The spectacular finds at Göbekli Tepe and Nevali Çorı: monolithic pillars representing stylized humans decorated with a large variety of animals, are the representation of an animist cosmos, in which animals and plants being may appear as persons, capable of will. Çatal Höyük represents a stage in which gods started to be shaped: the bull represented the Storm-god (a concept which reached the Classical period), the stag the god of the wild fauna, and female figurines symbolized the Mother-goddess. In Egypt, where gods where usually represented by animals, zoomorphism presents a continuity which ended only with the introduction of Christianity. The archaeological finds from Kaneš and the Hittite texts document an extraordinary continuity: each deity was represented by an animal, portraited in the vessel with which the celebrant (the royal couple or also a priest) reached a kind of communion with the god in drinking of the same wine and eating of the same bread.
University of Rome, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-7194-7272
Chapter Title
Shaping Gods: from Göbekli Tepe to Kaneš, Ḫattuša, and Beyond
Authors
Alfonso Archi
Language
English
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0109-4.07
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2023
Copyright Information
© 2023 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Book Title
Theonyms, Panthea and Syncretisms in Hittite Anatolia and Northern Syria
Book Subtitle
Proceedings of the TeAI Workshop Held in Verona, March 25-26, 2022
Editors
Livio Warbinek, Federico Giusfredi
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
194
Publication Year
2023
Copyright Information
© 2023 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0109-4
ISBN Print
979-12-215-0108-7
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0109-4
Series Title
Studia Asiana
Series ISSN
1974-7837
Series E-ISSN
2612-808X