Re: [bcn2004] Catal Huyuk
Dear Ram,
Thank you for writing. Your question regarding the language spoken by the
inhabitans of Çatal Huyuk is a very valid one. I do not have any knowledge regarding
their language, however, one thing consistently comes to the surface in the
excavations there which needs to be noted. That is the representations of BULLs
and BULL HEADs on the excavated walls. In one room, three Bull heads are
mounted in a row on a wall. Additionally bull horns are attached to stands on
the floor level facing the wall where three bull heads are mounted as if
representing prayers with raised arms to the deities on the wall.
The BULL icon is the Turanian (i.e., Turkish) icon of OGUZ (i.e., Sky God)
where the name OGUZ also represents the Sun and the Moon by being a homonym to
Turkish "O-GÖZ" meaning "That Eye" and OGUZ additionally
represents the BULL by being homonym to Turkish OKUZ meaning "Bull".
The Bull (OKUZ) is the most ancient religious icon of the Turks.
Similarly the name "TUR" stands for the Sky-God. The name in the form
of "T-U-R", in one sense, stands for Turkish "ATA U ER"
meaning "He is Father Man" referring to the Sky-God and also
"TUR ancestors", and in another sense stands for Turkish
"UT-U-R" (OKUZ O ER) meaning "He is bull man" where UT in
ancient Turkish is "bull" or "male cattle" (Sumerian
"GUT" also means "bull"). Additionally "T-U-R"
also stands for Turkish/Sumerian "UTU U ER" meaning "he is
Sun-God" representing the sun. Thus the name TUR also stands for
"BULL" as well as for the Sky-God. Considering the fact that
first writing systems were with pictures, it can be said that Çatal Huyuk
people were Turkic speaking OGUZ (TUR) people.
In addition to this I would like to share with you and the readers the
following reference. Will Durant writes the following under the title
"Cradels of Civilization":[1]
"It is fitting that this chapter of
unanswerable questions should end with the query, "Where did civilization
begin?" which is also unanswerable. If we may trust the
geologists, who deal with prehistoric mists as airy as any metaphysics, the
arid regions of Central Asia were once moist and temperate, nourished with
great lakes and abundant streams. The recession of the last ice wave
slowly dried up this area, until the rainfall was insufficient to support towns
and states. City after city was abandoned as men fled west and east,
north and south, in search of water; half buried in the desert lie ruined
cities like Baktra, which must have held a teeming population within its
twenty-two miles of circumferance. As late as 1868 some 80,000
inhabitants of western Turkistan were forced to migrate because their district
was being inundated by the moving sand. There are many who believe that
these now dying regions saw the first substantial development of that vague
complex of order and provisions, manners and morals, comfort and culture which
constitutes civilization.
In 1907 Pumpelly unearthed at Anau, in southeren Turkistan, pottery and
other remains of a culture which he has ascribed to 9,000 B.C., with a possible
exageration of four thousand years. Here we find the cultivation of
wheat, barley and millet , the use of copper, the domestication of animals, and
the ornamentation of pottery in styles so conventionalized as to suggest an
artistic background and tradition of many centuries. Apparently the
culture of Turkestan was already very old in 5000 B.C. perhaps it had
historians who delved into its past in a vain search for the origins of
civilization, and philosophers who eloquently mourned the degeneration of a
dying race.
From this center, if we may imagine where we cannot know, a people driven by a
rainless sky and betrayed by desiccated earth migrated in three directions,
bringing their arts and civilization with them. The arts, if not the
race, reached eastward to China, Manchuria, and North America; southward to
northern India; westward to Elam, Sumeria, Egypt, even to Italy and spain.
At Susa, in ancient Elam (modern Persia), remains have been found so similar in
type to those at Anau that the re-creative imagination is almost
justified in presuming cultural communication between Susa and Anau at
the dawn of civilization (ca. 4000 B.C.). A like kinship of early arts and
products suggests a like relationship and continuity between prehistoric
Mesopotamia and Egypt.
We cannot be sure which of these cultures came first, and it does not much
matter; they were in essence of one family and of one type. If we violate
honored precedents here and place Elam and Sumeria before Egypt, it is from no
vain glory of unconventional innovation, but rather because the age of these
Asiatic civilizations, compared with those of Africa and Europe, grows as our knowledge
of them deepens. As the spades of archeology, after century of victorious
inquiry along the Nile, pass across Suez into Arabia, Palestine, Mesoptamia and
Persia, it becomes more probable with every year of accumulating research that
it was the rich delta of Mesopotamias rivers that saw the earliest known
scenes in the historic drama of civilization."
This citing abve from Will Durant expresses Turkestan (TURAN) as one of the
ancient cradles of civilizations going back at least 5000 B.C. and upward to
9000 B.C. This should be an eye-opener for those sceptics who ignore or tend to
disregard the civilization of Turanian Tur/Turks peoples and wrongly start
everything from ancient Greeks and/or Semites. Thus the words of Will
Durant describes the civilization of Central Asia, that is, Turan or Turkestan
and its spread all over the world with great clarity. But so far whatever
archeological artifacts have been discovered in Turan left over from the
Turanian civilizations of ancient times have not been dwelled upon with needed
intensity and generally public have been kept in dark. regarding that old
civilization. The artifacts found in excavations have been described in ways
that distance them from the Tur/Turk peoples. Identifying such artifacts
found in the ancient lands of Tur/Turk peoples with the name of Tur/Turk seems
to be a taboo. At every opportunity the "scholars" will happily
mention any other name except the name of Turk.
Will Durant also writes the following:[2]
"The "Aryans " did not establish civilization they took it
from Babylonia and Egypt. Greece did not begin civilization- it inherited
far more civilization than it began; it was the spoiled heir of three
millenniums of arts and sciences brought to its cities from the near East by
the fortunes of trade and war. In studying and honoring the Near East we
shall be acknowledging a dept long due to the real founders of the European and
American civilization."
These are very much along my views that I have been indicating in my writings.
Sceptics should read these passages carefully and without any bias to really
understand who created civilization and who "inherited" that already
created civilization in the ancient world. It should be distincly
understood that the term "inherited" used in the above citing
is rather a kind word and does not mean the rightful owner. For example
when the Greek wanderers (arayans) invaded ancient IONIA (Tr. Ay-Han Öyü or
Yunanistan) presently called "Greece" and Semite wanderers (arayans)
invaded Sumeria and its surrounding areas, they were not "inheriting"
what was there, but rather they were forcefully taking over and looting and
destroying what was there. The Sumerian lamentations that Loganathan writes
about are testimony to this.
Dear Ram, this should shed considerable light on the ancient Turanian Tur/Turk
world which has intentionally been suppressed.
References:
[1] Will Durant, "Our Oriental Heritage, Part-1, Simon
and Schuster, New York, 1954, p. 107-109.
[2] Will Durant, "Our Oriental Heritage, Part-1, Simon
and Schuster, New York, 1954, p. 116.
My best wishes to you and to all,
Polat Kaya
Ram Varmha wrote:
Dr. Kaya,
The urban settlement of Catal Huyuk in what is now Turkey, once had a human population of between 5,000 and 6,000. It has been established by carbon-dating to be around 6800 to 8000 BC. This is one of the oldest archaeological sites yet discovered; the other being Jericho of about the same age.
Obviously, the people of Catal Huyuk were not mutes! They must have spoken some language. Do you have any indication what language was spoken by them, or is it not known? Unlike, Sumerian and Egyptian of antiquity, (which came later than 8000 BC), there are no written texts at C-H to indicate what language was spoken there. However, are there any indicators that shed light on what their spoken language may have been?
Regards,
Ram