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c. 1300-1180 BCE (Troy VI/VIIa, most cited to Homer's war)Reputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

Troy Stands Where Anatolia Meets the Aegean

Nine cities, one on top of the other, at the strait that controls the road between Europe and Asia

On the timeline · around c. 1300-1180 BCE (Troy VI/VIIa, most cited to Homer's war) · Ancient and Byzantine AnatoliaAncient and Byzantine AnatoliaTroy Stands Where Anatolia Meets the Aegean1,500 BCE1,250 BCE1,000 BCE750 BCE500 BCE250 BCE1 CE250 CE

Quick facts

Location
Northwestern Anatolia, near the Dardanelles
Habitation span
c. 3000 BCE to 12th century CE
Archaeological layers
Nine cities, Troy I-IX, 46 levels
First excavated by
Frank Calvert (1863), Heinrich Schliemann (1870-1890)

What happened

Troy sat in northwestern Anatolia, inhabited from the Early Bronze Age around 3000 BCE through the 12th century CE, in a bay controlling the principal point of access between the Aegean world and the Black Sea, Anatolia, and the Balkans. Archaeologists have identified nine distinct cities and 46 levels of habitation at the site, labeled Troy I through Troy IX, built one on top of the last. The layer most often identified with Homer's Iliad is Troy VI, dated to roughly 1750-1300 BCE, whose fortification walls ran 5 meters thick and up to 8 meters high. Frank Calvert first excavated the site in 1863, and Heinrich Schliemann continued the work from 1870 until his death in 1890, uncovering the layered city that convinced most scholars they had found the setting of the Trojan War.

Why it matters

Troy anchors Anatolia's ancient history to the story the wider world already knew, giving the peninsula's first contact between Aegean Greek civilization and inland Anatolian powers a name and a location that has drawn visitors and scholars for over a century and a half. Its position at the mouth of the straits also previews a geography that would matter again and again in Turkish history, at Gallipoli, Constantinople, and the modern Bosphorus.

How we know

Troy's nine archaeological layers are physically documented through more than 150 years of excavation beginning with Calvert and Schliemann, and it is now almost universally accepted among archaeologists that the excavated site corresponds to the city later mythologized in Homer's Iliad; UNESCO inscribed the Archaeological Site of Troy as a World Heritage property in 1998.

Sources

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