Crop Domestication and Gender j 5959 59
platform before the leopard relief sculpture, together with a female figurine, is strong evi-
dence that both women and plant foods were associated with felines. Such a finding sup-
ports the hypothesis that the relief sculptures of leopards functioned as apotropaic images
whose roles included the protection of crops and stored food supplies from other animals,
chiefly rodents and ungulates. If the reliefs represent actual leopards, leopards could have
been viewed in this context as the wild apotheosis of domestic cats seen as protective spirit
animals, which would make them worthy subjects for art. Alternatively, the “leopard”
reliefs may depict mythical hybrids of F. s. lybica and P. pardus— the partially domesticated
wildcat (hereafter referred to as “cat”) and the Anatolian leopard.The “Grain Bin Goddess” of ÇatalhüyükIf we accept the widely held view that the first agriculturalists of the Neolithic were pre-
dominately women, it follows that the first humans to establish the special relationship
with cats that ultimately led to their domestication were also women. Women would have
viewed cats as their natural allies in their perennial war against rodents, both in the agri-
cultural fields and in the grain storage rooms of their houses. The domestication of cats, like
that of dogs, probably involved self- selection for tameness around human middens, where
waste from meals was scavenged, as well as in planted fields where cats were attracted to
rodent concentrations. The human propensity for adopting baby animals as pets and the
selection of those that were easiest to tame, together with the culling of the more resistant
animals, no doubt played a role in the domestication process as well.^63 Eventually, a subpop-
ulation evolved that was tame enough to mingle with humans, and people would have been
able to introduce the tamed cats into their homes. This would have been a natural thing to
do, given the severe mouse infestations in the storage areas. Cats, unlike dogs, are adept at
climbing ladders, so they would have been able to come and go freely despite the absence of
side doors in the houses of Çatalhüyük.
The most iconic example of an artwork that associates felines and women^64 is the strik-
ing clay statue of a seated female that was discovered in a grain bin. Dubbed the “Grain
Bin Goddess,” it consists of an imposing woman seated on what has been described as a
“leopard throne” (Figure 3.15). She is all curves and roundnesses, lending her bulk a pil-
lowy softness. Her ample belly overflows onto her lap like rising dough. Her heavy, well-
demarcated breasts are pushed apart, forming an inverted V that nearly contacts the upright
V formed by her resting belly. The knees and navel are marked by three inverted half- circles
arranged in a triangle, which echoes the angle of the breasts. Another triangle is formed by
the (restored) head of the woman and the heads of the two leopards on either side. Whether
or not such patterns have symbolic meaning, they contribute to the profound artistic and
emotional impact the sculpture evokes even in modern viewers totally outside the frame of
reference of the culture that produced it.
Two enigmatic features of the “Grain Bin Goddess” are worth noting. First, there is a
mysterious small object between the woman’s ankles, which James Mellaart interpreted as
the head of a newborn, thus making this a depiction of childbirth. However, Mellaart also
remarked that the woman’s left foot, though damaged, “rests on what looks like a human
cranium” (Figure 3.15A, arrow). Mellaart’s conclusion was that the statuette represents a
“Great Goddess, Mistress of all life and death.” In contrast, Hodder interpreted the object