The Goddess and the Bull

This started off very promising, and the site itself is fascinating: nearly 10,000 years ago, thousands of people lived in a single city, in which the houses abutted each other so closely that people entered from the rooftops. They ate domesticated grains, and lentils, and cattle, sheep, and goats. They rebuilt houses exactly on top of the foundations of an older house, for centuries. They buried their dead under the floor of the houses (or alternatively, buried their dead then built a new house on top). They decorated with wild bull horns. They sometimes cut the head off a dead body, buried the body, and replastered the skull to create a new face.

Balter writes about some of this, but he mostly gives biographies of the archaeologists, which feels like a strange focus. At the start, it feels natural. “Ah ok, we're setting up the cast of characters before we can get into the good part,” I thought. But then this continues all the way to the end of the book, which stops so abruptly I was sure my pages had been stuck together, or some other kind of mistake had occurred.

This book is a great introduction to Catahoyuk, and in parts, a great read, but the focus is odd.