| Title: | A bird’s eye view - of a leopard’s spots. The Çatalhöyük ‘map’ and the development of cartographic representation in prehistory. |
| Authors: | Meece, Stephanie |
| Keywords: | archaeology map-making history of cartography Çatalhöyük Neolithic leopards |
| Issue Date: | 2006 |
| Publisher: | The British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara |
| Citation: | Meece, Stephanie (2006) A bird’s eye view - of a leopard’s spots. The Çatalhöyük ‘map’ and the development of cartographic representation in prehistory. Anatolian Studies 56:1-16 |
| Abstract: | The striking wall paintings uncovered in the excavations at Çatalhöyük have fascinated archaeologists and non-archaeologists alike, and many interpretations of their content and meaning have been proposed. This article re-evaluates the claim that one of these paintings is a map of the village, with Hasan Dağ erupting above it. It is argued that the excavator’s first interpretation of the objects depicted in the painting, i.e., that they are a leopard skin above a panel of geometric design, is in fact a far more reasonable one, when this painting is contextualised within the entire corpus of painting and other art objects found at the site. Implications of this re-interpretation for our understanding of Neolithic spatial and symbolic representation, and the origin of map-making are considered, as well as the importance of the depiction of animals and felines in the Neolithic period. |
| URI: | http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/195777 |
| Appears in Collections: | Scholarly papers in Archaeology |
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