where first
> picked clean by vultures and then the bones buried under the (sleeping-?)
> benches of the houses. Vultures are also an important motive in the
> frescoes.
> The Anatolian word for vulture seems to have been ku-pa (cf. GR gyps,
> gypas). Does anybody have an idea if that might be connected to the name of
> the cypress (ku-pa-ri-si, if I remember correctly in Mycenaean), the ancient
> tree of the dead (its resin was e.g. used - among others - for preparing
> mummies in Egypt) around the Aegean?
> With best wishes
> Sabine
>
>

Gerry: And Sabine, where was it that you examined the frescos from
Catal Huyak? Have they always been available for viewing? Is there
perhaps a website that displays them?

Thank you,
Gerry
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