9.37 Anatolia

Anatolia is approximately the area covered by Asiatic Turkey today. It had early settlements such as Catal Huyuk, described earlier, and others that developed into city-states, but not a great deal is known about the early inhabitants. A well made cooking pot with small, perforated lugs for hanging was found at the Pendik settlement (Istanbul) dated to the 6^th millennium.

6^th millennium BC pot from
Pendik settlement - source Archaeological
Museum Istanbul

Very early zoomorphic vessels have also been found.

Vessel shaped as a pig, 7,400-6,000 BC -
source Museum of Anatolian Civilisations,
Ankara

Pottery from Hacilar dated to 5,000 BC has been discovered that was high quality, well shaped and evenly fired, and decorated with bright geometric patterns in red and yellow ochre. The city was abandoned early in the 5^th Millennium and this particular pottery style lost. In the period between 5,500 and 3,000 BC pots of various sizes and shapes were produced having increasingly complex geometric patterns using either red/brown or black paint on a buff or cream ground.

Two large painted vessels 5,500-3,000 BC,
source Museum of Anatolian Civilisations,
Ankara and ochre painted pots 5/4
millennium BC - source Antalya Museum

A Late Chalcolithic vertically spouted jug dated around 4,000 BC is in the Hieropolis Museum.

Spouted jug 4,500-3,200 BC - source
Hieropolis Museum

There were also strange pottery models of gods.

God Carhasan 5,500-3,000 BC - Museum of
Anatolian Civilisations, Ankara

More information exists from the Bronze Age when a number of people from Nineveh settled in Aphrodisias that was previously called Ninoe after Ninos, the king of Assyria, as these people recorded the happenings and would pass the information back to Assyria. Bronze was introduced around 3,000 BC permitting metal ploughs to be used and animal power.

Around 2,500 BC a highly developed civilisation existed in Anatolia. There were independent city-states and a feudal form of government. Around 2,700 BC the pottery of the Yortan Culture in Western Anatolia was well made black burnished ware, typically jugs with almost vertical spouts decorated with white lines and raised knobs.