The hill did not seem to be anything special. These were in fact mostly not Bronze Age but created at different dates in the Greek and Roman periods, mostly for burials. These mounds were very visible in the landscape, and so gave early visitors looking for the heroes the sense that they had found their graves. But the city of Troy, or Ilion, had been lost from view.
The search for Troy became a major preoccupation for travellers, topographers, writers and scholars in the 18th and early 19th centuries when ancient Greece and its myths captivated public imagination in Europe. But it was not a simple matter and became a subject of heated debate.
He based this on the evidence of coins and inscriptions he found there. However only later in the 19th century would it dawn that Hissarlik was the site not just of Ilion, but also of legendary Troy, which was underneath the Classical remains.
Frank Calvert lived in the Troad and owned land next to the mound of Hissarlik. An amateur but skilled archaeologist, he was convinced that there would be a good place to dig. So when Schliemann visited in , with Homer in one hand and a spade in the other, determined to make his name in archaeology, Calvert found him easy to persuade.
His interpretation that the finds were evidence of the Trojan War was questioned at the time and, perhaps sadly for romantics everywhere, it is no longer accepted. But of course, Homer was a poet and not a historian. It remains immensely difficult to link the Iliad specifically to the archaeology of Troy. Understanding of the site, its development over time and its place in the ancient world continues to grow.
From an archaeological perspective, there is a rich history to be uncovered that stands quite apart from the myth of the Trojan War and is important in its own right. Yet the myth and the site remain inextricably linked. Buy the book accompanying the exhibition here. Map Data. Terms of Use. Report a map error. Exhibitions and events The search for the lost city of Troy The myth of the Trojan War has captivated people for thousands of years and has led pilgrims, explorers and archaeologists to search for the location where the famed conflict took place.
But did the city really exist? In anticipation of our major autumn exhibition, curators Lesley Fitton and Alexandra Villing explore the reality behind the myth. Book tickets.
Aerial view of the site of Troy It is this record of a people and their city that is preserved in archaeology. In , Heinrich Schliemann dug a huge trench right through the centre of the mound of Troy. During this period Mycenaean city states based in modern-day Greece were competing with the larger Hittite empire located in modern-day Turkey to control the trade routes leading towards the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea.
The Late Bronze Age was an era of powerful kingdoms and city states, centred around fortified walled palaces. Commerce was based on a complex gift exchange system between the different political states.
The trade system was mainly controlled by the kings and evidence referring to private merchants is very rare. These kingdoms exchanged not only silks and spices, but also gold, silver, copper, grain, craftsmanship and slaves.
The Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people whose empire was centred in north and central Anatolia from around BC. The Hittite empire, at its high point, included modern Lebanon, Syria and Turkey. The city of Troy was part of a small independent confederation named Assuwa that tried to resist the Hittite expansion but which eventually yielded and became a sort of vassal state to the Hittite empire.
And archaeologists working in Troy have discovered skeletons, arrowheads and traces of destruction which point to us a violent end for Troy Level VII — as the late Bronze Age city has been designated by archaeologists so far levels I to IX have been excavated.
At that stage, the political and economic system in the Mediterranean was disintegrating. But the seeds of war were sown far from there, in the city of Sparta on the Greek mainland.
According to legend, the Trojan prince Paris visited Sparta, which at the time was ruled by King Menelaus. When Paris departed Greece, he left with Helen by his side, enraging the Spartan leader. Not only was Menelaus a formidable king in his own right, but his brother Agamemnon was the king of Mycenae, and the most powerful ruler in Greece. Agamemnon assembled a massive army and set sail across the Aegean Sea with over 1, ships, determined to retrieve Helen from Troy.
For many years the Greeks camped outside the walls of Troy, but were unable to penetrate its mighty defenses. By the tenth year, many of the Greek soldiers longed to see their homeland again.
Thus, the cunning Odysseus finally devised a plan to end the war once and for all. The Greeks constructed a giant wooden horse and secretly filled it with a contingent of their best fighters. They left the horse on the beach and sailed away during the night, pretending that they had finally given up and returned home.
When the Trojans awoke the next morning, they were astonished to see that all that remained of the Greek encampment was the large wooden horse.
Believing it to be a votive gift to the gods, offered by the Greeks to ensure their safe passage home, the Trojans wheeled the contraption inside the city walls and celebrated their hard-fought victory. There was nothing the Trojans could do as Greeks ran through their streets and ransacked the city.
The Greeks killed and enslaved almost the entire Trojan population, with a few notable exceptions. One of these was a Trojan named Aeneas, who was able to escape the city with a small band of friends and family.
There his descendants eventually founded Rome. Is the tale of the Trojan War just a myth or was it a real historical fact? Was there really a city called Troy? Did Homer base his poems on true events, the details of which had been passed down to him by generations of Greeks? These are the questions that historians have pondered for thousands of years. For the ancient Greeks, the Trojan War was a real historical event fought by their heroic ancestors.
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