Image Details

The Art Archive / Museum Of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara / Dagli Orti

A human figure has leapt onto the back of a stag in this 6-foot-wide wall painting from Catalhoyuk (and now in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, in Ankara). What the painting represents is not completely clear: Perhaps it is simply a hunt scene, or perhaps it shows a cultic ritual involving dancers and animal baiting. Or perhaps it simply represents symbolically the Neolithic villagers’ need to control the forces of nature.