Story: Great Bull of Catalhoyuk

9,000 years ago, a man leapt onto the back of a wild bull.Roughly 4,000 years before the famous bull-leaping fresco of Knossos in Crete.

The scene was painted on the north wall of the 'Shrine of the Hunters' at Çatalhöyük.
Çatalhöyük. A Neolithic settlement in Çumra, Konya (in modern-day Türkiye), continuously inhabited for nearly 2,000 years from 7500 BC to 5600 BC.

It's been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2012. Built tightly together without doors, the houses were accessed from the roof via ladders.

This mural is located on the north wall of the structure known as the 'Shrine of the Hunters'. James Mellaart discovered it in 1964, during his final excavation season.
All four walls were covered in paintings. Mellaart described them as 'the most impressive works found at Çatalhöyük'.

On the north wall, a massive red bull dwarfs the surrounding human figures. The figures are wearing leopard pelts. Some have lost their pelts due to the sheer intensity of the movements. One is on the bull's back.

Beneath the bull is a female figure: drawn with pointed breasts, armpit hair, and black-soled feet.

This 'bull' is actually an aurochs, a type of wild cattle. Standing around 170 cm at the shoulder, it was much larger and far more athletic than modern cattle.

The last aurochs died in 1627 in Poland's Jaktorów Forest. It was under royal protection, yet it still couldn't be saved. The species went extinct 7,000 years after these walls at Çatalhöyük were painted.

Here's the fascinating part: the scene isn't a hunt.

According to researchers, the figures are provoking the animals, grabbing their tails and tongues. There's no depiction of blood in the scene. There are almost no figures carrying weapons. Mellaart also interpreted this as a 'game'.

According to archaeologist Ian Hodder, the 'wild and hunted aspects' of the bulls were particularly valued in society.

The social power of this ritual was so immense that while domesticated cattle appeared a few hundred kilometers away at Erbaba Höyük around 6500 BC, Çatalhöyük resisted for centuries.According to Arbuckle and Makarewicz, those whose identities were tied to the wild bull hunt actively opposed the ideological shift that domestication would bring.

At Çatalhöyük, walls were replastered 50 to 450 times over the 50 to 100-year lifespan of a house. Every coat of plaster was a new layer, sometimes a new painting.

This bull was painted on a single layer of plaster. And 8,000 years later, it's still there.
Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara, Türkiye.