Lost Cities - An Oldest City and a legend verified

[gsmoove23]

Anyone for Catalhoyuk in Turkey? Dated to the 8th millenium BC, no stone wall but lots and lots of houses clumped together. Doesn't seem to get as much press as Jericho for some reason. But neither of these are cities, nor are they on the massive scale of this 'lost' city in India. Catalhoyuk has been described as an overgrown town and the problem with Jericho is its a wall around a mud layer so the actual nature of the settlement is difficult to discern. The wall is impressive and obviously took organization to put together, but organization does not necessarily make a city. Chieftain gathers people from the surrounding countryside and voila.

[gsmoove23]

Anyway, some people also call Catalhoyuk the oldest city, whether it deserves the claim or not.

[Ethelred]

Perhaps if you had posted a link you would have gotten more of a response.

[gsmoove23]

Sorry, I got my info the old fashioned way, learned it in school. But I spelled it right if you want to look it up.

[Ethelred]

No I don't want to look it up. I looked up other cities and the BS index was exceedingly high. Now if you want to support what you said you are very wellcome to do the search (and find out how its spelled on the net) and post a link to something other than a BS tourist site I would like to look at it. Today I don't have the time to hunt through the BS.

[gsmoove23]

Oh for crying out loud, you should know the name if you've ever picked up a history of civilization book written after 1960, but you're right and please forgive me. Here are 3 sites I've found in 2 minutes of looking.

http://www.telesterion.com/catal1.htm

http://www.focusmm.com/civcty/cathyk00.htm

http://www.mfa.gov.tr/grupc/ca/caa/uu/orta%20anadolu/hoyuk.htm

They all seem to differ on the date of establishment but they all claim it to be the oldest city. I didn't bring it up because I wanted to challenge Jericho's claim, Just to show another example of a settlement widely claimed to be the oldest city since the 1950s and 60s with a little evidence to back it up.

[Demerzel]

Originally posted by ThaddeusAlexander


You don't know what thanksgiving is?

~Thadalex

heh 'course I know what thanksgiving is, it's when we give thanks for having the Americans 3000 miles away isn't it?

You might want to calm down Ethelred, you seem to be giving a tad bit stressed over a simple discussion.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
Oh for crying out loud, you should know the name if you've ever picked up a history of civilization book written after 1960, but you're right and please forgive me. Here are 3 sites I've found in 2 minutes of looking.

I have done that and I hadn't heard of the city. I admit I don't get every issue of Archeology.

http://www.telesterion.com/catal1.htm

The oldest layer of Catal Huyuk yet excavated (virgin soil has not been reached) is reliably carbon dated to 6,500 B.C,, and reveals a thriving, completely developed and planned, city.

Nice but not quite as old as Jericho or that new Indian site. Might be a bit of hyperbole however since the page also says that only one acre has been excavated. Not much excavation for claiming it was planned. It might however be enough to establish that is wasn't just a jumble.

http://www.focusmm.com/civcty/cathyk00.htm

That site is better. I think the distinction between it and Jericho is the walls though this city looks larger. However the claim on the previous that it was a planned city seems a tad exessive based on the images on this page.

http://www.focusmm.com/civcty/cathyk04.htm

http://www.mfa.gov.tr/grupc/ca/caa/uu/orta%20anadolu/hoyuk.htm

Not as usefull as the second link. Don't see anything to comment on there.

They all seem to differ on the date of establishment but they all claim it to be the oldest city.

Its a fairly small range in comparison to some of the cities claimed as oldest. 8000 to 9000 years. That puts it in about the same range as Jericho and the underwater Indian site. Give or take a thousand which seems to be range of error. 500 hundred years either way of the middle.

I didn't bring it up because I wanted to challenge Jericho's claim, Just to show another example of a settlement widely claimed to be the oldest city since the 1950s and 60s with a little evidence to back it up.

Thank you. Looks like a lot more than village. Too many people to call it just a village. More like a town which is what can be expected for early cities. I can't yet see signs of a merchant class which I consider the most important aspect of a city, the tools could be from specialist or maybe just the best at it amongst farmers. I don't know if Jericho had signs of a merchant class either till the higher levels.

To me the key item of civilization is the emergence of specialized ways of making a living. Merchants, skilled craftsment and the like. A religious class probably arose before even the earliest city maybe even without villages so I don't consider that an attribute only of cities. A rulling class might have arose around the same time as larger villages. Hard to tell since even when cities and trade are firmly established some rulers still apear to have been farming on occasion.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Demerzel


You might want to calm down Ethelred, you seem to be giving a tad bit stressed over a simple discussion.

Just argueing. I like to argue.

[gsmoove23]

The maddening thing about archaeology is that the only thing anybody ever is able to say for sure is they don't know for sure. This goes for defining a city as well, I've seen many differing definitions. I prefer that famous quote from some conservative American statesman that I've forgotten the name of, when asked to define pornography "I'll know it when I see it".

Well Ethelred, you critiqued my references and one like turn deserves another I checked out yours(if you think I'm being combatative please realize that I also like to argue and you're right, I am combatative)

-Neolithic Tower

Discovered and excavated by Kathleen Kenyon in her Trench I, the Neolithic tower was built and destroyed in Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, which Kenyon dated to 8000-7000 B.C. The 8m diameter tower stands 8m tall and was connected on the inside of a 4m thick wall.

On the basis of this discovery, archaeologists have claimed that Jericho is the "oldest city in the world." Clearly such monumental construction reflects social organization and central authority, but there are good reasons to question both its dating to the 8th millennium B.C. and its function as a defensive fortification.

-from http://www.bibleplaces.com/jericho.htm

I haven't been able to find reasons for the questioning of the date but I did find these sites which elaborates on the finds at the site.

http://ancientneareast.tripod.com/07.html

http://ancientneareast.tripod.com/Jericho_Tell_Sultan.html

The dating seems to be earlier but its status I think is questionable. There doesn't seem to be much evidence of a large population and the existence of large walls isn't a reason to automatically assume a large population.

Catalhoyuk seems to lack much in the way of higher organization unless u consider the organization involved in simply sustaining such a large pop evident by the amount of dwellings found.

[ThaddeusAlexander]

Originally posted by Demerzel
heh 'course I know what thanksgiving is, it's when we give thanks for having the Americans 3000 miles away isn't it?

See since I'm in Canada that doesn't really apply to me...

Cheers
~Thadalex

[ThaddeusAlexander]

Has anyone else noticed how Ethelred likes the word "Hyperbole" and the "Walls" of jericho a lot?

Maybe hyperbole was one of the few "toilet paper word of the day" words that stuck

Cheers
~Thadalex

[Demerzel]

Originally posted by ThaddeusAlexander


See since I'm in Canada that doesn't really apply to me...

Cheers
~Thadalex

Unlucky. Maybe in the future you'll have enough money to move somewhere further from the American menace?

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
On the basis of this discovery, archaeologists have claimed that Jericho is the "oldest city in the world." Clearly such monumental construction reflects social organization and central authority, but there are good reasons to question both its dating to the 8th millennium B.C. and its function as a defensive fortification.

-from http://www.bibleplaces.com/jericho.htm


I haven't been able to find reasons for the questioning of the date but I did find these sites which elaborates on the finds at the site.

Well the tower is in the second level at Jericho. This earliest wall is older from I have read before. The thing about dating with Jericho is that the Fundamentalists don't want ANYTHING older than they think the Bible allows. Since Jericho is in the Bible its treated from a religious point of view far more often than from a more academic archeologist viewpoint.

http://ancientneareast.tripod.com/07.html

http://ancientneareast.tripod.com/Jericho_Tell_Sultan.html

Those sites are both using the same source. Anyway the source is basicly saying the C14 dating has a bigger range of error then he would like. To me the dating seems OK but not perfect, close to being within the range of error. The British Museum and the Philidelphia lab have a fairly small gap between them when you take the error range into account.

That Turkish site didn't give the error range. So we can't judge it accuracy againt the Jericho tests. Especially since the dating may have been done longer ago than the Jericho dating. In other words with older equipment.

The dating seems to be earlier but its status I think is questionable. There doesn't seem to be much evidence of a large population and the existence of large walls isn't a reason to automatically assume a large population.

I don't think Jericho had a large population at least early on. The only thing the walls do is show a higher level of orginizational sophistication than many unwalled cities do.

Catalhoyuk seems to lack much in the way of higher organization unless u consider the organization involved in simply sustaining such a large pop evident by the amount of dwellings found.

Its likely most of the organization was in the fields. Who worked what land and such. Without signs of irrigation there isn't a lot of high level long term organization needed. Many of the early civilizations were built around irrigation which forced them to develop a beuracracy of some kind.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by ThaddeusAlexander
Has anyone else noticed how Ethelred likes the word "Hyperbole" and the "Walls" of jericho a lot?

Hyperbole and claims of which city is the oldest go together quite often.

Maybe hyperbole was one of the few "toilet paper word of the day" words that stuck

Cheers
~Thadalex

You need that toilet paper. Get it now.