Bringing Çatalhöyük to life
Çatalhöyük is an active archaeological site. This means that our understandings of its people and history are in flux as new information is uncovered each year. The task of presenting this information to you has been taken on by the visualisation team, alongside our audio-visual specialists, community team and education team. Click here to find details on team members past and present.
Below you can read about and download examples of some of our most recent work. For full details on the accomplishments of our visualisation, community and education teams, please click here to see our Archive Reports.
The Visitor’s Centre at Çatalhöyük features exhibitions on the archaeology of the site, the history of excavations, and the many interpretations of life on site in the past and present. It also houses replica objects and interactive displays. Rather than being held on site, objects excavated at Çatalhöyük are transferred to the Konya Archaeological Museum. Objects excavated during the Mellaart years have been stored at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara. You can see some of these original materials on exhibit in both museums.
Our guidebook provides an overview of the current interpretations of Neolithic life at Çatalhöyük. It is designed as an introduction to the site, and its printing has been sponsored by KOP (www.kop.gov.tr). The guidebook is available on site from our site guards, or download it here in Turkish (PDF, 6MB) or English (PDF, 6MB).
Our brochure is designed for visitors to the site. It offers a map of the premises to guide your tour around the replica house, North and South Areas, as well as basic information on the culture and history of Çatalhöyük. The brochure is available for free from our site guards, or download it here (PDF, 4MB).
Our education team runs workshops with nearly 1000 children and young adults from Konya and neighbouring towns each year. These workshops consist of a mixture of activities, including guided tours, excavation experiences, creative drama and critical discussion. Download one of the team’s educational publications in Turkish here.
Around the site you will find signage explaining some of the features you can see in the excavation areas, as well as outlining the archaeological process. The North Area signage and excavations provide you with a glimpse of a single Çatalhöyük neighbourhood. The South Area signage and excavations offer an overview of Çatalhöyük across its 1500 years of occupation.
We produce thousands of photographs and illustrations of Çatalhöyük, many used in our research publications, and others used for public interpretation. Archives of a selection of these images can be found through our Research Portal and on Flickr.
Our site specialists have been using digital technologies for many years now to record and visualise Çatalhöyük. These technologies include everything from laser scanning to virtual reality modelling, some of which you can see being applied on site during the summer months when archaeologists are at work. For a recent example of a digital model of a Çatalhöyük building constructed by one of our former team members, click here.
Our visualisation team is regularly commissioned to prepare exhibitions for different audiences, both on and off site. Most recently we curated the 60-panel 50 Years of Excavation at Çatalhöyük, sponsored by Yapı Kredi and exhibited at the European Association of Archaeologists conference in Istanbul.