Image Details

© Çatalhöyük research project

SWOOPING VULTURES OVER HEADLESS DEAD. Across the millennia, excarnation has been widely used among different cultures and religions that practice various forms of secondary burial or interment. This reconstruction of a painted mural from the famous Neolithic site of Catalhoyuk in southeastern Turkey, for example, shows a wake of vultures with broad, outstretched wings swooping over exposed and headless human bodies.