Before heading over to the Asian part of Turkey, we visited the Gallipoli National Park. Here, in 1915, the British tried to seize this land so that the Ottoman Empire could be captured through the Dardanelles that lead up in the Marmara Sea and into the rest of Turkey. They sent an Austalian and New Zealand company onto land to capture the point. For 8 months the Ottomans and British Empire troops fought each other for the highest point on the plain, Chunuk Bair, killing over 50,000 British Empire troops and 20,000 Ottoman troops. The summit was briefly taken by the New Zealand Wellington Battalion before the Turks permanently retook the summit. It is a point of great pride for both Turks and New Zealanders, and it was where I once again saw the Turkish Flag flying high and statues of Ataturk. 

That is something that I have noticed 3 days into this trip: You look at the sites and in almost every shop, on every street, atop every high point, is the Flag of the Turkish Republic. In nooks and crannies you will also find busts or statues or even posters of Ataturk, the founder of the current Republic of Turkey. The Turkish people talk about their history and do not hide from their past. That struck me so much walking through the everything-but-political-capital of Turkey, and I am sure I will see more of it as I venture on into the rest of Turkey.

Today we went to the city where the face that launched a thousand ships watched as men died for her – Troy. There are four reasons why most scholars believe that this is THE site of Troy: The location would have made money from sailors trying to sail the Dardanelles to the Marmara Sea, a 60 km trip that would have taken an entire day if the conditions were just right; at the northern end of Troy is a part of the Royal Road that connects cities such as Ephesus and Smyrna that ends there; Troy had its own unique pottery typology (style, age, regional, etc.); and ancient people up to the people of modern times have always connected this site with Troy, including Alexander the Great and the Romans.  

Kristin told us that Troy – so far – has 10 levels or strata, numbered 0-9, with several other levels possibly underneath it. Troy is now landlocked thanks to silting, which has created fertile farming land. Farmers next to Troy dig up pottery every year, and farmers are hesitant to give up their land because agriculture is the only source of income they have. Also found on the land is architecture and other artifacts, some of which are kept in the small, minimal, confusing, outdated Interpretive Center.

Scholars argue about which layer is Troy:  II dates from around 2500 BCE but has a huge ramp and citadel;

Troy VI has definite signs of war: Buildings falling in a jumbled pattern and fire damage. Earthquake ruins fall in a line, but the area around Troy is so dry that a fire could easily start anywhere. The walls before Troy VI were ingeniously designed: the ground rose towards the wall at an angle where a rider on horse charging up it would not see the pit in front of him until he was already in it, horse hurt, himself hurt, and arrows reigning down on him. The actual wall rose straight above him and was covered in plaster, so escape was nearly impossible. Half of a horse and half of human were found at the bottom of one of those pits, but evidence has not yet shown if they are from 14^th-13^th century BCE, the agreed upon time of the Trojan War. VI has great defensive architecture – a slated, battered wall — that would have made a 10 year siege possible, but is relatively small compared to how Homer describes Troy;

VII is a larger site but has poorer defenses, and is seen as the population remnants of VI.

There are several reconstruction areas, one where new bricks were put on top of old to show what the wall would have looked like. However, exposure has introduced centipedes to 5,000+ year old straw, which they love and refuse to eat fresher straw, causing damage to the original and wasting time, effort, and money.

Another reconstruction area was near the Troy VI wall, where they tried to fashion a bit of it as it would have looked around 1400 or 1300 BCE. It is rougher and more formed, but it also confuses guests and makes the site look bad in many people’s opinions, including my own.

Each new Troy has used bits and pieces of previous Troys as well as damaging it all together. When New Illium was created, part of Troy was leveled off for their Temple to Athena. Troy also shows evidence of occupation at II, VI, VIII, and XI.

Like Kristin said, Troy is a mess. Maybe it was the poppies all over the site, or maybe it was the spectacular views from several areas, but I thought Troy had grandeur to it. As a CAMS minor, I love reading the Iliad and hearing all of the myths and legends of Turkey. Just like whom the founders of cities were, history is very skewed and uncertain at times. Myths and legends help fill in those gaps and entertain generations to come. There is a grain of truth somewhere in all stories, so maybe the Troy named is indeed the Troy of Homer; maybe Helen was the most beautiful woman in the world at that time and she ran off with a younger man in a fit of lust and desire, causing a war where her husband’s people fought against her lover’s people for her; and maybe it was something more than intuition and ingenuity that inspired Odysseus to plan and build the Trojan Horse. We will never know for certain, but for now we can inspire more archaeologists to want to dig at Troy to uncover whatever history it can tell us.

I wish Troy were much more open to tourism than it actually is. The walkways were a little crooked and trippy; the Info Center was very sparse, and what was there was confusing; if we had not had our course assistant Kristen, who had dug for a season at Troy, there with us, none of us would have known what anything was except for Schliemann’s Trench.

Unfortunately, most visitors take pictures at the Horse and leave, making Troy a very unpopular tourist attraction. It is also very confusing, with it’s 10+ layers that were decimated by civilizations and archaeologists past and few signs explaining each area.  But this is where I will be doing my 25 page paper on — whether or not the Trojan War actually occurred. Maybe I’m just a romantic nerd who is in the right major, but I love it there. So much of the history of our later sites is linked to Troy, and it is a story that has endured the millennium, so the Turks are proud of it, but they do not know what to make of it. Time will tell what to make of it, hopefully, but for now it is just a hopeless romantic’s site to dream at.

Location: Troy, Turkey