Çatalhüyük

Central Anatolia

Province: Konya

Altitude: 1,010m/3,315ft

Village: Çatalhüyük near Çumra

Situation and *Importance

Some 18m/59ft high and 12ha/30 acres in area, the Çatalhüyük settlement mound is part of a much larger complex covering a total of 21ha/52 acres, of which only about 5% has so far been excavated. The hüyük is situated on the left bank of the Çarsamba Çayi, in the Konya Ovasi, about 10km/6mi northeast of the little town of Çumra (formerly Çumra Istasyon). The site created headlines in the 1960s following excavations carried out by James Mellaart. He had made a preliminary survey of the mound in 1958, but was later refused permission to excavate further after finds began to surface abroad. The date of the very earliest settlement has been put at 6250 B.C.; traces of fire suggest that the last of the ten settlements uncovered was abandoned around 5400 B.C. The Çatalhüyük mound is just one of many places on the vast Konya Plain known to have been occupied between the seventh and third millennia B.C. More recent sedimentation has since rendered many hüyüks unrecognisable, and virtually the whole plain has been brought under the plough. The earliest levels at Çatalhüyük now lie buried more than 2m/6.5ft below the surface of the surrounding plain.

Construction of dwellings

The dwellings excavated at Çatalhüyük were found to be remarkably similar in construction to traditional buildings still seen today. Only the lay-out of the settlement proved strikingly different. The houses, each roughly 25sq.m/30sq.yd in area, were flat-roofed, with a single living space and a storeroom. In addition to a bench, hearth and oven, the rooms were furnished with platforms, presumably used for working and sleeping on but also for burials. The dead were left in the open outside the settlement until scavenging animals had stripped the skeleton clean. Dressed in their clothes they were then interred beside or under the sleeping platforms, continuing their participation, so to speak, in family life. The settlement had no streets as such, the rectangular houses being close grouped in large blocks with, here and there, a courtyard serving as a latrine and rubbish dump.

The houses were entered by wooden ladder, American pueblo-style via the smoke-hole. The floor was compacted mud, the walls mud-brick with mud, plaster and lime rendering. Reeds were used to strengthen the roof. Sometimes there was a timber frame. Amazingly in view of the vulnerability of mud to weathering, some brickwork is still clearly recognisable. Fire must have fortuitously "baked" the bricks, hardening them and making them more weather resistant.

Population and Economy

Çatalhüyük was almost certainly one of the largest New Stone Age settlements, with a population of about 5,000 made up of three different ethnic types: Eurafrican (59%), Alpine (24%) and Mediterranean (17%). The men had an average height of 170cm/5ft 9ins and a life expectancy of 34 years, the women 155cm/5ft 1.5ins and about 30 years. The economy, though mainly agrarian - wheat, fruit and vegetable cultivation using simple methods of irrigation, stock rearing and some fishing - was also craft based. A wide range of artifacts were produced including obsidian weapons and tools, cult objects, and items for everyday use made from bone, leather, wood and basketwork. This division of labor between farmers and artisans gave the settlement a truly urban character and makes Çatalhüyük one of the world's oldest towns. Its trade links reached as far afield as Cyprus, Syria and Mesopotamia. The settlement had no walls protecting it, which may account for its eventual destruction some 7,500 years ago.

Myths and art

Çatalhüyük was evidently also the center of a religious cult, relics of which can be seen in the Hittite Museum in Ankara though not any longer in situ. Bulls' heads and horns decorated nearly every house, suggesting a vigorous cult of the bull (hence also the name Çatalhüyük, meaning "antler mound"). Clay figurines of obese goddesses would also indicate an active fertility cult, further evidence of which is found in some of the polychrome wall paintings. Other paintings include hunting scenes with men depicted as bulls, rams or bears. A particularly striking picture shows Çatalhüyük itself (in plan) below the outline of an erupting volcano - probably one of the big Central Anatolian volcanos (Karadag, Hasan Dag), still active at the time and permanently under the gaze of this Neolithic people.