Troia (Troya, Troy, Truva)

A warning to travellers who plan to visit Troy. Troy is not a historical site that one can visit and understand on one's own. It definitely should be visited in the company of an expert guide. In Çanakkale and Eceabat many travel agencies organise tours with good guides. We strongly recommend that those who do not come to the region with a tour group should consider joining one of these tours. For travel agencies look at the guide section.

 It is the subject of debate how the name of the ancient city should be written and pronounced. This is the case with many names for ancient places. Everyone writes and pronounces the names of these places according to their own languages. The leader of the excavations currently being carried out at Troy, Professor Manfred Korfmann, suggests that it should written and pronounced as Troia just as Homer had written.

Troy is the common name for the city at the entrance of the Dardanelles located on the Hislarlık Hill, the Bronze Age fortress and the settlement, the legendary city of King Priam that was completely destroyed at the end of the ten year long Trojan War. Troy was also known as Ilios and Ilion..

The early excavations  at Troy
A wealthy amateur archaeologist, the German Henrich Schliemann, began his search to find Troy in 1870, basing his hunt on based on The Iliad of Homer. His purpose was closer to one of a treasure hunter than one of an archaeologist. However, some archaeologists argue that Schliemann's digs, while being a treasure hunt, did result in the unearthing of lost civilisations and introduced new methods of excavations. Schliemann was after the legendary treasures of Priam, King of Troy. What he really uncovered was a trove dating from the time of Troy II, one of the nine settlements identified on the site. The treasure was found a hole near the gate and the ramp. He smuggled this treasure, later declared not to be that of Priam by experts, out of Turkey, where it was later put on display in Berlin. Looted in turn by the Russians at the end of World War Two, the treasure was long lost from sight, only to turn up in the Pushkin Museum in Russia. This became the most well know story about the excavation of Troy
From very early on Troy had been the subject of debates and these continue today. The first scientific excavation that led to great polarisations was carried out under the leadership Wilhelm Dörpfeld, long after Schliemann. However, in these excavations in order "to find anything" the tumulus was turned upside down. In between 1932-1938, with Americans conducting further excavations under the leadership of Carl W. Blegan, Troy began to be studied scientifically.
The current excavations, led by Manfred Korfmann on behalf of the Tübingen University, have been conducted since 1988. Professor Korfmann has become so integrated with Troy and the surrounding region that he was given a Turkish name, Osman Korfmann

The layers of Troy
One of the most important aspects of Troy for archaeologists and historians is that it was destroyed, burnt down and rebuilt on the same site. In general, once a city was destroyed another would be built at a different location. In contrast, Troy was rebuilt on the very same location again and again. Thus it presents us with the opportunity to study and learn the 5,000 years long history of humans, culture and architecture in the region. Now let us look at these nine Troys. Troy I, II, III and before
In the period 3000-2500 BC the city was surrounded by walls and large houses (megaron) were built facing south.
The walls were sloped, their foundations made of stone and the upper parts mud bricks. Its ramped gate is the oldest and best-preserved example of this defence technique in the world.
The region surrounding Tory was known as Troas. There was settlement in Troas before Troy was built.
On the top of Kumtepe the first traces of human settlement was found. These traces have been dated to 7,000 years ago.
It has been determined that there was village settlement in here in 4800 BC. The residents of the village were involved in agriculture, had fruit trees, hunted fish and produced ceramics. Moreover, they knew how to work copper. Towards the end 4000 BC there was a new wave of migration. These people also used bronze and copper. Furthermore, they bred sheep not only for their meat but also for wool.
By 3000 BC a settlement was built on the high ground that rose above the nearby gulf. This was the core of Troy I.
When the early Trojans began to build their real fortress, it was still 400 years before the construction of the Pyramids in Egypt. The settlement was surrounded by walls very early on, a first for this region.
Indeed, there were a lot of firsts here. Apart from grains such as wheat and barley many types of vegetables such as peas, chickpeas and broad beans were cultivated and the catching of many types of fish was carried out. Among the finds made by archaeologists have been items made of bronze. There were very sharp knives just like steel made out of the volcanic glass such as the stone obsidian. There is evidence that ships were built and the Trojans traded from the northern Aegean to the Marmara.
It is believed that by mid 3000 BC there was a large planned city, of some 90,000 square metres squares, making it the largest city in the Aegean region.
Schliemann named all levels he found from Troy I to Troy IX. In later archaeological excavations more refined methods were certainly applied. They determined the architectural layers in more detail. To the present day, more than 50 levels have been determined. To avoid any confusion they have been named as Troy VIIa and Troy VIIb. When even more minor details needed to be expressed they been listed as Troy VIIb1 and Troy VIIb2.
Troy II covers the period 2500-2300 BC and Troy III, IV, V 2300-1900 BC. A fire in 2350 BC destroyed the palaces, new housing and possibly the houses of Troy I.
Around 1900 BC things recovered. It is appears that the city's residents lived in bigger and more beautiful houses. One the Troy V houses discovered has a large room of five metres by 10. In other words a sitting room of 50 square metres. In addition, they were also building furniture and there was high level of prosperity.

In the aftermath of the post war destruction
After Troy was defeated in the war and the city destroyed, most of the survivors did not migrate. With newcomers they started to rebuild the city. Old houses were restored and new houses built within the fortress walls. Thus the era of having only the rulers reside within the fortress was ended. The existing traces show that Troy VIIb1 was not impoverished and that migrants were came to the city from Italy, Greece and the Balkans.

Visiting the  historical site
Remains of Troy
As a result of excavations nine layers of the civilisation were revealed.
Troy I: 3000-2500 BC The city's oldest construction era. In the area known as the Schliemann's trench there is a series of houses built in a fish bone pattern and open to the northern wind.
Troy II: 2500-2300 BC. The era when the city was surrounded by sloping walls where you have big houses (megaron) facing the south in the upper fortress area. The walls surrounding the city were sloped, their foundations were stone and the upper parts mud brick. Its ramped gate is the oldest and best-preserved example of this defence technique in the world.
Troy VI: 1900-1300 BC. This is the most developed era of the city. The walls were widened and towers were added to them. The entrance to the city was from the east gate placed in the gap of the wall from the front of the sloped and jointed walls. The south gate, despite its vague remains, was designed as a glamorous tower with a water cannel running beneath it and with protective steles erected on its exterior. The housing was of a new style, being large and having columns. The VI M structures were also from this period.
Troy III, IV, V: 2300-1900 BC. There are only vague traces of these structure strata of the city.
Troy VII a: 1300-1200 BC. According to finds this is the era where relations are seen with continental Greece. It is accepted as the era when the Trojan War took place. The next era, Troy VII b, was destroyed in a fire that broke out after an earthquake.
Troy VIII: 900-350 BC. This is the settlement known as Ilion. It is defined by pieces from the Aegean and Mediterranean world starting from 700 BC onwards.
Troy IX: 350BC-400 AD. From the final strata of construction the Temple of Athena is in quite good condition. It is renowned for its terrace on the eastern wall and the marble pieces from buildings scattered all around. The courtyard level of flooring used in the temple shows the highest horizontal strata of all levels. The ancient time remains in the south, the Small Theatre, while in the northern part where excavations are more recent there is the Big Theatre which provides evidence that the city survived in the Hellenistic and Roman times, perhaps as a museum of the city where the memory of the famed poet Homer was kept alive. From IX. Troy there is Hellenistic style bust of the god Zeus, now on display at the İstanbul Archaeology Museum.