Çatalhöyük

Çatalhöyük is a Neolithic settlement rising among the wheat fields of the Konya Plain, 52 kilometres southeast of Konya and about 10 kilometres from the centre of Çumra district. Spread over roughly 14 hectares, the town consists of 18 settlement layers dated between 7400 and 6200 BC. Because it bears witness to the shift to settled life, the beginnings of farming and the move from village to urban life, it was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2012. Its name comes from two hills standing side by side. The mound has two summits of different heights, which earned it the word for fork, çatal. The main eastern mound was settled in the Neolithic, and with an area of about 12.5 hectares and a height of up to 20 metres above the plain it forms the heart of the site. The lower western mound was used in the Early Chalcolithic, from around 5600 BC onwards. A branch of the Çarşamba River once flowed between the two mounds. The site was discovered in 1958 by the British archaeologist James Mellaart during a survey of the region. Mellaart's team carried out four excavation seasons between 1961 and 1965 and showed that Anatolia was an advanced cultural centre in the Neolithic. Excavations resumed in 1993 under Ian Hodder of the University of Cambridge and continued with an international team until 2018. The official site of the excavation project has announced that after Hodder's project ended, digging continued with teams from Turkish universities. What makes Çatalhöyük unique is its urban fabric. The houses were built against each other and there were no streets between them. People walked across the flat roofs and went down into the houses by a wooden ladder through a hole in the roof. The houses were made of mudbrick without stone foundations, and beams carried by wooden posts held a flat roof of packed clay laid over reeds. Each house usually had a main room and a storeroom, with a hearth, an oven and raised platforms in the main room. The interiors were coated layer upon layer with white plaster, and 160 coats have been counted in a plaster about 3 centimetres thick. After a house had been used for about 80 years it was cleared and filled in, and a new one was built on top to the same plan. This cycle of renewal is exactly why the mound grew higher. Excavations showed that the houses were kept very clean inside, while rubbish and ash built up in heaps outside them. Wall paintings and reliefs are the best known finds of Çatalhöyük. Hunting scenes, wild cattle, deer and geometric patterns were painted in yellow, red and black over the white plaster. Clay-covered bull horns were set into the walls. A painting found in the 1963 excavations, thought to show the houses of the settlement with a twin-peaked mountain behind them, is often called the oldest known map in the world, although some researchers dispute this reading. The small finds also show the skill of this community. Obsidian mirrors, arrowheads and spearheads, bone tools, stone beads and stamp seals of fired clay have been recovered. Female figurines of fired clay, thought to symbolise abundance, are among the best known examples of Neolithic art. The finds from the excavations are kept in the Konya Archaeological Museum, where part of them is on display and the rest is preserved in storage. The famous map painting is exhibited at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara. At the site the excavation areas lie under large protective roofs, and visitors view the exposed houses beneath these shelters. The eastern mound was abandoned after the Neolithic and, much later, used again in the Phrygian, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods. The ministry's museum page notes that the north shelter is temporarily closed to visitors, so check before you go whether this has changed. The site is run by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the MüzeKart is valid for Turkish citizens; find current opening hours on muze.gov.tr. Driving from Konya on the road towards Çumra is the most practical way to reach Çatalhöyük. Seeing the finds in the Konya Archaeological Museum first and then coming to the site makes it easier to fill in, in your mind, the empty spaces you see in the trenches. There is no shade on the plain, so in summer you should arrive early in the morning and bring water.