Discovery and excavation of Troy

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Discovery and excavation of Troy
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Calvert

• Frank Calvert had identified the mound at
  Hissarlik as the likely location of the ruins of
  Troy before 1864. Calvert worked with Charles
  Maclaren in 1847 who went on to publish a book
  that identified Troy as being at Hissarlik. The
  British Museum was asked to fund an excavation of
  Hissarlik by Calvert in 1863 but never agreed.

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Schliemann

• Schliemann initially was interested in excavating
  another site. In 1868 he met Frank Calvert and
  heard of preliminary digs at Hissarlik that he
  became convinced that Troy was located at
  Hissarlik.
• The preliminary excavation began in 1870 and
  continued until 1873. The dig was to be completed
  in cooperation with Calvert.

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• Schliemann dug an immense trench into the mound,
  removing hundreds of tonnes of dirt and rubble,
  demolishing earlier structures which stood in his
  way.
• Calvert had wanted a series of small trenches to
  investigate the site.

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• Schliemann identified four successive strata
  below classical Ilium, and he came to the
  conclusion that the Homeric one was the second
  from the bottom because it had been destroyed by
  fire.

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• Calvert pointed out that the period of the Trojan
  War was actually missing from Schliemanns find
  which went from prehistoric stone implements to
  pottery of the Archaic period a gap of 1000
  years.
• Schliemann accused Calvert of stabbing him in the
  back but then Schliemann discovered the Treasure
  of Priam.

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• It was the finding of the treasure that helped
  Schliemanns claims about discovering Troy to be
  taken seriously.
• It is this that has given rise to the question of
  whether the jewels actually were discovered or
  planted on the site.

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• Later excavations of this level have unearthed
  gold in nearly every room and it is likely that
  Schliemann uncovered the gold Treasure of Priam
  over a period and kept it quite so he could
  smuggle it out of Turkey. He wrote up the report
  once he was in Athens and the alterations to his
  journal led investigators to think it a
  concoction.

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• Schliemann went on to excavate Mycenae and
  Tirryns in Greece. He learnt from his experience
  in Troy and undertook planned an effective digs.
• Schliemann invented the new world of Archaeology
  as after Troy he published his journals and
  sketches and plans in the hope my colleagues
  might be able to explain points obscure to me.

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Dorpfeld

• In 1893 Dorpfeld took charge of the Troy dig. He
  opened up the south side of Hissarlik and struck
  walls more magnificent than anything Schliemann
  had found.
• Inside the city he found five large noble homes
  whose floor plan could be recovered and others
  that were more badly destroyed.

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• Everywhere he found Mycenaean pottery so the city
  had close ties to the Mycenaean world. He dated
  it from 1500 to 1000BC, near enough to the
  traditional date of the Trojan War and it had
  ended in violence. Walls had fallen and there had
  been a great fire. The world hailed the discovery
  of the ruins of Homers Troy.

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• Dorpfeld dated his site using the Mycenaean
  pottery. At that time the dating of this pottery
  was still in its infancy.

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Blegen

• Blegen excavated Troy from 1932 to 1938. He
  established about fifty lesser strata layers
  within the nine major cities at Hissarlik.
• He examined Troy VI the layer Dorpfeld identifed
  as Homers Troy and realised that the destruction
  was not man made. Walls had shifted and internal
  walls had fallen and lay covered by other debris.

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• Troy VI had been destroyed by an earthquake not
  by Agamemnons army.
• Troy VIIa was occupied by the same people but the
  elegant building with open space had gone. They
  were replaced by shanties, squashed up against
  the walls.

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• Blegen concluded that the city had been forced to
  shelter a much larger population inside the
  walls.
• In doorways he found parts of a human skeleton
  covered by burnt timbers, stones and debris from
  houses which had collapsed on its victims.

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• The destruction by fire, the traces of bodies,
  the arrowhead he located together with the
  overcrowding conditions indicated a community
  which was under siege.
• Blegen concluded from the evidence that Troy VIIa
  was destroyed very soon after the earthquake
  destroyed Troy VI and dated Troy VIIa to the
  middle rather than late 13th Century BC.

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• The problem remains that Schliemann, Dorpfeld and
  Blegen all found what they were looking for the
  ruins of Homers Troy.
• That Hissarlik is the site of Troy is not
  disputed but what level is Homers Troy can not
  be answered with any certainity.
• Troy VIIa is our current best guess.

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Korfman

• Korfman began his excavation in 1988.
• He located the historical coastline of the bay at
  Troy. He investigated a cone-shaped tumulus which
  in ancient times would have been on a promontory
  which ran nearly a mile into the sea. This was
  the site that classical Greeks considered to be
  the tomb of Achilles.

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• On the old coast he located fifty cremations and
  burials with Mycenaean grave goods dating from
  Troy VI. These are likely to be from a merchant
  enclave.
• Is this the Greek cemetery that Homer refers to.

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• Korfmann has identified that the bay provided a
  protected anchorage and had fresh water behind
  the sand dunes. (Taking core samples and
  analysing the soil content).
• This supports Homers claim that a lagoon lay
  between the Greeks and the river Scamander.

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• The outer defences f Troy VI have been discovered
  about 400 yards away from the main walls. A
  defensive ditch with mudbrick fortifications and
  a further timber palisade with a wall walk.
• Religious idols from Mycenae and Anatolia have
  been located outside the main walls

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• Most important Korfmann has found evidence to
  suggest that Troy was occupied from its earliest
  times through to the time of Constantine the
  Great a period of close to 3000 years.
• Evidence suggests that Troy was a major center of
  commerce between Mycenaean Greece and the Hittite
  Empire.