ÇATALHÖYÜK 2000 ARCHIVE REPORT

Basketry / Sepet İşçiliği

Willeke Wendrich

Abstract

Evidence for basketry in the form of phytoliths, in-situ impressions and impressions on clay objects were examined. The majority of the remains were coiled baskets or mats but plaited remains were also found.

Özeti

Sepet işçiliği kalıntıları fitolit şeklinde, in-situ baskılarda ve bazı kil objeler üzerindeki baskılarda görülebilmektedir. Kalıntıların çoğunu tabandan baslayarak spiral şeklinde ilerleyerek yapılan sepetler veya hasırlar oluşturmaktadır, ama bazı örgü şeklinde yapılmış kalıntılar da ele geçmiştir.

Traces of basketry and matting have been preserved in Çatalhöyük in three different forms: phytolithic remains, impressions of baskets in situ, and impressions of basketry in clay objects. The phytolithic remains are white-grey to red-brown remains of the actual plant fibres. They are usually preserved in argillacious soil. Because the soil is compact and sticky the basketry remains are usually split in two parts: one part adhering to the top layer, one part to the bottom layer. The top layer often shows an impression (negative) of the basket, while the bottom part represents the basket itself (positive). However, because in most cases the phytolithic remains have ‘collapsed', the ‘positive' is indented and has also the appearance of an impression. In other cases the clay layers contained basketry remains that had been strongly compressed. Splitting the layers resulted in two extremely shallow impressions with an equal amount of phytolith remains adhering to both.

Most of the basketry remains at Çatalhöyük represented coiled basketry. Only the coiled bundle material had more or less survived. Only in rare cases traces of the winders (the stitches with which the spiralling bundle had been fastened) were found. Impressions of coiled basketry on clay balls represented the missing link: on these the winders were visible, while the bundle material was not. The coiled baskets represented the most common form of basketry containers, but may also have been used as small round mats, with diameter of approximately 300 mm. A second type of basketry, plaiting, was only found as impressions, mainly on clay balls and in one instance on a floor layer. The plaited remains probably represented floor matting, rather than containers.