MULTIVOCALITY
Pia Andersson
Multivocality is one of the core interests of the Project Director at Çatalhöyük, Ian Hodder. According to himself he has, he is and he wants to continue to try to make the archaeological excavations of Çatalhöyük a place of ‘many voices’. In alignment with these thoughts, a new project was introduced at the archaeological excavations of Çatalhöyük during the season of 2003. This project — which aims at studying, and hopes of aiding the multivocality on site — is part of a PhD thesis conducted at Stockholm University. While the doctorate thesis closer studies ‘alternative archaeology’ and the meeting of science and religion in archaeology today, the project at Çatalhöyük will focus its attention on the frequent religious interest of the site by the Goddess Community, their pilgrimages to the site, their interpretations of the site and how these alternative interpretations and uses of the site work together with archaeological aims, in the name of multivocality.
| She came alone, without being part of an organized travel group. She had found her way to this remote place far away from the ordinary resorts by the coasts. One day she stood there on the rim of our excavation trench, asking us question after question and giving us encouraging cheers. She was obviously more well-read and engaged than the normal tourists, who usually settled with just looking and listening to the monotonous voices of the Turkish guides. She was one of ‘them’, one of them whom we — the archaeologists working at the site — usually and a little irreverent bundled together under the label ‘the mother goddesspeople’. This day was an unusually slow day and she was the only tourist around. Suddenly, one of my collegues invited her to climb down the ladder and come down into the building we were excavating (actually something forbidden for others than us excavating). At first, she didn’t want to, maybe didn’t dare, but soon she let herself be persuaded. As she came down and stood on the floor, her eyes filled with tears, her legs started to shake and her steady stream of words suddenly came to an end. She was overwelmed by standing on the same floor which once, thousands of years ago, the people of the Mother Goddess had stood upon. Her experience was very strong. For me, as I stood there on the very same floor, the contrast between her experience and mine became very clear. Here I stood, among my working tools, longing for a break, with a headache caused by the 30-degrees heat and some layer difficult to interpret. And there she was, having a strong religious experience. The meeting didn’t last very long, soon she hurried up the ladder again as if the ground beneath her was burning the soles of her feet. With a trembling voice she couldn’t stop thanking us. This had been the most important moment during her journey. |
This moving story was told to me across a busy lunch table after a doctorate seminar in Stockholm. Åsa, who had excavated in Çatalhöyük during three seasons, explained to me how they were there constantly visited by bus-loads of ‘mothergoddess-worshippers’ which, while not too interested in the archaeology being done on site, mainly came to do religious rituals on the mound. These visits had over the years become an integrated part of the excavating archaeologist’s daily life in addition to visits from film teams, journalists, locals and tourists. Since my doctorate thesis concerned the relationship between archaeology and new religiosity, the situation at Çatalhöyük seemed to be perfect for my studies. With the help of Åsa I was put in contact with Ian Hodder and now, one and a half years after that lunch, I myself have one season of 9000-year-old dust in my excavation clothes. A project concerning multivocality and the relationship between the Goddess Community and the archaeologists in Çatalhöyük has started.