The hau of the house

At the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük, all architecture is domestic. Earlier sites in the Anatolian region of Turkey, such as the spectacular Göbekli Tepe, boast dramatic public spaces and monumental art. But at Çatalhöyük, despite a very large, very long occupation (perhaps two to eight thousand people from 7400 to 6000 BCE), it appears that no one ever built anything bigger than a house. Maps of the excavations show a mound honeycombed with small rooms, and nothing more (Hodder 2006). This singular fact has inspired lengthy, detailed, insightful studies of the Çatalhöyük house. But even after reading this extensive literature, I still find myself asking a basic question: What - and where - is this house? The answer is not as obvious as it might seem. Identifying buildings at the site is relatively straightforward, but that does not mean we know the dimensions of “the house” - let alone its ontological status. To begin with, there are several different kinds of houses to be disentangled. Writers on the subject of “the house” tend to erect three different kinds of things on the same semantic terrain - and this is certainly true at Çatalhöyük.