LATMOS PAINTINGS
The Neolithic Age rock paintings discovered by Austrian archaeologist Annelise Peshlow Bindokat at Latmos dagı (Besparmak dagları) drew the scholars’ attention Latmos region near Bafa Lake. The images found in this rocky and challenging region changed the region’s chronological history once more. The paintings, painted on the vertical faces of rocks, depicting the rituals and ceremonies performed for various gods of nature, are shocking evidence of the Late Neolithic Age settlement in southwest Anatolia. From the lake level and the Latmos Mountain summit, visitors see these paintings on rock faces and around specific open-air shrines. Unlike the paintings discovered in other parts of the world, mainly showing hunting scenes, the Latmos paintings have family scenes, dancing figures, ceremonies related to spring festivals, fertility, marriage, water, and divinities. Bindokat draws attention to figures embracing each other, indicating desire and love. She also suggests that the T-shaped forms over figures’ heads represent the masks with the horns. Latmos Paintings have animal and geometric patterns such as meander designs, hair patterns, hand images, and human figures. Archaeologists identified the caves and open-air shrines as sacred places where they also discovered obsidian arrowheads, pottery, and figurines resembling the mother-goddess figures. All the finds dating to the Late Neolithic and the Chalcolithic age confirm these paintings’ dates.