From the first moment I laid eyes on the representations of the “leopard” reliefs from Çatalhöyük they attracted me by what seems a contradiction. On the one hand, there is the rigidity of their formal position: By pose, proportions, and the mirroring of the painted figures on their bodies, the “leopards” show strong reflection symmetry. On the other hand, the figures differ in kind and in pattern from layer to plastered layer and by stratigraphic level (Hodder 2006: 10; Mellaart 1967: 119). When the “leopards” are compared to other paintings in the same stratigraphic levels, the contradiction becomes even stronger: In the “vulture” paintings, for example, the central figure is asymmetric and figures are positioned much more freely. Why are these reliefs so rigid by their positioning and pose, while the skin patterns differ by layer and level and other paintings are asymmetrical and much more freely positioned? My curiosity was aroused and I wanted to analyze them in more detail.

Returning, in the course of this essay, to the themes of the position of the observer, the changing of the pattern on the skin, the focus on the navel, and the continuities between “leopard” and “bear” reliefs, and related seals used in later phases of the settlement, I will try to show how spatial patterns of formal and more free positioning function with these two kinds of artifacts and can be analyzed as means of identification and communication.