Anatolian religion

Anatolian religion, beliefs and practices of the ancient peoples and civilizations of Turkey and Armenia, including the Hittites, Hattians, Luwians, Hurrians, Assyrian colonists, Urartians, and Phrygians. For historical background, see Anatolia.

Sources of modern knowledge

Until comparatively recent times, the pre-Christian religions of Anatolia (Asia Minor) were known only through the works of classical writers. For the Greeks and Romans, Asia Minor was above all the home of the religion of Cybele, the Great Mother of the Gods, whose cult was centred in Phrygian Pessinus. A monument such as the colossal, but much weathered, figure of a Hittite goddess carved high up on the slopes of Mount Sipylus (near Manisa) was of necessity ascribed by the 2nd-century-ad Greek traveler and geographer Pausanias to the Mother of the Gods, since no other ancient Anatolian goddess was known to him.

During the 19th century many such pre-classical rock reliefs and inscribed monuments were reported by travelers, but it was the discovery of the royal Hittite archives at Boğazköy (ancient Hattusa) in 1907 that made available for the first time a mass of indigenous literary evidence for an Anatolian civilization belonging to the 2nd millennium bc, before the arrival of the Phrygians. Because of the discovery of these archives, written on clay tablets, the religion of the Hittites necessarily predominates in any account of the early religions of Asia Minor. Later Hittite history has been further clarified by the decipherment of the Hittite hieroglyphic inscriptions on monuments dating for the most part from the early centuries of the 1st millennium bc, after the downfall of Hattusa. For the same period, the cuneiform inscriptions of the kingdom of Urartu in the region of Lake Van contain some information on the religion of that area, though they are mostly concerned with other matters.

The clay tablets of Assyrian commercial colonists found at Kültepe, Alişar, and Boğazköy belong to the period immediately preceding the rise of the kingdom of Hattusa, but they contain little information bearing on the life of the indigenous population. For all earlier periods, scholars are dependent on the inarticulate data of archaeology—isolated finds, the interpretation of which leaves a large element of uncertainty.

Prehistoric periods

The earliest evidence of religious beliefs has come to light at the mound of Çatal Hüyük, to the south of modern Konya. Here in four seasons of excavations (1961–65), James Mellaart discovered remains of a Neolithic village of mud-brick houses, many of which could be identified as shrines. They are dated by radiocarbon to about 6500–5800 bc (calculated with a half-life of 5,730 years). Huge figures of goddesses in the posture of giving birth, leopards, and the heads of bulls and rams are modeled in high relief on the walls of some of these shrines. Others contain frescoes showing elaborate scenes such as the hunting of deer and aurochs, or vultures devouring headless human corpses. A series of stone and terra-cotta statuettes found in these shrines represent a female figure, sometimes accompanied by leopards and, from the earlier levels of excavation, a male either bearded and seated on a bull or youthful and riding a leopard. The main deity of these Neolithic people was evidently a goddess, a mistress of animals, with whom were associated both a son and a consort. Her character is vividly shown by a schist plaque carved to represent two scenes, a sacred marriage and a mother with child. The dead appear to have been excarnated in a mortuary outside the village by exposure to vultures, as shown in the painting, before being buried under the platforms in the houses.

At Hacilar, near Lake Burdur, a somewhat later culture was unearthed by the same excavator, and here again were found statuettes of goddesses associated with felines; but, as in the later levels at Çatal Hüyük, the son or consort is absent.

Entirely different and far removed in time and place are the discoveries at Alaca Hüyük and Horoztepe in northern Anatolia. Here, dating from the latter half of the 3rd millennium bc (c. 2400–2200), were found royal tombs richly furnished with artifacts in bronze and precious metals. Beside the heads of skeletons lay female figurines; one such figure found in a grave at Horoztepe represents a mother nursing her child. Many of the objects found in these graves must have had ritual significance. At Horoztepe a bronze sistrum, or rattle, was found. But the outstanding feature of the graves at both sites is the occurrence of bronze standards, which may have been carried on poles. They are openwork objects of circular or occasionally rhomboid form and are adorned with figures of animals (bulls, stags [see photograph], and, in one instance, felines), birds, flowers, and swastikas and other geometric patterns. Other standards, consisting of simple statuettes of stags or bulls, also occur.

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The archaeological finds of central Anatolia follow immediately after the period of these royal tombs from the Pontic region. Kültepe, near Kayseri, became in the 19th century bc the centre of Assyrian trading outposts (kārum); but from the mound itself, from a level just prior to the foundation of the Assyrian colonies, have come a series of remarkable statuettes. The majority of these are abstract, disk-shaped idols without limbs; many of them have two, three, or even four heads, and others bear on their chests small male figures in relief, in one case accompanied by a lion. There can be little doubt that here again is a representation of a divine family—a mother goddess with consort and child or children. From a level at Boğazköy contemporary with Kültepe comes a limestone mold of a “mistress of animals,” a nude goddess standing on a pair of felines and holding aloft an animal in either hand. Molds for a pair of figures, a bearded god and a goddess—the god carries various weapons or emblems, the goddess in most instances holds a baby—have been found at several sites at a somewhat later level.

Though the Old Assyrian tablets are concerned exclusively with commercial matters, the seal impressions that they bear contain a new and elaborate system of religious symbolism (iconography) that later reached its maturity under the Hittites. Here a whole pantheon of deities, some recognizably Mesopotamian, others native Anatolian, are distinguished by such features as dress, attendant animals, weapons, actions, and attitudes. Among them are several weather gods, all associated with a bull, but distinguished in various ways; the weather is depicted in the form of rain falling above the god. A bull alone, carrying an enigmatic pyramid upon its back, sometimes surmounted by a bird, is a particularly common motif and probably symbolizes a weather god. Other deities are a war god holding various weapons, a hunting god holding a bird or hare, a god in a horse-drawn chariot, another in a wagon drawn by boars, a goddess enthroned and surrounded by animals, a nude goddess, and several composite beings. On many seals the deity—and especially the bull with the pyramid—is shown receiving ritual offerings.