Troy is a legendary city and
center of the Trojan War, as described in the Epic
Cycle, and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic
poems attributed to Homer. Trojan refers to the
inhabitants and culture of Troy.
Today it is the name of an archaeological site, the
traditional location of Homeric Troy, Turkish Truva, in
Hisarlık in Anatolia, close to the seacoast in what is
now Çanakkale province in northwest Turkey, southwest of
the Dardanelles under Mount Ida.
A new city of Ilium was founded on the site in the reign
of the Roman Emperor Augustus. It flourished until the
establishment of Constantinople and declined gradually
during the Byzantine era.
In the 1870s the German archaeologist Heinrich
Schliemann excavated the area. Later excavations
revealed several cities built in succession to each
other. One of the earlier cities (Troy VII) is often
identified with Homeric Troy. While such an identity is
disputed, the site has been successfully identified with
the city called Wilusa in Hittite texts; Ilion (which
goes back to earlier Wilion with a digamma) is thought
to be the Greek rendition of that name.
Today there is a Turkish
town called Truva in the vicinity of the archaeological
site, but this town has grown up recently to service the
tourist trade. The archaeological site is officially
called Troia by the Turkish government and appears as
such on many maps.
A large number of tourists visit the site each year,
mostly coming from Istanbul by bus or by ferry via
Çanakkale, the nearest major town about 50 km to the
north-east. The visitor sees a highly commercialised
site, with a large wooden horse built as a playground
for children, then shops and a museum. The
archaeological site itself is, as a recent writer said,
"a ruin of a ruin," because the site has been frequently
excavated, and because Schliemann's archaeological
methods were very destructive[citation needed]: in his
conviction that the city of Priam would be found in the
earliest layers, he demolished many interesting
structures from later eras, including all of the house
walls from Troy II. For many years also the site was
unguarded and was thoroughly looted. However what
remains, particularly if put into context by one of the
knowledgeable professional guides to the site, is an
illuminating insight into civilizations of the Bronze
Age, if not to the legends.
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