Archaeologists at Çatalhöyük, one of the most important sites in central Türkiye, have unearthed new evidence of ritual activity that sheds light on early town life and spiritual practices. The site, located on the edge of the Konya Plain near the modern city of Konya, was occupied from 7100 to 5950 BCE and is commonly described as a proto-city. The population at its height was 3,000 to 8,000 residents who lived in тιԍнтly packed mud-brick houses on approximately 34 acres of land.
Catalhoyuk excavation, 2006: Archaeologists excavating a child burial. Credit: Dr. Colleen Morgan / CC BY 2.0
The settlement grew in cycles of building and rebuilding. Each house would be inhabited for roughly 80 years before being systematically dismantled. The walls were deconstructed and compacted to construct new foundations, eventually forming the large clay mounds that dominate the site today. At least eighteen layers of settlement have been discovered by archaeologists within these mounds, representing a long sequence of human use.
The most recent excavations, conducted under the direction of Prof. Dr. Arkadiusz Marciniak from the Poznań University Insтιтute of Prehistory in Poland, focused on the settlement’s eastern part. There, researchers uncovered a complex of buildings arranged around a courtyard. Unlike dwellings, they do not appear to have had residential purposes.
The most important structure is a building that archaeologists have named the “House of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ” or “Spiritual House.” Beneath its floor, the bodies of twenty people were deposited. According to the archaeologists, those people likely died elsewhere and were buried ceremonially in this house.
On-site restoration of a typical interior. Credit: Elelicht / CC BY-SA 3.0
In addition, excavators uncovered a mᴀssive ritual building with painted walls and fourteen platforms, to be excavated further during the coming season. A smaller plastered structure, occupied for a long time but not for domestic purposes, was unearthed as well. In one of the oldest structures within this area of the site, there were three burials beneath its platforms, though radiocarbon dating is needed to establish their date.
These results illustrate how Çatalhöyük houses were used as shelters and also as sacred spaces. Ritual, burial, and symbolic wall painting indicate how religious and everyday life were connected. The “House of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ” provides new insight into funerary traditions and suggests that group memory and ceremonial practices played a central part in this early society.
A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2012, Çatalhöyük continues to redefine our understanding of the transition process from hunter-gatherer to farmer, along with the emergence of urbanism and human belief systems.
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