Was humanity’s first depiction of a volcanic eruption daubed on the wall of a house in Turkey 8500 years ago? Geological evidence now supports this controversial claim.
In 1963, archaeologist James Mellaart found a large mural on the wall of a house in Çatalhöyük, the largest known Stone Age town. He interpreted it as depicting a plan layout of the town’s dwellings with a twin-peaked volcano, Hasan Dağ, looming behind – captured dramatically in the process of erupting.
If correct, the interpretation makes the mural the earliest depiction of a geological observation.
But not everyone agrees with Mellaart, partly because there was no evidence that Çatalhöyük’s people saw Hasan Dağ erupt, says Axel Schmitt, a volcanologist of the University of California in Los Angeles.
Now Schmitt and his colleagues have found that evidence, and are presenting their work at the Geological Society of America conference in Denver, Colorado today. They climbed Hasan Dağ and collected samples from layers of pumice, a volcanic rock formed during an explosive eruption. By extracting zircon crystals from the pumice and using radiometric dating, they confirm that the rocks are about 9000 years old – roughly the same age as the mural.
What’s more, the geological evidence suggests the mural was a relatively accurate depiction of the eruption, says Schmitt. Previous interpretations of the image by volcanologists have suggested it was a small “Strombolian” eruption, he says, characterised by the ejection of bright cinder particles and chunks of molten rock tens of metres above the crater. “The available volcanological evidence is in accordance with this interpretation.”
“It is encouraging to see that an eruption may have taken place at Hasan Dağ within the time frame of the Çatalhöyük culture,” says Haraldur Sigurdsson, a volcanologist at the University of Rhode Island, Narragansett. “I have all along been inclined to believe Mellaart’s original interpretation – it is such a good story.”
That is the problem, though, says Stephanie Meece, who studied the Çatalhöyük mural while at the University of Cambridge. She concluded that the “volcano” is in fact a depiction of a leopard skin, and the “town” beneath merely a collection of abstract shapes – which was, in fact, Mellaart’s original impression.
“It may look like a Strombolian-style eruption to modern-day geologists. But it looks absolutely like a leopard skin,” says Meece. Other art at Çatalhöyük shows that the people who lived there were obsessed with wild animals, she says, and that they painted them often. None of their other artworks have been interpreted as landscapes or volcanoes.
Schmitt says the geological evidence is still important, and speculates on a possible compromise. “Zoomorphism could satisfy both interpretations,” he says. “Hasan Dağ could be seen as the ‘leopard mountain’.”
Ancient mural may be first picture of volcanic blast
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