Çatalhöyük, Turkey
A 9,000-year-old Anatolian Town
A view of the newest protective structure at Çatalhöyük. Pathways lead visitors through the excavations.
The focus in 2009 is on the maintenance and treatment of the walls of all 20 building under the newest shelter. There is also work to conserve the wall paintings in the area. The conservation of the area is dependent on having suitable covers and shelters, because the houses are made of unfired mud brick, and the paintings and sculptures are constructed with plaster and clay.
GHF has helped transform a mainly archaeological research project into a major regional site conservation and sustainable tourism development project around one of the oldest known cities in the world. Additionally, GHF has funded the design and construction of a state-of-the-art site conservation shelter structure, visitor center and interpretative panels to allow touristic access to the site. The new shelter allows the preservation of delicate remains and demonstrates how early mudbrick sites elsewhere in the Middle East can be placed on display as they have rarely been before; it also improves the tourist experience in the region by providing a comfortable shelter with informative panels, and it provides an opportunity for training and capacity building within the local community. A large amount of conservation work was done in the 4040 shelter, consolidating walls and plasters and putting buildings on display. For the first time in history, visitors are now able to explore a 9,000 year-old Neolithic archaeological site and see the art in context within the houses.
Local labor and contractors were used to replace the end panels on the 4040 shelter so that variation in relative humidity in the shelter could be more effectively controlled. In the same area in Building 49 several paintings were uncovered and have been recorded. Throughout the whole 4040 Area under the shelter 14 buildings were treated for permanent display. In the Team Poznan (TP) Area in the southern part of the mound a unique frieze excavated in 2007 was uncovered and removed for conservation in the onsite laboratory.
The careful excavation, lifting and treatment of a large number of horn cores, bucrania and other animal bones have taken place. Two important objects uncovered in one field season, a clay stamp seal representing a bear and the mother goddess figurine, required careful cleaning in order to reveal as much of the original shape as possible. An important treatment of the 2005 season was the conservation and the mounting of a wall painting to be displayed in Konya Archaeological Museum. This wall painting was discovered in the South Summit in 2003, in a niche on one of the walls which was slowly collapsing, but was lifted in two parts and semi conserved during the 2004 season.
