The world's first model house structure is exhibited in Diyarbakır Museum

The excavation project was first initiated in 1964 as a joint project of Prof. Dr. Halet Çambel, one of the founders of Istanbul University Prehistory (Prehistoric Archaeology), and Prof. Dr. Robert John Braidwood from the University of Chicago. The excavation was later headed by Prof. Dr. Mehmet Özdoğan between 1987-1992 and then by Prof. Dr. Aslı Erim-Özdoğan between 2015-2023.

Within the scope of the presidential decree excavations; Çayönü Hill Excavation and Research Project is carried out under the chairmanship of Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Department of Museum Studies, Associate Professor Dr. Savaş Sarıaltun.

While many artifacts were unearthed during the excavations, the most striking piece is the artifact that is considered the world's first house model or model. The model house, which provides detailed information about Çayıönü Hill and its people, is exhibited in the Diyarbakır Museum.

The head of the excavation, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sarıaltun, said that the location was a privileged point of Çayönü Hill, and that it was an area where cell-planned structures were located. Sarıaltun stated that these cell-planned structures had a very special building tradition in terms of architectural history and urban planning history, and that they knew from this that the structures belonged to different or the same families.

Sarıaltun said, "The people of Çayönü respected each other when they built the buildings. The houses do not block or cover each other, they follow a certain order. There are spaces between them that we can call small streets."

Noting that the people who lived here approximately 10 thousand years ago also made models of their houses, Sarıaltun said, "There are a total of 17 model examples found to date. The most complete and best-preserved of these is currently exhibited in the Diyarbakır Museum. In this respect, we can say that it is the world's first model house structure, its earliest structure."