The Mountain Mother Cipher (The Arkana Archaeology Mystery Series Book 2)

by N. S. Wikarski

  “How could they tell the horns belong to a bull anyway?” Cassie wondered. “I mean you can’t tell gender from looking at its head.”

  “The horns from a bull might be slightly larger,” Ozgur said, “but among the wild aurochs there was much overlap in the size of cow and bull horns.”

  “What’s an aurochs?”

  “It’s a cow,” Erik answered. “Only a lot bigger and meaner than your average Holstein. Aurochs were never domesticated and now they’re extinct. The last one died somewhere in Poland in the 1600s.”

  “But as far as overlord archaeologists are concerned, it’s all bull,” Fred quipped.

  Everyone laughed.

  “We have uncovered a mural in this building that may do much to overturn the thinking that all the cattle horns are representations of a male deity. Follow me and I will show you.” The trove-keeper stepped down into the site and Cassie was about to follow him when Erik grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back.

  “Do I need to put you on a leash?” he cautioned through gritted teeth.

  “Try it and you’ll lose body parts,” she hissed over her shoulder. Spinning around, she asked, “What is the big deal about me walking down there anyway?”

  “The bodies,” Griffin said nervously.

  “What bodies?” Cassie looked around mystified.

  “The bodies under the floor,” the Scrivener added.

  “Huh?” She stood anchored to the spot, staring at her two companions as if they’d lost their minds. “You mean like John Wayne Gacy crawlspace bodies?”

  “Oh, Mr. Ozgur,” Griffin called out to stop their host. “Mightn’t we find another way round? It may not be the best idea to have Ms. Forsythe walking through the dig.”

  Ozgur turned to look up at his guests. It took several seconds before recognition dawned. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry not to have realized. Please come this way instead.” He climbed up to the rim and led the party around its perimeter to the other side.

  “What bodies?” Cassie persisted.

  “It was common for the people of Catal Huyuk to bury their dead beneath the house,” Griffin explained. “In fact some of these raised platforms you see along the floor probably contain skeletons.”

  “Wow, their houses must have reeked. I mean rotting corpses underfoot. Yuck!”

  “They didn’t let them decompose inside,” Erik corrected. “You know about excarnation, right?”

  “I remember Griffin telling me about it,” Cassie recalled. “The bodies got exposed on a platform outside for vultures and owls to feed on.” She shuddered. “Still sounds kind of yucky to me.”

  “Once the flesh was removed, the bones would be cleaned and prepared for burial. It was all quite sanitary, I assure you.” Griffin seemed to feel the need to defend the practice.

  By now they had made their way around to the spot where Ozgur stood.

  He waited until they clustered around him. “I do apologize, Miss Cassie. It was thoughtless of me.”

  The girl shrugged. “I probably would have been OK.”

  The trove-keeper gave a humorless smile. “There is a legend about this place. The local farmers have never tried tilling the mound of Catal Huyuk or disturbing it in any way because they always believed there are ghosts here. The people of this ancient culture buried their ancestors as guardian spirits to watch over them. Apparently, those spirits took their duties seriously and hover around the place to this day. I would not wish to tax one as sensitive as the Pythia by having her encounter a whole city of the dead. They may not approve of our presence in their homes.”

  “Better safe than sorry.” Griffin sounded apologetic.

  “OK, guys, I get it.” Cassie conceded. “No touchie, no walkie. Now what was it you wanted to show us, Mr. Ozgur?”

  “Ah yes.” The old man tapped his walking stick on a portion of wall directly below them. “I would direct your attention just here. We were speaking of the sacred bucranium. How a cow or bull head could be viewed as a symbol of the regenerative power of the goddess.”

  Fred jumped down into the dig site and stood by the wall. “It’s pretty interesting. I don’t know how mainstream archaeologists can explain it.”

  They all peered over the edge at the remains of a painting. It showed several stylized female figures in seated positions. An odd shape appeared in the anatomical place where a uterus and fallopian tubes should be. A cow’s head and horns.

  Cassie let out a low whistle. “I said it before in Crete and I’ll say it again. Holy cow!”

  “Good one,” Erik laughed approvingly. “I must have missed it the first time.”

  “That was back in the day when you thought babysitting the new Pythia was tedious work so you ditched us,” she reminded him.

  “Babysitting the new Pythia might be a lot of things but I learned it’s never tedious.”

  The girl examined the layout of the room where the mural was painted. Opposite the picture were three horns of consecration set into the floor. On the wall directly beside the painting was an odd sculpture that she couldn’t identify. “What’s that supposed to be?” She asked the trove-keeper.

  “It is a frog goddess. She is most frequently associated with the act of giving birth because of the posture she assumes. Observe the object below her.” He pointed with his walking stick.

  “It’s a bull’s head,” Cassie said then corrected herself. “Or maybe a cow’s head.”

  “The position of the bucranium directly below the goddess is another image of regeneration.”

  “So what does all this mean when you put the images together? The painting, the sculpture, the horns of consecration?”

  “This room is a shrine and these are all symbols of regeneration. Resurrection, if you will.”

  Griffin spoke. “To these people, this symbolic grouping would have been as familiar as an empty cross on Easter morning would be to a Christian. Remember where the dead are buried.”

  Cassie made the connection. “So if your nearest and dearest are sleeping under the floor, it’s a way of asking the goddess to restore them somehow.”

  Aydin nodded. “Yes, that is quite correct. A constant reminder that the goddess eternally regenerates life and that nothing is ever lost.”

  Cassie raised her eyebrows. “Those are pretty abstract ideas. It doesn’t sound to me like the people here were all that primitive.”

  “They weren’t.” Fred climbed back up to the rim to join the others. “That’s more propaganda. History books like to preach that Mesopotamia was the first sophisticated culture on the planet with the first cities. Overlord culture really likes to promote that idea because Mesopotamia’s city-states invented chronic siege warfare. But Catal Huyuk was thriving four thousand years before Uruk was even built.”

  “How long have people been living here?”

  “The site was occupied as early as 7000 BCE,” Griffin replied. “It may have contained as many as ten thousand inhabitants.”

  “We’ve only scratched the surface in terms of what’s here.” Fred added. “And I mean that literally. Who knows what else we’ll dig up over the next decade.”

  Cassie’s eyes swept the entire site and the people working diligently at the bottom of the pit, scraping away debris in search of lost treasure. “So what happened to them all? The people, I mean.”

  “They left,” Erik said casually.

  The girl looked at him skeptically. “You’re kidding, right?

  “Nope.”

  “The mound was abandoned a few times in its history,” Ozgur elaborated. “We think that the earlier evacuations had to do with a prolonged drought which made farming here temporarily difficult.”

  His assistant continued. “There’s another dig site called Catal Huyuk West where they moved for a while before coming back here. And then they left for good in the mid-sixth millennium BCE.”

  “So around 5500 BCE, they just pulled up stakes?” Cassie paused as a thought struck her. “That date sounds awfully
familiar.” She stared at Griffin. “Isn’t that when…” She trailed off.

  The Scrivener beamed at her as if she were his star pupil. “I just knew you were paying attention. Erik didn’t think so but I was sure of it!”

  “The flood.” She flashed back to their conversation overlooking the Bosporus. “Didn’t you say the Black Sea flooded around 5600 BCE?”

  “Quite right.”

  “There is a very strong possibility that a connection exists between the flood and the abandonment of the site,” Ozgur concurred. “The Arkana is still trying to find evidence to support the theory but it seems very likely that some refugees from the deluge wandered in this direction.”

  “Did your team find any sign that there was a battle here?”

  “There is some evidence of fire at the topmost layer of the dig but nothing conclusive,” the trove-keeper replied.

  “There’s a lot more evidence of disruption at Hacilar,” offered Fred. “That’s another Neolithic settlement about a hundred miles southwest of here. We know that Hacilar was destroyed by fire and when it was rebuilt, there was a wall around it.”

  “Overlord invaders?” Cassie guessed.

  “I believe it was a bit too early for that,” Griffin countered. “More likely it was roving bands of refugees, looting and pillaging on a small scale just to meet their immediate needs. There was no indication of organized military activity until much later but the Anatolian plateau definitely shows signs of destabilization around the mid-sixth millennium.”

  “For the first time, dead bodies which had suffered violence, mainly children, were found in the burned debris at Hacilar,” Ozgur said softly.

  “Whether it was overlord culture or not,” Cassie observed, “it sure sounds like the beginning of the end to me.”

  Aydin Ozgur silently turned and led the others away from the dig site.

  Chapter 14 – The Lady And The Lions

  The trove-keeper carefully retraced his steps along the rim and over the gravel path leading back to the site building. His companions followed in silence. When the old man reached the office he motioned for the others to precede him inside. “Come in, please, and rest yourselves.”

  They filed in cautiously, not wanting to knock him off balance by rushing through the door. It was sweltering inside. Even though the windows were open, the only air flow was provided by a tired ceiling fan. The papers on Ozgur’s desk wafted listlessly in the artificial breeze.

  Cassie looked around the room. There was a desk, several chairs and benches for visitors and metal filing cabinets everywhere. On the floor in the corners, boxes of rocks and other small objects were stacked.

  “I’m sorry we have no proper reception room,” the trove-keeper apologized. “May I offer you coffee or tea?”

  The three visitors drew chairs around the desk and waited patiently while Fred assisted Ozgur in preparing refreshments.

  Cassie had asked for coffee but she wasn’t ready for the strong sweet concoction when she took her first sip. “Now I know why it’s served in a tiny little cup. This carries quite a kick doesn’t it?”

  Her companions grinned knowingly.

  “Turkish coffee is very strong,” Aydin agreed. “It is always brewed with sugar and cardamom.”

  “It’s really good,” Cassie reassured him, taking another sip, “but no refills for me, thank you.”

  Erik and Griffin had opted for tea which was served Russian-style in tall glasses instead of cups. They were all too polite to ask for something cold to drink.

  “How are you getting on with the team that’s running the expedition?” Griffin asked, blowing on his tea to cool it down.

  Fred grimaced.

  Aydin interpreted his look. “We don’t rock the boat as you would say. A man named Percival who is on the lead team seems to be trying very hard to disprove the conclusions of James Mellaart, the original discoverer of the site. Based on what he found here, Mellaart believed that Catal Huyuk was a matristic culture which worshipped a female deity.”

  “Let me guess. Your buddy Percival isn’t thrilled with that idea?” Erik asked sarcastically.

  “He’s doing everything but stand on his head to show that it was just your average overlord culture,” Fred said in disgust. “I especially get a kick out of his interpretation of the bull horns.”

  “But surely he’s seen the mural you just showed us,” Griffin objected.

  “Nope, not yet.” Fred gave a laugh. “We just finished cleaning it up yesterday. I can’t wait to see the look on his face when we do.”

  While his assistant was speaking, Ozgur walked out of the room to retrieve something from the back storage area. He returned with a figurine about as big as a man’s hand and placed it gently on the front of his desk. It was a stone carving of a very obese naked woman seated on a throne and resting her forearms on the backs of two lionesses who stood on either side of her.

  “Wow, is she ever fat!” Cassie exclaimed.

  Erik chuckled.

  “Fatness was once viewed as a sign of abundance,” the trove-keeper observed. “It would have been considered a desirable trait.”

  Griffin moved his chair closer to get a better look. “Oh, I say, she is remarkable.”

  “We found this statue in a grain storage bin in one of the shrine rooms,” Ozgur said. “Many similar female figures have been found throughout the site but the conventional theory is that these are fertility figurines.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Cassie was puzzled.

  Fred raised his eyebrows. “That’s what I’d like to know. Overlord archaeologists like Percival are falling all over themselves to say a bunch of horns are symbols of male divinity but a statue like this gets explained away as a stone age lucky charm because it popped out of a cereal box.”

  “Oh, she’s far more than that,” Griffin said, turning the base of the object slightly. “The composition suggests she is a potnia theron.”

  “I know you said potnia means something like lady or goddess,” Cassie remarked.

  “Very good,” Griffin said encouragingly. “You see, Erik. I told you she wasn’t hopeless.”

  “I didn’t say that exactly,” Erik demurred.

  “No, I believe you said something about a brain like a sieve,” the Scrivener reminded him offhandedly, still entranced by the statue.

  Cassie shot the Security Coordinator a reproachful look.

  “Sorry, toots.” His grin was almost sheepish. “I take it all back.”

  The girl raised her chin defiantly and continued her earlier question. “So what does theron mean?”

  “’Potnia theron’ would translate to something like Lady Of The Animals or Goddess Of The Wild Creatures,” Griffin explained. “It’s a concept that echoes all the way back to the Venus of Laussel some twenty thousand years ago. Gatherer-hunters worshipped the goddess as one who kept all living things in balance. She multiplied all life—both animal and human, hence her ample dimensions.”

  Cassie scrutinized the statue in puzzlement. “But why is she sitting next to lions? I mean that’s a really odd choice. There aren’t any wild lions in Turkey.”

  “Not any more.” Ozgur’s tone was wistful. “They were hunted to extinction in this country in the 1800s. The Asiatic lion once roamed as far west as the Balkans. Now the few that remain are confined to a very small region in India.”

  “Overlords couldn’t resist killing them,” Fred interjected. “They didn’t present that much of a threat to livestock so it was mainly bragging rights over a trophy kill.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Cassie said.

  “That’s overlord culture,” Erik commented succinctly.

  Ozgur regarded the figurine closely. “While it is true that the idea of the potnia theron originated in the ancient past, this particular figure also persists well into historic times. Much as my colleagues try to deny that she is a deity, this little statue is the embodiment of the Goddess Cybele.”

  “Who’
s she?”

  “The great mother goddess of Anatolia. During the classical age, she was the most significant deity in all of Asia Minor. You are, in fact, going to her principal place of worship on Mount Ida.”

  “But how do you know it’s the same goddess?” Cassie persisted. “I mean, the classical age didn’t start until thousands of years after this statue was carved.”

  “Because Cybele is always depicted with lions,” Griffin jumped in. “She is either shown driving a chariot pulled by lions or seated on a throne between two lions. There are statues carved in Rome as late as the second century of our current era that show her in exactly the same pose as this figurine.”

  “The Romans, haughty overlords that they were, did not mistake Cybele for a mere fertility symbol,” Ozgur observed. “To them she was the Magna Mater. They respected her power and prayed for her assistance,”

  “The Sybilline prophecy,” Griffin said cryptically. “Of course.”

  Cassie and Erik exchanged a blank look. Erik shrugged.

  Griffin continued speaking, half to himself. “When Hannibal was on the verge of invading Rome around 200 CE, one of the Sybilline oracles predicted that the only way the Romans could defeat their enemy would be to bring the goddess to Rome.”

  “How do you bring a goddess anywhere?” Cassie asked.

  “Do you recall what I told you about baetyls? They are meteor rocks that are believed to be the seat of a deity. One such baetyl was housed in the ancient city of Pessinus. It was the largest iron meteorite in the known world. Over sixteen feet high and weighing several hundred tons, it was believed to be the personification of the goddess Cybele. The Romans negotiated to have the baetyl moved to Rome. They took the prophecy so seriously that they commissioned a magnificent temple to be built for it, right on the top of Vatican Hill.”

  “What!” Cassie felt shocked.

  Griffin laughed. “That’s right. Directly under Saint Peter’s Basilica rests the remains of Cybele’s temple. In fact Bernini’s baldacchino, a huge bronze canopy in the present church, is said to have been inspired by the design of the pagan structure.”