Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük

The Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük (also Çatal Höyük) is a baked-clay nude female form seated between feline-headed arm-rests. It is generally thought^[2] to depict a corpulent and fertile Mother goddess^[3] in the process of giving birth while seated on her throne, which has two hand rests in the form of feline (lioness, leopard, or panther) heads in a Mistress of Animals motif. The statuette, one of several iconographically similar ones found at the site, is similar to other corpulent prehistoric goddess figures,^[4] of which the most famous is the Venus of Willendorf.

Seated Woman of Catalhoyuk
Seated Woman of Çatal Höyük: the head is a restoration[1]
Material	Clay
Created	c. 6000 BC
Discovered	1961 Konya, Turkey
Discovered by	James Mellaart
Present location	Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara, Turkey

It is a Neolithic sculpture shaped by an unknown artist, and was completed around 6000 BC. It was unearthed by archaeologist James Mellaart in 1961 at Çatalhöyük, Turkey. When it was found, its head and hand rest of the right side were missing. The current head and the hand rest are modern replacements. The sculpture is at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, Turkey. Mellaart claimed that the figure represented a fertility goddess worshipped by the people of Çatalhöyük.

See also

• Cybele
• List of Stone Age art
• Venus figurines