The Twin Shrines of Beycesultan

Abstract

In the last two decades, extensive excavations and new discoveries have thrown more light on the little known early religions of Anatolia. Certain religious concepts and symbols of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods, which are best illustrated in the religious architecture and art of Çatal Hüyük and Hacilar, may now be considered ancestral to some of the traditions and beliefs in the later Anatolian religions.Sites like Troy, Kusura, Beycesultan, Karahüyük (Konya), Alişar, Kültepe, Alaca Hüyük, Horoztepe, Pulur (Keban) and Tarsus have provided us with material on the religious architecture and art of Bronze Age Anatolia, but, with the exception of Beycesultan, their contribution to the understanding of the early Anatolian pantheons and religions has so far been fragmentary. At Beycesultan, the various changes observed in the altar assemblages of the twin shrines, through the cultural periods of the Bronze Age, may reflect the alterations, additions and conservatism in the religions practised in South-Western Anatolia, and possibly in the other regions of Anatolia as well.