The Site
Located near Çumra, Konya in present-day Turkey, Çatalhöyük is one of the largest Neolithic sites in the Middle East. It consists of two mounds that provide evidence for at least eighteen levels of human occupation over 2000 years of inhabitation, from approximately 7100 to 5900 BC. Recognised as a”human settlement documenting early settled agricultural life of a Neolithic community” it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2012 (UNESCO 2018). Archaeological interpretation of the site suggests that the community residing at Çatalhöyük in the Neolithic period was egalitarian.
To explore the site of Çatalhöyük in more detail, see the Çatalhöyük Research Project.
The Çatalhöyük Virtual Reality (ÇVR) experience explores portions of the UNESCO Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük. This experience pushes the limits of common heritage VR models by demanding multi-user interaction (as opposed to typical single-user exploration), and also by prioritizing social and emotional engagement over educational aims. This experience uses value-oriented critical questions to encourage users to think more meaningfully about how their lives connect to the past people of Çatalhöyük.
The Experience
This immersive virtual reality experience contains five scenes with a photorealistic virtual environment in which users can explore virtual reconstructions of three replica houses and the excavation area on-site today at Çatalhöyük.
The aim of ÇVR is to encourage users to:
- Interact with another player and with the virtual environment
- Enact affect via emotional thought, an ethic of care, and historical consciousness
- Learn about Çatalhöyük as an archaeological site
The experience progresses through a series of checkpoints which guide users through different tasks within virtual renderings of three replica houses and the excavation site. Together, users enact care by mimicking some of the common practices of Çatalhöyük’s people, such as mending damaged walls with plaster and painting them with symbols. The experience invites participants to reflect upon human relatedness across time and space, and to think more deeply about our impacts on the world.
What others think about it
Evaluation results indicate that ÇVR evokes the feeling of connectivity and enjoyment, as well as shifts in perception and opinions. Participants feel more connected to one another and to the site of Çatalhöyük after participating in the experience. Users report communicating a lot with their co-player, feeling very engaged, and preferring the shared experience to the idea of doing it alone.
Try It!
Çatalhöyük VR
The Virtual Reality experience of Çatalhöyük is not currently available, but it will be coming soon in SteamVR. Contact us to express your interest in order to get notified when that happens.
The VR experience has been designed and developed through the collaboration of our group with the University of York and namely Sara Perry, Professor in Cultural Heritage Management in the Department of Archaeology and Kristen O’Connor for the conceptual and design aspects, George Drettakis and Sebastian Vizcay from Inria for the graphical and networking implementation, as well as the noho (https://noho.ie/) company for the 3D modeling and VFX.
