Where Mythology Touches Reality: TROY

Ancient Greek historians variously placed the Trojan War in the 12th, 13th, or 14th centuries BC: Eratosthenes to 1184 BC, Herodotus to 1250 BC, Duris of Samos to 1334 BC. Modern archaeologists associate Homeric Troy with archaeological Troy VII.
In the Iliad, the Achaeans set up their camp near the mouth of the River Scamander (presumably modern Karamenderes), where they had beached their ships. The city of Troy itself stood on a hill, across the plain of Scamander, where the battles of the Trojan War took place. The site of the ancient city is some 5 km from the coast today, but the ancient mouths of Scamander, some 3,000 years ago, were about that distance inland, pouring into a large bay that formed a natural harbour that has since been filled with alluvial material. Recent geological findings have permitted the reconstruction of how the original Trojan coastline would have looked, and the results largely confirm the accuracy of the Homeric geography of Troy.

The layers of ruins in the citadel at Hisarlık are numbered Troy I – Troy IX, with various subdivisions:
Troy I 3000–2600 BC (Western Anatolian EB 1)
Troy II 2600–2250 BC (Western Anatolian EB 2)
Troy III 2250–2100 BC (Western Anatolian EB 3 [early])
Troy IV 2100–1950 BC (Western Anatolian EB 3 [middle])
Troy V: 20th–18th centuries BC (Western Anatolian EB 3 [late])
Troy VI: 17th–15th centuries BC
Troy VIh: late Bronze Age, 14th century BC
Troy VIIa: ca. 1300–1190 BC, most likely setting for Homer's story[26]
Troy VIIb1: 12th century BC
Troy VIIb2: 11th century BC
Troy VIIb3: until ca. 950 BC
Troy VIII: around 700 BC
Troy IX: Hellenistic Ilium, 1st century BC

The first city on the site was founded in the 3rd millennium BC. During the Bronze Age, the site seems to have been a flourishing mercantile city, since its location allowed for complete control of the Dardanelles, through which every merchant ship from the Aegean Sea heading for the Black Sea had to pass. Around 1900 BC a mass migration was set off by the Hittites to the east. Cities to the east of Troy were destroyed, and although Troy was not burned, the next period shows a change of culture indicating a new people had taken over Troy.

Troy VI was destroyed around 1300 BC, probably by an earthquake. Only a single arrowhead was found in this layer, and no remains of bodies. However the town quickly recovered and was rebuilt in a layout that was more orderly.

Troy VII, which has been dated to the mid- to late-13th century BC, is the most often cited candidate for the Troy of Homer. It appears to have been destroyed by war. The evidence of fire and slaughter around 1250 BC, which brought Troy VIIA to a close, led to this phase being identified with the city besieged by the Greeks during the Trojan War. This was immortalized in the Iliad written by Homer.

Troia was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1998.

The view from hilltop with constant wind that was described by Homer so precisely that it helped Schlieman identify the location of Troy.

Besides the Iliad, there are references to Troy in the other major work attributed to Homer, the Odyssey, as well as in other ancient Greek literature. The Homeric legend of Troy was elaborated by the Roman poet Virgil in his Aeneid. The Greeks and Romans took for a fact the historicity of the Trojan War and the identity of Homeric Troy with the site in Anatolia. Alexander the Great, for example, visited the site in 334 BC and made sacrifices at tombs there associated with the Homeric heroes Achilles and Patroclus.

Our diligent tour guide, Emrullah at work

The last city on this site, Hellenistic Ilium, was founded by Romans during the reign of the emperor Augustus and was an important trading city until the establishment of Constantinople in the 4th century as the eastern capital of the Roman Empire. In Byzantine times, the city declined gradually and eventually disappeared.
Beneath part of the Roman city, the ruins of which cover a much larger area than the citadel excavated by Schliemann, recent excavations have found traces of an additional Bronze-Age settlement area (of lower status than the adjoining citadel) defended by a ditch.

Street from the Roman period, with covered sewer running in the middle of it.

After Schliemann, the site was further excavated under the direction of Wilhelm Dörpfeld (1893-94) and later Carl Blegen (1932-38). These excavations have shown that there were at least nine cities built, one on top of each other, at this site. In his research, Blegen came to a conclusion that Troy's nine levels could be further divided into forty-six sublevels.
Source:Wikipedia

A replica of the famous Trojan Horse for the benefit of the tourists...

...and we stayed there until the cows came home...

...literally!!!