The Mother in the Mist: Kybele in an Ancient Anatolian Matriarchy(?)

We peer into pre-history at early evidence of the Anatolian goddess Matar/Kybele, whose presence may have been discovered in this ancient egalitarian society. Or, maybe, was this society a matriarchy? What do the findings say?

Thumbnail image: Seated Woman of Çatal Höyük, located in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, Turkey.

In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele by Lynn E. Roller

Turkish Cultural Foundation

Social Dynamics in Western Anatolia Between 3000 and 2500 BC by Christoph Schwall and Barbara Horejs

Transanatolie.com

 Koç University 

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/features/2026/6/4/archaeologists-find-ancient-matrilineal-society-in-turkiyes-catalhoyuk

Thanks to Twin Musicon for the song At the Foot of the Sphinx

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Falcha a charcha to for the rest of us podcast. Tal May Ansha, I guess Toshiv and Shun, I guess Tomwij. I'm here, you're there, and we're together. And together we'll be exploring the origins of the goddess Kubaba or Mater or Kibele in ancient Anatolia in what is today Turkey. This goddess, with her castrated priest priestesses, later called the Gali, was a symbol of strength and power, whose worship began in Neolithic times, and stretched through to Phrygian, Greek, and Roman eras. But where and how did she start? And into what kind of society did she start? Was it a matriarchy, or was it more egalitarian? We'll be looking at that today. We call these hundreds of thousands of years the mists of the prehistoric past. Mysterious, distant, foreign. These were meaningful days, as much or as little as our own are now. The people then were alive. We wouldn't be alive today without them. Imagine this sitting around a campfire with your community, listening to stories about the spirits at the places you know and those you don't yet know. The mountains loom outside the mouth of the cave. There, outside, is not so clearly demarcated as it is today, and only the cave wall separates you from the animals that call to each other. The light of the fire will keep the predators out. This was the Paleolithic Age in Anatolia, reaching back from hundreds of thousands of years to around fourteen thousand BCE before the Common Era, sixteen thousand years ago. What we know of these people is little. They didn't leave much remaining evidence. Perhaps they didn't have much to leave, unsaddled as they were by goods and hoarded belongings. These people were hunter gatherers, living together in small bands of extended family, moving across the land as resources moved. They made shelter in caves, inside which we found some of their refuse, shells, hippopotamus bones, the remnants of fires. They practiced neither animal husbandry nor crop cultivation. What they believed, what they felt was important, their stories, their songs, and their very languages are lost to us. From fourteen thousand BCE to ten thousand BCE runs the Mesolithic Age, the Middle Stone Age. The people who lived at this time created and used microlithic or small stone tools, usually sharp points used as knives, spear tips, or arrowheads. So too did they make figures of a goddess. This is the earliest evidence of religious practices. It is, perhaps, the earliest evidence of her, or her forerunner, or her former self, a goddess, or a spirit of place, or a function. We don't know what they called her this divine woman. Nor do we know what they called her in the Neolithic Newstone Age, though she occurs with much greater frequency. In our time we may call her Kubaba, as the Hittites, who lived in the Bronze Age would, or Mater, as the Phrygians who came later would, or Kubele, like the Greeks, or Magnumater in the Roman fashion. But then, at that time, she was called something else, something as yet unknown. The Neolithic Age lasted from 10,000 BCE to 5,000 BCE in Anatolia. People began settling into permanent structures, their population fed both by hunting and by farming. They brought her into their homes, this female figure, called by many the mother goddess of Anatolia, though what she was, I'll leave you to decide for yourself in due course. In any case, the symbols used here can be found in Anatolia's future goddess worship, used in depictions of Mater, meaning mother in Phrygian, in the places her cult would manifest. Those symbols we will examine in a moment. First, let's set the scene. Let's imagine what life could have looked like for the thousands of people living in these Neolithic villages. Archaeologists have identified and excavated several sites in Anatolia in the east, central, and western part of the land. The oldest of these sites, dated at 7250 to 6750 BCE, is Chayanu in the east. Here, a central square is surrounded by buildings made of stone and mud. Farming tools have been found in this settlement, potentially the site of early pig domestication. Found too are figurines depicting a seated woman. Another site, this in Western Anatolia, is Hajalers. It's been dated to 7040 BCE. Many more figures were found here, among them women of all ages in a range of poses, from young, slender figures with minimal breasts to pregnant women, to aged women with larger, lower breasts, some enthroned, some supported by felines, and some with felines held to their chest, as one would cradle a child. These figures were often found in domestic contexts, near hearths or buried in grain. A well known site is Chetelhuyuk in central Anatolia, with its eighteen layers of human habitation, the oldest of which date back to 7500 BCE. This settlement was continuously occupied until 5400 BCE and abandoned before the Bronze Age. It's here that excavators discovered the well-known figure of a broad, fertile woman giving birth while seated, flanked by two felines, a picture of whom is this episode's thumbnail image. Its details can be found in the show notes for those who wish to get a better view of her. Chatilhuuk, meaning fork and mound in Turkish, had been situated around a local river. It consisted of two mounds, an eastern one which would have risen about twenty meters or sixty six feet at the peak of its habitation level, and a smaller one to the west. The river and the less arid climate of the time would have been advantageous to locals for farming. Farm, they did, along with hunting. They would have had to in order to sustain their large population. With its two thousand buildings, housing an average of five to eight thousand people, perhaps upwards of ten thousand. This was no small village. The upper levels of the settlement show evidence of ever increasing farming and animal husbandry, and more female figures to accompany the storage of the grains. Wheat, barley, peas, almonds, pistachios, and fruit from local trees would have been consumed, as well as the meat which continued to be hunted. Sheep were domesticated, and cattle were on their way to being domesticated. There was evidence of long distance trading, the people of the settlement making pottery and obsidian tools. In the first six habitation levels, which would have spanned about one thousand years, there was no evidence of social stratification found, no one profiting more off trade or farming than the others. No one's storage capacity was greater, nor home more opulent. Of those two thousand buildings found in Chatelhuyuk, none were administrative, none were palaces. None showed signs of having been constructed for the wealthy. The homes in the first six layers were uniform in size. Structures appearing afterwards varied in size, but were of a similar composition. Of these structures, many contained large and ornate murals, but their purpose could have been religious, or they could have been evidence of emerging stratification. The homes were quite different than what many of us are accustomed to. The structures had no doors or windows. A single hole in the ceiling let the smoke out and the people in, with the help of a ladder or stairs. There were no streets either. The homes clustered together, creating plazas and walkways on the roofs. In later times, large communal ovens were built there atop the homes, suggesting a history of activities taking place underneath the sun and stars, along with evidence of sky burials, the deceased being left out to be consumed by vultures or other wildlife. I wonder that this vast open sky held some holiness or significance for the people. These square or rectangular domestic buildings consisted of one main room in which the hearth and several raised platforms would be located, and several ancillary rooms for storage. Stairs were typically placed on the southern wall along with the hearth. The main room was the center of household activities, and was often decorated and usually neat and tidy. Rubbish was seldom found within the homes, but deposited in communal middens. The walls, though, I imagine eventually covered in soot, were smooth, white plaster, with red ochre murals painted upon them. There were a variety of murals painted on the walls of these structures, certainly not all of them confined to the divine feminine or mother goddess. There were images of men with erect phalluses, men hunting or dancing in leopard or deer skins. Two were there images of wild animals, like bulls and stags, and an indicator of those sky burial funerals I just mentioned, vultures denuding corpses of their flesh, and of course leopards. Leopard paintings abounded. Descorps consisted of the parts of many animals, though leopard bones were rarely, if ever, found, bull horns were mounted on the walls, as well as other skulls or jaws of animals, with objects resembling human breasts molded around them. One such breast contained a boar's jaw, its teeth protruding from the mound. While some of the figures found throughout the site were male, and some, interestingly, had absolutely no indication of any gender at all, the vast majority were female. Male figurines disappear after level six, while the occurrence of female figurines increased in number in successive levels. These figurines, well and carefully made of marble, blue and brown limestone, schist, calcite, basalt, alabaster, and clay, were sometimes created with exaggerated features. Large breasts, interestingly, the breasts get larger at higher levels of habitation, hips, buttocks, and abdomens, some were standing, a pose often seen later in Phrygia, and some were seated or crouching. They were found in areas thought to have been shrines, but also in domestic settings. The most well known one, small enough to fit in your hand, was found in a grain bin. She is, as I mentioned, the woman who graces this episode's image, the seated woman of Chatalhuyuk. Her power is evident. She is seated, resting her hands atop the heads of two leopards which flank her, perhaps in submission, perhaps as companions. Her body today is as brown as the earth it was formed from, and her face appears to have been colored by the red ochre seen in murals and on the walls. Her proportions are generous, expansive, and indicative of her bounty. Her breasts sit on either side of her expanded belly, which rests in her lap. Between her legs something is emerging. She could be giving birth. This figurine reigned supreme in discussion about the nature of the religion and society since its rediscovery in 1961. Subsequent excavations have uncovered more of this type, of a different but similar nature. A figure uncovered in 2005 shares the form of the earlier figure on its front. It is a woman as shown in the 1961 form with large breasts and stomach, her navel protruding in a manner suggestive of pregnancy. Her back is a skeleton, its spine, scapulae, ribs and pelvis clear and stark against the generous, life-filled body of the front. On her reverse is death. She is both of these aspects. I'd like to take a moment here to make a connection to Mater of Phrygia's symbols, which we'll be exploring fully in the next episode. One of the most enduring symbols of Mater, which extended from her Phrygian form all the way through the Roman Empire, was the feline, and we see it here too. Here, she's shown in much a similar fashion. She has control of these felines, whether she's dominating them or they're her companions by choice. In this clay figurine they're underneath her arms, supporting her as she sits. In Phrygia, they were shown with her in a variety of ways. On Lion Rock, it's their paws on her head as she holds a cub. Lions are often on her lap or on reliefs beside and with her. She's often shown with lions in Greece as well. The lions follow her to Rome, where she can be seen in a lion drawn chariot. Parts of their meaning likely change six thousand years is a long time, but her association with their fierce, wild nature remains in some form. In Phrygia, she was more directly connected to that wilderness, where her shrines were found on desolate mountains than she was in Rome. Regardless of its iteration, the work showing her with these lions project her great power. Another aspect we can see here is her association with death, particularly in Phrygia, where she was associated with funeral rites. Although instances of her depiction on tombs may have decreased during her travels across the Mediterranean, new stories involving a consort and his death spring up. In these stories, she's both life and death, and in the 2005 figure showing glorious life on the front and skeletal death on the back, we can see this part of her power here in prehistory. Life and death, two sides of the same coin, as we say. As I mentioned, the vulture was featured on murals in Chatelhuyuk. These images depicted what we can also identify on some of the bones found disarticulated in burials. After death, some, not all, bodies were exposed. Vultures consumed the flesh of the deceased, whose bones were then brought back into the home where they were buried, not in the earth, but in pits underneath the floor, particularly around the hearth and the raised platforms of the main rooms, atop which people probably slept. Some of the bodies were flexed, fitting into baskets or reed mats. Not all of the pieces stayed with the bodies. Some skulls were later removed, plastered, painted to resemble human like faces, and set into the wall, or used in other places in the community. I rather think these individuals were esteemed elders, their skulls used in ancestor worship. The bones found in these burials were clearly of great importance to the Neolithic Anatolians in Chadelhuyuk, and they're also important to our discussions about them today, namely, in theories about the nature of the society of that time. Was it a matriarchy? That belief was held by one of its first excavators in the 1960s, James Mallart, and subsequent scholar Gambutus, as well as plenty of goddess-focused worshippers today, but it's not without debate. His successor, current excavator Ian Hodder, has found evidence showing a more egalitarian society. That evidence can be seen in some of the bones. Analysis of the bones' composition shows that the diet of all of the skeletons was the same, in spite of whatever their gender may have been. This is important because it does not show males receiving more of the meat, which may have been the case for the society a patriarchy, nor do females receive the bulk. Likewise, tooth analysis shows a similar pattern of wear on all examined teeth, and unfortunately, disease due to a heavy grain diet. Soot observed on the ribs of skeletons indicate an equal exposure to the poorly ventilated home's fire, showing that women did not spend more time indoors or engaged in domestic work than men did. DNA analysis shows changing patterns of lineage. In earlier days of the city, extended family members were buried underneath the homes, and were largely related through the mother's line, with male children moving away. Later, the children buried underneath the homes were unrelated, suggesting father. Between families, perhaps to strengthen ties between them. Of note for the argument of a matriarchy, female infants were found with more grave goods than male infants in some stages of the settlement. Now, that doesn't mean things were perfect for women or men. It's worth mentioning that there was evidence of interpersonal violence at this site, skulls with blunt force injuries, likely from a hardened clay ball, and many of the victims were women. Not all died. Indeed, there's evidence of injuries healing, but it can be a sign of the difficulty of maintaining such a high population in a crowded area. A large number of skulls in a location may suggest that infanticide took place there, Hodder said, and may be determined with further investigation. This is contrary to long-held beliefs that no such violence occurred within the society. Still, seed remains and storage areas show a remarkable similarity with what was available for consumption in all the homes that were examined, showing evidence of pooling resources, a cooperation that would not work without massive participation. Historically, we've associated such egalitarian societies with hunter-gatherer peoples, believing that agriculture brought social stratification and division. Here, we see a peoples who engaged in agriculture, but who were, as best we can tell at this point, still egalitarian. But all things come to an end slowly or quickly. Hotter thinks it could have been because success in agriculture allowed them to move out elsewhere and become more independent. There are theories of a cold snap lasting centuries, which could have driven inhabitants out to seek resources elsewhere. Subsequent cities in the early Bronze Age show plenty of evidence for social stratification, with increasing gold and jewelry in grave goods. Goods are stored and hoarded, and settlements are fortified. Cities gain regional power, and some lose that.com for At the Foot of the Sphinx, which can be found in the YouTube Audio Library. And Maurice Ganal. You for listening. Thank you. The resources I use to research this can be found in the show notes. Next week, we will be continuing with this goddess, looking at her aspects and her journey throughout the Mediterranean. I hope that you'll join me then. And uh Fekimehu in the next episode.