Çatalhöyük
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How it came to be
Çatalhöyük is a pair of mounds on the Konya plain in central Turkey. According to UNESCO, the eastern mound, up to 20 m high, holds 18 Neolithic levels from 7400 to 6200 BC, and the western mound continued as a Chalcolithic settlement from 6200 to 5200 BC. People lived on the same spot for more than 2,000 years.
The town had no streets: mudbrick houses were built wall to wall and entered through openings in the roof. The dead were buried beneath floors, hearths and sleeping platforms. Houses held wall paintings, reliefs and sculpture, and more than 2,500 clay figurines have been found.
James Mellaart identified the site during a survey in 1958 and excavated it in four seasons between 1961 and 1965. From 1993 the British archaeologist Ian Hodder led a new project that ran until 2018. The site was inscribed in 2012.
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