# Çatalhöyük Roofs

> The flat roofs of Neolithic Çatalhöyük in Turkey, where houses had no streets between them and people entered from the roof.

- URL: https://roof.wiki/catalhoyuk-roofs/
- Topic: History of Roofing
- Also known as: Catalhoyuk roofs; Çatal Höyük; Neolithic roof access; roof-entry houses
- Regions: Middle East, Europe
- First published: 2026-11-02 · Last reviewed: 2026-11-02
- Cite as: "Çatalhöyük Roofs." roof.wiki. https://roof.wiki/catalhoyuk-roofs/

## Key facts

- **Location:** Konya plain, central Turkey
- **Neolithic occupation:** C. 7400-6200 BC (UNESCO)
- **Material:** Mud brick
- **Access:** Through openings in the roof, by ladder
- **Settlement levels:** Up to 18

Çatalhöyük, on the Konya plain of central Turkey, is one of the best-known early farming settlements in the world and one of the clearest early cases of the roof doing far more than keeping out the weather. Its mud-brick houses were packed together without streets, so the roofscape itself became the circulation space of the town.

The eastern mound was occupied in the Neolithic from roughly 7400 to 6200 BC, according to UNESCO, and a western mound continued in the Chalcolithic to about 5200 BC. Other dating schemes give a slightly different span for the eastern mound, about 7500 to 5600 BC. The site was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as the Neolithic Site of Çatalhöyük.

## A town without streets

Houses were built of mud brick and set back to back in a dense, honeycomb-like block. With no lanes or footpaths between them, people moved across the flat roofs. Most houses were entered through an opening in the roof and down a timber ladder or steep stair into the main room. UNESCO describes the settlement as streetless with access through the roofs.

## The roof as living space

In good weather much daily activity probably took place on the rooftops, which may have worked together as a kind of open plaza. In later phases, large communal ovens were built up on the roofs. Inside, the roof opening was the only ventilation, so it also had to let smoke escape from the hearth and oven, which were usually set against the south wall of the main room.

## Rebuilding in layers

Houses were renewed by partly demolishing the old building and building again on top of the levelled rubble. Repeated over many generations, this raised the mound by up to about 20 m (66 ft) above the plain and left as many as 18 superimposed settlement levels. That sequence is why the site is so valuable for understanding how early houses, and their roofs, developed.

## Excavation and protection

James Mellaart identified the site in 1958 and excavated about two hundred buildings between 1961 and 1965. Work resumed under Ian Hodder in the 1990s and continued until about 2018. Today large shelter roofs over the two main excavation areas protect the mud-brick remains from rain and erosion, an unusual case of a modern roof being built specifically to save ancient ones.
## Sources and gaps

Specific figures for the build-up of the roofs (timber spacing, reed or brush layers, thickness of mud): published information is limited. Flat roofs of timber, small branches or reeds and packed earth are the general pattern for the region (see flat-roof and mud-roof).

## Sources

1. Neolithic Site of Çatalhöyük — UNESCO World Heritage Centre. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1405
2. Çatalhöyük — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%87atalh%C3%B6y%C3%BCk