Çatalhöyük: Visiting the World’s First City

Çatalhöyük, founded 9,000 years ago near modern Konya, is currently the first known city in the world — the first place where surrounding villages came together to form a central settlement and begin the kind of urban civilisation that dominates our modern world. At its height it housed up to 10,000 people, and it endured for over 2,000 years — longer than most modern cities have existed.

Settled primarily between 7500 BC and 5700 BC, Çatalhöyük (Turkish for “forked hill”) was built on fertile alluvial clay between two mounds where a river once flowed. Fascinatingly, there were no streets: mudbrick houses were packed together in a honeycomb-like maze, entered through holes in the ceilings by ladder. Rooftops functioned as walkways and public space.

The society appears remarkably egalitarian — no houses bear the marks of nobility, and men and women seem to have shared ritual, artwork, farming, hunting and cooking equally.

The walls of Çatalhöyük’s houses are filled with scenes of hunts, dances, stars, leopards, birds and deer — designs strikingly similar to those on Turkish kilims woven today, suggesting an unbroken artistic thread across nine millennia. One wall painting depicts the village itself, making it essentially the world’s oldest known map. Seated goddess figurines foreshadow the Mother Goddess Kybele cult that arose in Anatolia thousands of years later.

Around 14 hectares are open to the public, including a visitor centre and museum with a scale model, reconstructed houses and copies of the wall paintings. Active excavations continue, so some mounds may be temporarily closed — but watching archaeology happen in real time is part of the magic.

Çatalhöyük pairs perfectly with Konya — home of Rumi’s mausoleum and the whirling dervishes — on a Central Anatolia itinerary, often en route between Cappadocia and the coast. Let us build the route for you with private transfers and expert guides.