This week, I went to the event Burning Çatalhöyük, a guided tour to the Second Life reconstruction of the 9,000 year old Çatalhöyük Neolithic site in Turkey. It was not completely successful, but it was darned interesting, so I want to get the (hopefully constructive) criticisms out of the way first.

Second Life

As a brief introduction, Second Life is a virtual world, primarily built for gaming, in which the user develops an avatar--essentially a cartoon character of yourself--and moves that character through whatever environment has been invented. Çatalhöyük is one of thousands of available environments on Second Life, maybe tens of thousands, I really don't know. The components of the Çatalhöyük environment include an example of the excavation units, a museum, a cafe, and a reconstruction of the town of Çatalhöyük.

Technical Problems

First, I have to say that I was warned by Second Life right from the start that my computer graphics card was not up to speed. I think my Internet connection is also not up to the requirements of an event; my guess is to be able to attend and participate in such an event you need an ethernet connection.

So, technical problems I experienced were almost certainly a result of that situation. They included an incredible amount of visual noise. Constantly repeating flashes of patterns and color were hard to ignore; I assume, maybe I'm wrong, but I think it was from the 30 or so other avatars that attended the event.

As an aside, avatars are really interesting, and it could be a great social science study in and of itself. Avatars at the Çatalhöyük event ranged from a close physical approximation of a person, down to his dirty tennis shoes (I swear I've met that guy); to Ruth Tringham's cool, multicolored manga-like avatar; to an adept orange wallaby named Pocky. Oh, and somebody else was using the same canned avatar I was. Twins! But the flashes of light emanating from these avatars was overwhelmingly distracting.

I got kicked out of Second Life at least a half-dozen times, and eventually gave up before the end of the tour. Although I had several questions and typed them into the chat space, no one could "hear" them--and I suspect that was true for others, because I "heard" another person's question that no one else did.

Unfamiliarity Problems

There were certain things that happened that I could have helped if I was a bit more aware of how Second Life worked. I did go and visit a few times before the event started, but I should have spent more time. Once during the event I got stuck going forward and walked right off the environment--I didn't realize there was a way to return without leaving Second Life. At one point, the tour leaders suggested that we put the site in "daylight mode" (I'm going hazard a guess that the Çatalhöyük default is on 'real daylight time' for Çatalhöyük itself) and I wasted a few minutes trying to find where to turn on the sun, but ultimately I failed and so was in the dark for the tour. (That's okay, it made the burning rooms glow nicely). And when I returned from being kicked out, I had a hard time finding where the group had gone to. I had difficulty "flying" along with the crowd and I had difficulty being situated in space. How do you look at your feet? But I think these are minor issues, and again, related to practice with the site, and not really applicable to simply visiting.

Good Things

I really think that Second Life works well, even for people 'handicapped' with a cable/DSL connection and an older machine. I don't think the event itself worked particularly well, because of my hardware issues, but the Second Life site itself is a fascinating one to explore on your own.

The environment is quiet and restful, in that if you walk it yourself, you can spend as much time as you like examining objects, exploring the capabilities and investigating the notes. Notes about each of the objects are stored in a oddly named place (you "Take a Copy" to read about an object; I suspect this is a leftover from the gaming side), but what there is is useful and interesting. I believe, but didn't have time to look, that there is a 'graffiti wall' where you can leave comments. I wonder if there's also a way to leave questions at various stages of the site. That would be a good and interesting thing to have.

Questions and Comments

• Tell me more about the "Mellaart Reconstruction." Is that an image of something that Mellaat had built at the site, or is it based on his (famous) drawings? Are you all in some amount of disagreement with them? Would you be interested in creating different versions of some of the rooms based on what different interpretations of those structures are like? Is that something users (more adept than I of course) can do?
• Do you plan to include hard data on the excavation units here? As in, are there data tables for artifacts from a room excavation, c14 dates, excavator notes, etc., stored someplace for each of the rooms?
• Is there a map of the city itself--I couldn't find it, but I think a map of the reconstruction might be useful.
• When I was wandering around in the rooms I got a claustrophic sensation, which must be close to what you would have gotten as a visitor to the houses. Bravo!
• The best experience was when you could hear someone speaking. I think if you could incorporate some sound bytes into some of the displays (or even an avatar/docent? Can you do that?) that might help the experience a lot.
• The teleporter thing is most useful, thanks. It makes it possible to go around the site freely and go back to the start without a lot of problems.

Bottom Line

I think the Second Life Çatalhöyük is an excellent research and teaching tool. I think as a public archaeology instrument, the graphics and speed requirements for an event are a little high for most of us, but I do believe that it is a wonderful way to experience Çatalhöyük, short of actually going to Turkey. I think it would be useful if teachers from high schools or colleges, in particular, people with ethernet connections, could send students to explore and ask questions.

So--Bravo, in a very big way. Inventive, creative, and illuminating, are the three words that pop into my skull. Thanks for the invitation!

• Second Life Çatalhöyük
• Çatalhöyük
• What is Second Life anyway?