In the past, long ago, a girl named Çiçek lived in the village that today’s people call Çukuriçi Höyük. The girl was both elegant and beautiful and very strong. She would help her elders who cultivated the land, and when it was harvest time, she would collect the food that Mother Earth offered them and take it to the village. At night, she would sit under the starry sky and listen to the stories of the old people from the old people. According to the old people, their ancestors did not live in the village, but in the mysterious caves of Mother Earth. They fed themselves with the plants they found in nature and the animals they hunted. When they realized that the seeds that fell to the ground would grow after a while, they started to cultivate the land. Then they founded villages. While listening to these stories, Çiçek would dream about the past and think about how difficult it was to live in the cave, exposed to all kinds of dangers.
One of the young people of the village, Boğa Kanı, was in love with Çiçek. His only goal was to make her his wife. On the nights when the elders told stories by the fire, he would try to touch Çiçek. Çiçek, on the other hand, did not like Bull Blood at all. She was very uncomfortable with his insistence. Çiçek was in love with Su Yosunu, who came to their village from the other side of the sea every year to sell obsidian. When she first saw him three years ago, she had loved this island boy very much and had never made room for anyone else in her heart. Su Yosunu was also in love with Çiçek. This time, she would not return to her island. She would unite her life with Çiçek and stop selling the obsidian she had bought from Melos Island, which was used to make knives, cutting tools and mirrors, to the villages on the Anatolian coast. Now, instead of trading this black volcanic stone, she would cultivate the land. It was worth it to stay with Çiçek.
When Su Yosunu arrived in the village, the first thing she did was find Çiçek. Su Yosunu from Melos and Çiçek from Çukuriçi hugged each other in front of the villagers. When Taurus Blood saw them, she could hardly hold herself back from killing Su Yosunu.
When Sea Yosu went to Arvalya Village near Çukuriçi to sell obsidian, Bull Blood went after Flower. He chased the girl in secluded corners for hours. Since Flower had gone far away from the village while running away from Bull Blood, she could not make her voice heard by anyone.
Flower ran away, Bull Blood chased. Flower finally found a huge tree hollow, took shelter in its damp depth and stood there for a long time, afraid to even breathe. She was cold, hungry and missed Sea Yosu very much. Had Sea Yosu returned to the village? Finally, when the fatigue and the cold that came in the darkest hour of the night became unbearable, she took the knife made of Melos Island obsidian that she had brought with her to defend herself and slowly left the hollow. There was no sound in the forest other than the wind and the sound of wild animals. Flower was not afraid of wild animals. After all, they were the children of Mother Earth, the Mother Goddess who was the reason for the existence of everything in the world. She was only afraid of Bull Blood.
Çiçek walked for hours and just as she was about to reach the village, she heard footsteps approaching from behind her. Bull Blood had finally found her. Just as the man behind her hugged her, she quickly turned back and stabbed the man in the chest with a knife made of obsidian. When the moonlight hit the man’s face, which rolled to the ground like an apple falling from a branch, Çiçek realized what a mistake she had made. She had not killed Bull Blood, but Sea Yosu, who had come to the village and could not find Çiçek and had set out to look for the girl she loved.
Note: Çukuriçi and Arvalya mounds are the oldest settlements in the Ephesus region. The history of the Neolithic village in Çukuriçi dates back to 7000 BC. The Neolithic Period is the period when people came out of caves, established villages, and began agriculture and animal husbandry. Obsidian tools from Melos Island, which are evidence of long-distance trade, were found in Çukuriçi.
Written by Author Archaeologist Özlem Ertan for the Ephesus Foundation.