Troya

Excavation campaigns

With the rise of modern critical history, Troy and the Trojan War were consigned to the realms of legend. However, the true location of ancient Troy had from classical times remained the subject of interest and speculation, so when in 1822 the Scottish journalist Charles Maclaren reviewed the available material and published A dissertation on the topography of the plain ofTroy he was able to identify with confidence the position of the acropolis of Augustus's New Ilium in north-western Anatolia. In 1866 Frank Calvert, the brother of the United States' consular agent in the region, made extensive surveys and published in scholarly journals his identification of the hill of New Ilium (which was on farmland owned by his family) as the site of ancient Troy. The hill,near the town of Çanakkale, was known to the Turks as Hisarlik.[17]
[edit] Schliemann

In 1868 the German self-taught archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann visited Calvert and secured permission to excavate Hisarlık. In 1871–73 and 1878–9, he excavated the hill and discovered the ruins of a series of ancient cities dating from the Bronze Age to the Roman period. Schliemann declared one of thesecities—at first Troy I, later Troy II—to be the city of Troy, and this identification was widely accepted at that time. Schliemann's finds at Hisarlik have become known as Priam's Treasure. They were acquired from him by the Berlin museums, but significant doubts about their authenticity persist.
The view from Hisarlık across the plain of Ilium to the Aegean Sea
[edit] Dörpfeld, Blegen

AfterSchliemann, the site was further excavated under the direction of Wilhelm Dörpfeld (1893-4) and later Carl Blegen (1932-8). These excavations have shown that there were at least nine cities built one on top of each other at this site.
[edit] Korfmann

In 1988 excavations were resumed by a team of the University of Tübingen and the University of Cincinnati under the direction of Professor ManfredKorfmann, with Professor Brian Rose overseeing Post-Bronze Age (Greek, Roman, Byzantine) excavation along the coast of the Aegean Sea at the Bay of Troy. Possible evidence of a battle was found in the form of arrowheads buried in layers dated to the early 12th century BC. The question of Troy's status in the Bronze Age world has been the subject of a sometimes acerbic debate between Korfmann andthe Tübingen historian Frank Kolb in 2001/2002.

In August 1993 following a magnetic imaging survey of the fields below the fort, a deep ditch was located and excavated among the ruins of a later Greek and Roman city. Remains found in the ditch were dated to the late Bronze Age, the alleged time of Homeric Troy. It is claimed by Korfmann that the ditch may have once marked the outer defences of amuch larger city than had previously been suspected. The latter city has been dated by his team to about 1250 BC, and it has been also suggested — based on recent archeological evidence uncovered by Professor Manfred Krofmann's team — that this was indeed the Homeric city of Troy.
[edit] Pernicka

In summer 2006 the excavations continued under the direction of Korfmann's colleague ErnstPernicka, with a new digging permit.[18]
[edit] Hittite and Egyptian evidence

In the 1920s, the Swiss scholar Emil Forrer claimed that the placenames Wilusa and Taruisa found in Hittite texts should be identified with Ilium and Troia respectively. He further noted that the name of Alaksandu, a king of Wilusa mentioned in a Hittite treaty, is quite similar Homer's Paris, whose birthname wasAlexandros. Subsequently, the Tawagalawa letter (CTH 181) was found to document an unnamed Hittite king's correspondence to the king of the Ahhiyawa, referring to an earlier "Wilusa episode" involving hostility on the part of the Ahhiyawa. The Hittite king was long held to be Mursili II (c.1321—1296), but since the 1980s, his son Hattusili III (1265—1240) is commonly preferred, although his other son...