Troy has taken quite a beating over the millennia. Witness the latest artistic rendering of the Trojan horse.
Nature ascendant …
Nine Troys of which the city of Homer’s Iliad was No. VII …
Some quite old …
A house …
A whole slough of Roman marble …
Various reconstructions …
From the UNESCO World Heritage article Archaeological Site of Troy:
Human occupation on the site of Troy began in the early Bronze Age. The first defensive wall round the citadel was built around 3000 BC. Then Troy VI expanded, making it one of the largest towns in the Aegean region with an important trading role. An earthquake in 1350 BC caused grave damage to Troy VI, but the town quickly recovered and was rebuilt in a more orderly layout. The evidence of widespread fire and slaughter around 1250 BC, which brought Troy VII to an end, has led to this phase being identified with the city besieged by the Greeks during the Trojan War, immortalized in The Iliad. The real cause of the Trojan war was intense commercial rivalry between Troy and the mercantile Mycenaean kingdom, the prize being control of the Dardanelles and the lucrative trade with the Black Sea. In 306 BC, Troy became the capital of a league of cities in the Troad and in 188 BC it was identified by the Romans as the Ilion of Homer and recognized as the mother-city of Rome (Ilium Novum). The town prospered under Roman rule and survived a severe earthquake in the early 6th century. Abandoned once again in the 9th century, it was reoccupied in the later Byzantine period and not finally deserted until well into the Ottoman period.
If that’s the Trojan Horse, I’m Northern Dancer.
You’d be surprised how many people were fooled. Was is Schliemann who first suggested the original probably did not have windows?
Standing at the wall in Troy I experienced a remarkable opening into the Troy of old including the smell of the ocean…….long since retreated. There is one spot where you can stand and see the burial mound of Homer on one horizon and the burial mound of Achillies on the horizon at 90 degrees. The excavation by Schliemann was not delicate or respectful………evidence remains of why he was known as the bulldozer. Our spiritual guide stood on the wall at Troy and read from the Illiad, choking back tears.