First City
Nine thousand years ago, after hundreds of thousands of years of moving with the seasons, humans built Çatalhöyük. This urban settlement in what is today, Turkey, was built on two hills, over 34 acres and was divided by a river. They built their homes side by side, with entrance holes in the roof. They had rooftop walkways which they accessed using ladders.
There were up to 3;000 and 8;000 residents living there at any given time. They painted their walls with symbolic images and plastered on animal bones and often refreshed the designs with a fresh coat of paint. Their homes were divided their homes into “dirty” areas for the hearth and cooking, and “clean” elevated areas for sleeping and burying their dead.
They stayed in Çatalhöyük for 1,500 years before they returned to village life on the Konya Plain or moved on to newer megasites.
Photo by: Murat Özsoy 1958, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%C3%87atalh%C3%B6y%C3%BCk,_7400_BC,_Konya,_Turkey_-_UNESCO_World_Heritage_Site,_03.jpg