Çatalhöyük

I visited this site in May 2025. As mentioned, there is a brand new museum that is really well-done. There's interactive screens and buttons you can press to learn about the different reasons Çatalhöyük is important. For instance, Çatalhöyük showed evidence of a egalitarian society, with no difference in the treatment of men and women. No one home unit was more elaborate or larger than another, also seen as evidence towards this point. There is, additionally, a replica of the houses on site (pictured) that you can freely walk into and get a feel for what it might have been like thousands of years ago. Other facilities on site: cafe, bathrooms, gift shop, and lookout tower. I was a big fan of the museum and found it to be really interesting. The reason I didn't rate it higher is simply because there isn't much to see of the actual archeological part! When I was there, they said only 10% of the estimated remains had been excavated. Additionally, most of the findings (statues, tools, etc) in the museum are replicas; the real versions are in the Konya Archeological Museum. I don't personally mind all the replicas, but some might. 

The main reason I wanted to make this review was to highlight that there is now a daily shuttle going to Çatalhöyük from Konya's city center (which is also a tentative site itself). The company is Dolash Konya City Tours, where they tell you it's a "guided tour" but it's …

After reading the reviews of other users of the site, I realized that visiting Çatalhöyük is completely different now and requires a new review. In the end of 2023, a completely new museum was opened (although the name ‘interpretive center’ sounds better, since there are very few original artifacts here). Because of this, the place is no longer free, foreigners pay the equivalent of 5 euros - but believe me, it will be money well spent. The museum is well constructed and presents the history of the excavations and their importance very well. In an interactive way, you can learn a lot about archaeology, discoveries in the area of Çatalhöyük, and even how scientists came to specific conclusions. Great emphasis was placed on explaining the uniqueness of Çatalhöyük - the place had been continuously inhabited for almost two millennia and had an unusual, egalitarian social structure.

To get to know the entire museum well, you need to spend at least 1-1.5 hours, but after such a lesson, no one will have any doubts that they are viewing one of the most important archaeological sites in the world. Then you can go outside, to the replicas of ancient houses and to the site itself. There is no problem with mud anymore - you can walk everywhere via a new wooden ramp. Currently, only one stand is available, but the ramp also leads to the second one, which leads us to believe that its opening is also planned.

The archaeological …

In September 2019 I went there with my parents on a road trip. It is in Konya borders. around 30 minutes to city and 15min to the main road.

You can take a taxi from Konya or with Dolmus (small shuttles) you can take from Cumra.

It was very interesting to see how people lived thousand years ago and seeing one of the first human settlement in history. 

You can see 9.000 years ago what they ate, how they did the agriculture, where they sit and slept. House designs etc. 

Design of the houses were interesting to protect themselves they made the entrance from the roof with a wooden ladder. so all the houses are connected to each other. there is no street. 

On January 2nd and to kick of 2022, I went to look at a mud hill, i.e., Çatalhöyük. A 30min taxi ride from downtown Konya had taken me to a archaeological site in a rural village with gravel roads. And all there was to see was a muddy hill with a large tent on top. Not sure, what that says about my life ;)

The site is free, but guarded. The guard first made me visit the on site museum. He was so kind to turn on the light, but there was little content to illuminate. The exposition reminded me more of an exposition at my high school than of a museum for one of the most important global archaeological sites for early human settlements.

In front of the museum is a replica hut, so I visited that, before making my way up the hill and the tent to see the excavation. The whole hill actually covers the ancient city, but only portions have been permanently excavated. It's strikingly obvious why when you see the open parts: The mud walls are crumbling and the archaeologists are fighting to stabilize them.

The excavated parts under the tent give a good view of the densely populated village. Houses were build wall to wall with garbage dumps in between. And even on top of each other over the centuries. Humans were buried below the houses, possibly in the old houses which is a reason for the rich finds.

You …

I visited this WHS in Spring 2021. Catalhoyuk is a few kilometres away from Konya, which is a great city to base yourself for a couple of days. This WHS has a free entrance which was a very welcome change after the crazy post-COVID lockdown price spikes all over Turkey.

Catalhoyuk was a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately 7500 BC to 6400 BC. As such, it is a very precarious archaeological dig covered with 2 big tents (not as modern as the one in Gobeklitepe, but with a wooden boardwalk through one of them). Most of the remains are still underground even though the site was discoverd in 1958. Most of the mud walls are crumbling or have already crumbled notwithstanding the wooden supports and several sacks which have been placed. According to UNESCO, the site's OUV lies in the important evidence it provides of the transition from settled villages to urban agglomeration, which was maintained in the same location for over 2,000 years. It features a unique streetless settlement of houses clustered back to back with roof access into the buildings.

Catalhoyuk was composed entirely of domestic buildings, with no obvious public buildings even though the larger buildings have rather ornate murals. Unlike Arslantepe, most of these wall paintings have been removed and placed in museums around Turkey, most notably in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara. This same museum houses the famous clay sculpture of a …

Again, a place I went to as a last-minute decision and probably the most fascinating archaeological site I have visited up to date.

Some personal story of the visit: it was back in early August 2012, so the site had just been nominated on the list. In fact, I do not remember if I was aware of its World-Heritage status, but surely my guide book wasn't. I was just curious of the description and, as it happend that we (a group of 5 people) were in Konya and heading to Kapadokia the next day, I managed to convince a friend to set off for Çatalhöyük at 6am, so as to be back at a decent time to continue with the others. And so it was!

I remember that it was very easy to reach the site: we were by car and just took the road to the south-east across the country, and after less than an hour we were there. There is not much else on the way, just cultivated fields and small villages. I don't remember particular signs. At first we thought the site was closed, there were no signs and no indications of opening hours nor any obvious entrance. But it just turned out that it was before 8am and we were the ones to waken the people there on that morning... poor fellows, no peace for them!!! However, the site was already somehow prepared for visitors, since the archaeologist who, before "going back to …

Çatalhöyük is one of the World’s great “iconic” archaeological sites – not because of any monumental remains but because of the light it shone and is still shining, on daily life in the Neolithic age. What is “on show” is basically an archaeological dig which has uncovered a series of houses dating back around 9000 years and covering occupation across 2000 years. The walls, floors and features (e.g House graves) are presented largely as they were uncovered. Indeed the dig is still in progress with researchers carrying out further digging each year. One particularly famous discovery was made as recently as the 2011 season – a wall painting which, one theory suggests, may have been “a map showing brick pathways across the rooftops of Çatalhöyük”

The site has yielded significant artifacts and artistic work (particularly figurines. wall paintings, obsidian mirrors etc) but, understandably, these have been removed. The discoveries have also led to the development of a number of hypotheses about social organization and religion in the Neolithic age. The dig itself has adopted and developed new archaeological approaches and techniques Anyone interested in Catalhoyuk should really make sure that they visit the “Museum of Anatolian Civilisations” in Ankara where many of these are on show - and very fine they are! I personally would try to go there before seeing the site.

At the entrance to the site (but outside the core zone) are an experimental reconstructed house with reconstructed decorations and artifacts and a small museum. I am …