A season of great finds and new faces at Çatalhöyük

Word quickly got round that we had found a ‘goddess' figurine.

Figure 2. A robust female figure made from marble or calcite (highly corroded) with divided legs, large buttocks, and a slightly protruding stomach. The figure holds its arms up to its breasts and incised lines indicate the breast divide, pubic triangle/stomach, and divided legs on the front; similarly incised marks delineate arms, divided legs, and a horizontal detail across the upper legs on the back. The head and face appear to have been worked, but were possibly modified or defaced. There is a suggestion of hair or a head-cap (Figurine Report 2004 Archive).

We were amazed that people emailed us at site from as far away as the United States, Britain, South America, Australia just a couple of days after we unearthed the small limestone figure. Badly eroded (Fig. 2), it nevertheless had all the classic proportions of the naked representations of women that Mellaart had found in the upper levels of the site in his excavations in the 1960s. The current project had not found an example of this famous figurine type since it began working in 1993. So when the object was found, in redeposited midden material in a grave, we all felt the thrill of excitement.

This was by no means the only remarkable find we made in 2004. It was by the far the most productive year we have had in terms of special finds – both objects and architecture. We found other finely made figurines, including one with an elongated head and neck (see Fig. 23). Beneath the floor of a platform in Space 100 we found a cache of broken clay animal figurines. In that same house we found large numbers of bull horns, some definitely covered in a white plaster (see Fig.18). In Building 45 horns were found set in a large shaped rectangle of clay – this was probably a setting of horns on a pedestal or pillar. This pedestal with horns was found in a side room of the building (see Figs.25). It had probably been dismantled from one of the pedestal scars we found in the main room of that building before the building burned down. This was an especially large building with substantial walls and oven complex. We found our first obsidian mirror (see Fig.42) – though unfinished and from a redeposited context. Then, in our final week of excavation, from the same building in the South Area from where the Figure 2 figurine was found in Building 42 we found the first painted and plastered human skull at Çatalhöyük (see Fig. 4).

The practice of modelling facial features in plaster on skulls is generally known from Early Neolithic sites in the Levant, such as Jericho and ‘Ain Ghazal, but in Anatolia it has hitherto only been found at the Late Neolithic site of Köşk Höyük where 11, plastered but unpainted, skulls have been recorded (Bonogofsky 2004 Archive Report).

The skull found at Çatalhöyük was from a grave context in Building 42, and was held in the arms of a woman against her chest (see Fig. 3).

Figure 3 Burial of an adult female under the northeast platform of Building 42 with a plastered and painted skull held in her arms. Some beads were also found in association with this grave.

The skull was modelled in a powder-like lime plaster from brow to chin (the lower jaw was however, displaced) and covered with a red pigment (Fig. 4). From preliminary observations it appears that the ‘colour' in the eye sockets was layered with plaster, the implication being that the skull was remodelled more than once. However this was a very preliminary analysis as we found the burial in our last week of excavation. Precious time was therefore spent in in situ conservation, lifting and preparations for display in the Konya Archaeological Museum. The decision to remove this ‘artefact' from its primary context was conditioned by a number of factors: access to this context was difficult being on the edge of a ‘plinth' of strata; the burial had been riddled by mole rats leaving unstable voids; it would have taken weeks to conserve and lift the complete skeleton with the skull; and we did not have the option of leaving it in situ for the following season. We therefore treated the skull as a burial artefact, which also meant that we had to sacrifice some of the skeleton that held the skull in its arms.

Figure 4 This skull and lower jaw was plastered from its forehead to its chin and painted with red pigment. The eye sockets appear filled with layers of plaster and red paint suggesting that the plastering and painting took place several times. The nose is shaped in plaster and painted in red.

The season only lasted from late June to early August and so the spectacular finds were not the result of a long season. They were more the result of a decision that we have made to excavate on a larger scale. In the first phase of excavation and post-excavation from 1995 to 2002, we had concentrated on painstaking analysis of the sequences by which individual houses were built, lived in, destroyed and rebuilt. We had amassed a large amount of detail but did not have a good sense of larger-scale organization of the site as a whole. Certainly James Mellaart had excavated on a grand scale. But in the second phase of excavation which began in 2003 we had wanted to see whether modern scientific excavation could lead to fuller understanding of the site's overall organization.

So in 2004 we experimented with a variety of new sampling techniques so that the excavators could dig more quickly while still collecting the detailed scientific data that are needed. But one simple result of ‘moving more earth', digging on a larger scale, was of course that we found more. A large team (we reached 100 people at one point – rather too many for our dig house and facilities!) had been amassed, consisting both of excavators and laboratory staff. We were thus able to open up many new areas and excavate on a number of fronts.

In terms of the excavation programme the research aims for the current 5-year phase of the project (2003-7) deal with the social geography of the settlement and larger community structure. We aim to answer the questions: how were production, social relations and art organised beyond the domestic unit? How did this organisation develop over time? Does the social geography of Çatalhöyük involve groups of houses clustered around dominant houses or is all social and economic life decentralised and based on equivalent domestic units of production? The areas and structures excavated this year were therefore targeted with these questions in mind.

Excavation took place in three areas of the East mound in 2004 (Fig. 5). The three areas were: 4040 Area, an area scraped in 2003 on the northern eminence of the mound; the TP Area, an area excavated by Team Poznań since 2001 at the crest of the mound; and the South Area, an area excavated since 1995 incorporating the 1960s trenches and covered by a shelter constructed in 2002 .

In the 4040 Area the aim over the next 3 years is to excavate all the buildings in plan to their latest Neolithic occupation horizon, as well as to cover the area with a protective structure that will allow visitor access throughout the year and provide cover for excavations in the summer months. The next phase of work will then target excavation in specific buildings and spaces covering a range of building type and date. Accordingly excavation in 2004 examined a 10x40m strip straddling a number of ‘zones' of structures separated by ‘streets/alleys'. In total this season 9 buildings were excavated and three external areas which ranged from Levels III – VI (see summary of excavation reports below).

Excavations in the TP Area concentrated on a complex sequence of midden and constructional layers placed on a structure that appears to be remains of the fallen roof of a late Neolithic building. In an extension trench that work began on last season, four burials and three clusters of human bones were excavated. All of them were placed between the walls of Roman buildings. Other work in this area focused on remains of the Roman production facilities such as walls, pits, floors and kilns associated with west part of Buildings 30 and 31 excavated in 2002.

Figure 5 East and West mounds at Çatalhöyük showing areas of excavation.

In accord with our overall research aims, in the South Area we are examining the chronological development of houses in relation to each other from the very base of the mound (Fig. 6). Our work here therefore is to reach the base of the mound but in a larger area than was exposed in 1999. This requires strategic planning of where and to what depth to excavate in order to dig deep in a safe and coherent manner. The trench where the base of the mound was reached in 1999 falls in the centre of the South Area. In order to extend this trench we need to excavate surrounding structures in a stepped manner. Therefore, in order to reach our ‘natural' target we have first to move further away from that focal point, but whilst doing so we will be fulfilling the aim of excavating a temporal sequence. Towards this longer term aim we targeted 4 buildings this season. At the very highest point to the east was the South Summit Area (differentiated from the Summit Area excavations conducted by the team from Thessaloniki University 1996-7), where Building 44 was excavated and is tentatively dated to Level IV-V. To the centre of the southern side of the South Area, an upstanding ‘island' left from the 1960s, was excavated as Building 42, attributed to Level V. This was the building from which the plastered skull was excavated. On the northern side of the area we excavated Building 50 of Level VII. The fourth building we excavated this year was located towards the centre of the area, Building 43, Level VIII.

In addition we exposed, treated and lifted a small section of wall painting that had been revealed at the end of the last season in Building 2, Level IX. Located in a shallow upper niche, centrally located in the north wall of Building 2, the painting is an abstract design of red on white with traces of black strokes (Fig. 7).

Figure 6 South Area. Excavations are taking place in buildings of different Levels in order to learn about the chronological development of houses in relation to each other and to reach the base of the mound in a stepped manner. The base of the mound was reached in the ‘shored' area in the centre of this image. This photograph was taken from the South Summit Area, Building 44. To the left is the ‘plinth' where Building 42 is under excavation, in the centre is Building 43 and top right is Building 50. The abstract ‘art' is being lifted in Building 2,   to the right of the ‘shoring', by Liz Pye and Dean Sully.

The team

The 2004 team consisted of contract excavators employed from the UK, Turkey, the US, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania. University funded field schools were: Team Poznań from the University of Poznań and the Polish Academy of Science; Stanford University Field School, and University of California at Berkeley Field School. Researchers and analysts were from UK universities: Institute of Archaeology, University College London; University of Sheffield; University of Nottingham; University of Reading; University of Liverpool and Cardiff University. US universities included Cornell University, Stony Brook University, Ohio State University and University of Wisconsin-Madison and, in Turkey the universities involved were: Hacetepe University; Istanbul University; Anadolu University and Selcuk University. Funded individuals came from the UK, the US, Iran, Sweden and Denmark.

A number of individuals working on Masters and PhD programmes also spent time on site researching and collating data. Summaries of these research projects are presented below.

Our IT support team from the Museum of London has been developing our now large database. They have spent much of the year integrating the project's numerous ‘stand alone' databases into a single interrogative and relational database which very soon will be made accessible to our global team. Thanks to our IBM sponsors, whose donations included two powerful new servers, one for site and one for the Cambridge office. Not only will the database be accessible and interrogative, it will be live for data entry and modifications from across the globe. Access to modify the database will of course be restricted. During the summer months, when the field season is in progress, the database in Cambridge will be frozen whilst we work on the ‘live' database on the site intranet system. Due to poor internet connection on the Konya plain, the site database will not be globally accessible, but once the season is over, the updated database will be transferred back to the Cambridge office where it will be switched to ‘live' again.

Concurrently our image database is under construction at MACTIA UC Berkeley. This will enable the team to access the photographic archive. Images will be searchable by many criteria and searching will not be restricted to specialist terminology.

Our conservation team is headed by Liz Pye and Dean Sully from the conservation department at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL who have joined the project to participate in a collaborative study of the site and to embed conservation into the project. The main objectives of the conservation team are to support the field project, and to research and develop several different facets of conservation: field conservation; specialist processes; conservation of structures; reflexive conservation.

Figure 7 Professional conservator Brigid Gallagher conserves the lifted section of painting from a small shallow niche in Building 2. The painting appears to be an abstract design of red on white with occasional black strokes.

A number of UCL placement students worked on selected dissertation topics and provided support to the team's professional conservators.

Future possible topics for placement students: