I visited this WHS in Spring 2021. Catalhoyuk is a few kilometres away from Konya, which is a great city to base yourself for a couple of days. This WHS has a free entrance which was a very welcome change after the crazy post-COVID lockdown price spikes all over Turkey.

Catalhoyuk was a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately 7500 BC to 6400 BC. As such, it is a very precarious archaeological dig covered with 2 big tents (not as modern as the one in Gobeklitepe, but with a wooden boardwalk through one of them). Most of the remains are still underground even though the site was discoverd in 1958. Most of the mud walls are crumbling or have already crumbled notwithstanding the wooden supports and several sacks which have been placed. According to UNESCO, the site's OUV lies in the important evidence it provides of the transition from settled villages to urban agglomeration, which was maintained in the same location for over 2,000 years. It features a unique streetless settlement of houses clustered back to back with roof access into the buildings.

Catalhoyuk was composed entirely of domestic buildings, with no obvious public buildings even though the larger buildings have rather ornate murals. Unlike Arslantepe, most of these wall paintings have been removed and placed in museums around Turkey, most notably in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara. This same museum houses the famous clay sculpture of a seated goddess flanked by two lionesses. The few murals which remain are hard to appreciate apart from a couple of signs here and there which can be viewed from above or from a distance.

Just next to the entrance to this site is a small life-size reconstruction of how the domestic buildings must have looked like. Of the three WHS of Gobeklitepe, Arslantepe and Catalhoyuk, the latter is the one which has less to see but I'm still glad I visited as otherwise Konya would have been a great miss!