Fascinating. You’d think that everybody living in the Neolithic Period would be spending 100% of every waking hour obtaining food. I’m amazed that people had the time needed to make all these ornate carvings. There was no currency or coinage in that era. How did the sculptures get paid? Did other people just provide them food and clothing?
Makes you wonder how their society was organized and how people had time for a “profession” such as sculpture.
And along with the SOME PIG you have the building itself: “...consisting of massive T-shaped pillars, some as tall as 16 feet and weighing 50 tons.”
There was no currency or coinage in that era. How did the sculptures get paid? Did other people just provide them food and clothing?
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How could their government collect taxes?
They didn’t have cards or monopoly...”Me know what do...make boar”...
“Makes you wonder how their society was organized and how people had time for a “profession” such as sculpture.”
I’m pretty sure the chief and the shaman (or priest) identified people with talents that were important to all. For their labors they were paid in whatever was available; a hunk of boar meat, perhaps some goat, maybe some fish.
Food was probably the first currency.
Salt was sometimes worth it’s weight in silver or gold to those without access to it.
...and with that amount of detail, it surely wasn’t their first carving...
It may not be a really good analogy, but in the Age of Sail many sailors created nice art. Scrimshaw (carvings on bone or ivory) was popular with whalers. Others made wooden models of ships. When they weren’t working, they had time on their hands, so they got creative. Back to the Neolithic Period — I believe there have been studies showing that a lot of hunter gatherer societies had a great deal of free time. It was often quite easy to hunt and to gather. So ... tell stories or make art. Not many other options.
The idea of ‘sacrifices’ in ancient religions can easily be spun into ‘barbecue to feed the priests’.
>>There was no currency or coinage in that era.
There is a theory that credit was developed before money.
In these small cities people knew very well who had done what and was owed how much by whom.
Actually, southeastern Turkey is very close to the Fertile Crescent, where organized farming and urban planning began about 11,000 years ago.
That was one giant step up the standard of living ladder for a lot of people.
How was wealth transferred before coins and currency?
Good question - since monetary systems did not really exist before 1,000 BC, and those same systems have been routinely collapsing for the last 3,000 years!