(ORDO NEWS) — The remains of a wooden staircase were first discovered at Çatalhöyük, one of the best-preserved Neolithic settlements in the world.
During excavations led by archaeologist Associate Professor Ali Umut Turkkan, the remains of a wooden staircase of the Neolithic period, 8500 thousand years old, were discovered for the first time.
The ancient city of Catalhoyuk, located in the Chumra region in the central part of the Turkish city of Konya, is one of the first models of urbanization in the history of Mesopotamia.
Beginning about 9,500 years ago, around 7,500 BC, and for almost 2,000 years, people settled in Çatalhoyuk and built hundreds of adobe houses, buried their dead under the floor, and decorated the walls with murals, cattle skulls, and plaster reliefs.
It is believed that an egalitarian society of the Stone Age lived in Çatalhoyuk, which built peculiar houses located back to back, without doors and windows.
They entered and exited through openings in the roof. It was assumed that the buildings with entrance and exit at the top of Çatalhöyuk were climbed by stairs, but so far the stairs have not been found.
Associate Professor Ali Umut Türkkan said, “We have been excavating a recently discovered 200 m2 site in the Neolithic East Mound called North Terrace, and since we shared especially in summer, we planned to clearly see the street phenomenon and reveal the second Neolithic area.”
Associate Professor Ali Umut Türkkan continued his words as follows: “In the southwestern part of the building, called Space 66, adjacent to the western wall of the building, we found the remains of a furnace, the superstructure of which was largely destroyed. This furnace, measuring approximately 30X60, had a thickness 11-12 centimeters”.
“There were a large number of in situ ezgi stones, obsidian tools, bone tools and animal mandibles around the furnace, and it is a tradition in Çatalhoyuk to find such votive bones in burned and abandoned places.
When we walked to its base, we first came across a large wooden find . At first, it was difficult to identify this crafted relic, which turned out to be about 75 cm long and 30 cm wide.”
“At first I thought it might have been one of the large oval wooden boats excavated by James Mellaart in the 1960s, but then it turned out to be the rungs of a ladder, on which there were two rows of wide side notches equidistant from each other, two clean, and the third with small traces.”
On the one hand, the fact that the find was discovered next to the stove and the diagonal traces of clean gypsum plaster on the wall where it was found are also strong evidence that this wooden mass with steps was a staircase.
Although evidence of the use of stairs in Çatalhöyuk has been found for a long time, the remains of a staircase with visible steps were discovered for the first time.
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