Level VI.B ‒ Shrine 10 Interior

Çatalhöyük is a prehistoric site located in central Turkey that dates back to the beginning of the seventh millennium B.C. Çatalhöyük is made of two different mounds ‒ the Neolithic East Mound has been recently dated close to the 7100 B.C., while the Chalcolithic West Mound includes settlements from the early 5600 B.C. circa. The site was initially excavated by James Mellaart from 1961 to 1965 obtaining world-wide attention for its street less settlement structure as well as for the evidence for the emergence of pottery and large amounts of symbolic and ritual artifacts and material culture.

In 1993 Ian Hodder started to investigate Çatalhöyük East Mound, producing further interpretations of the repetition of architectural elements and buildings over time. Current excavations also provide a new understanding of social organization, property, power, and religion in early settled life. In 2012 Çatalhöyük became inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list because of its universal value and exceptionality. In 2015 a joint effort between UC Merced, Stanford University, and Corinth brought Çatalhöyük back to life. The digital simulation of Shrine 10 sequence visualizes building variation of three Neolithic houses ‒ specifically, Mellaart’s Shrine 10.VII, Shrine 10.VIB, and Shrine 10.VIA, that were rebuilt multiple times in the same place (history Houses). The digital reconstruction of Çatalhöyük’s history Houses aims to define a new approach to digital archaeology that integrates a plurality of data in a visual-analytical environment where advanced interactive techniques simulate the cosmology, shared space, material culture, and experiential aspects of Çatalhöyük cultural landscapes.