9,000-Year-Old Depiction Of Volcanic Eruption And Birds-Like View Of Town

MessageToEagle.com – 9,000-year-old painting depicts an explosive and catastrophic volcano eruption located approximately 130 km northeast of Çatalhöyük, in central Turkey and a birds-eye view of a town plan in the foreground.

The discovery could represent the oldest known map.

Çatalhöyük, the world’s largest Stone Age city, was discovered by an archaeologist, James Mellaart (1925 – 2012) in the early 1960s. There have been found pottery, the earliest textiles and also paintings on the ancient walls.

According to Mellaart,  the paintings were impossible to remove or preserve, because they were totally damaged.

Thus, the only evidence of their existence were several sketches made by the archaeologist. They were, however, released for the first time, in 1989.

Mellaart believed the paintings recorded erupting volcanoes and different birds, animals and human figures.

Now, a new research has been conducted by Axel Schmitt and his team from the University of California Los Angeles, who analyzed rocks from the nearby Hasan Dagi volcano in order to determine whether it was the volcano depicted in the mural from ~6600 BC in the Catalhöyük.

The analysis confirmed the interpretation that residents of Çatalhöyük may have recorded an explosive eruption of Hasan Dagi volcano.

This Çatalhöyük mural is thought to represent a nearby volcanic eruption. New scientific evidence confirms a contemporaneous eruption at nearby Hasan Dag.

Research indicates that humans who lived in this region of Turkey may have in fact, witnessed the eruption that took place 6900 BC, and this event culd have been painted by the locals for further generations.

 

Cyber Archaeology“We tested the hypothesis that the Çatalhöyük mural depicts a volcanic eruption and discovered a geological record consistent with this hypothesis. Our work also demonstrates that Hasan Dagi volcano has potential for future eruptions,” Schmitt said.

The research work confirms the eruption between 9,500 and 8,400 years ago—a timespan including the era that the mural was likely painted.

“Our data are the first evidence for a volcanic eruption of Hasan Dagi coeval with human presence at Çatalhöyük,” inform scientists in their paper.

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