TROY
The name alone incites feelings of wonder: from its place among the greatest love stories ever told, to the glory of its mythical heroes and rulers, to the treasures apparently discovered there. Troy is among the greatest mythological cities, and among of archaeology’s greatest mysteries. Perhaps you’re familiar with the story because of its record in Homer’s Iliadand Odyssey, and Virgil’s Aeneid. Or you’re interested in military history, and the most famous heroes, Achilles and Hector, are the main players of the battles before the walls of Troy. The 2004 movieTroy starring Brad Pitt and Eric Bana brought the story to millions for the first time (this author included), and Netflix has also jumped on the mythological bandwagon with its recent series Troy: The Fall of a City. Of course,
there’s the well-known phrase “a Trojan
horse,” envisioned here for the 2004
movie.
Wherever your interest in Troy stems from, this epic story of love and war, gods and mortals, and Greeks and Trojans has survived for thousands of years in the hearts and minds of amateurs and scholars alike, as has the physical evidence of the city of Troy and its infamous destruction as the city went up in flames in the Late Bronze Age.
This Site Profile will touch on the following:
Dates of the Bronze Age, the destruction(s) of Troy, and dates of the penning of the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid
What the heroes, arms, armor, and objects of the Trojan War would have looked like
Archaeological findings that help us tell piece together the story of Troy, its inhabitants, and its destruction
A look into the man who discovered Troy: Heinrich Schliemann
The story of Troy told through art since ancient times
TIMELINES AND IMPORTANT DATES
The Bronze Age (ca. 3000—1200 BCE), so named for the discovery and prolific use of bronze (a mixture of copper and tin), saw great economic expansion. This was followed by building projects on a massive scale, the invention of writing, the making and use of durable tools, a crave for the creation of beautiful and expensive luxury goods, and stronger and more deadly weapons.
For starters, there is no one “date” for the city of Troy: its history spans hundreds of years, beginning around 3000 BCE (Before Common Era) in the Early Bronze Age. It was a small city then, only about 90 meters in diameter, yet even then it had a city wall, both to keep things in and keep intruders out. This layer of the city is considered by archaeologists “Troy I.”
As archaeologists continued to dig and analyze, they found that Troy was actually made up of nine different cities, or building periods, built one on top of the other, and almost each one bigger than the last. Troy IX was built and governed by the Romans until the 4th century CE. Afterwards, there is no sign of habitation in Troy.
Consider how in Rome many houses have basements with ancient foundations: over time, and with more building projects, the layers of Rome started to build up like a cake. Different layers of this cake correspond to different periods of habitation within the city. Troy is no different.
Many dates proposed by archaeologists are estimates, and the dates of some layers are uncertain. Ask us if you’d like to know more about the nine layers of Troy and various theories of destruction and cultural reconstruction!
TROY VI 1800(?)—1275 BCE. The “glory days” of Troy. Considered to be “Homer’s Troy” by German archaeological expeditions from 1870—1894.
TROY VII 1275—1100 BCE. Considered to be “Homer’s Troy” for a time by the American archaeological expeditions run by the University of Cincinnati from 1932—1938.
Both Troy VI and Troy VII show layers of damage and destruction, including extensive fire damage. It’s believed that a series of disasters lead to the downfall and sacking of Troy in Homer’s Iliad. It’s also been proposed that Troy VI and Troy VII were built by the same generation of Trojans. Troy VII was built atop Troy VI after disaster befell the city.
Firstly, a massive earthquake around 1275 brought down the walls and palaces of Troy and left it vulnerable to attack. After this earthquake, shanty-like houses with large storage pits were built on the city’s citadel where palaces once stood. Perhaps they expected war after the earthquake hit.
Secondly, there seems to have been a widespread economic collapse in the Late Bronze Age (1250 BCE onwards). This may have been due to climate change and drought: located in the “bread basket” of Anatolia, modern-day Turkey, Troy was a prosperous city. Most likely, Troy either had a hoard of food, or thus presented the perfect opportunity for hungry Greeks to pillage, or it was weak and vulnerable as the drought went on, and was prime for the pillaging of treasure. If the Greeks were hard-pressed for food or money, Troy offered a solution to their struggles.
Homer does not discuss the economic stresses that most certainly played a role in the Greek decision to invade Trojan territory. He offers a much more romantic reason: the Trojan prince Paris stole away Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, and the wife of the powerful Greek king Menelaus. Menelaus’ brother, Agamemnon, was even more powerful, and they were able to unite armies from all over Greece to take Helen back. These organized armies gave the mighty city of Troy a run for its money. Read on to see how the warriors of Greece and Troy would have been outfitted.
HEROES, ARMS, ARMOR, AND OBJECTS OF TROY AND THE LATE BRONZE AGE
Prior to the discovery of bronze, Mediterranean peoples were mostly using copper to make tools and weapons. Copper is a very soft metal, so it doesn’t stand up very well in battle. Not even in the kitchen. However, bronze was discovered when tin was added to copper: only 10% tin to 90% copper was needed to create a metal strong enough to withstand warfare, and survive to the present day.
See the photo here for examples of spearheads, arrowheads, axes, and other Bronze Age implements of war.
Of course, seriously strong weapons call for some seriously strong armor. What would our heroes have worn to protect themselves?
Take the Warrior Vase, dating to the 12th century BCE, and discovered at Mycenae, the city of King Agamemnon. The warrior wear boar-tusk helmets, carry spears and shields, and are protected by breastplates and grieves. Note the knapsacks hanging from their spears: these men are equipped to travel far distances and make war upon enemies far away.
Because of its dating, we can expect that many warriors from Greece arrived on the beaches of Troy adorned in similar fashion. Heroes like Achilles, Hector, and Ajax would have been wearing specialty armor design specifically for them, even more elaborate and beautiful than the armor of the men on the Warrior Vase.
Many men also would have been sporting the “figure 8” shields, like the one. This image comes from a wall painting excavated at Mycenae, Agamemnon’s city.
These shields would have been made of wood covered with cowhide and strengthened with an elongated shield boss, probably made of metal. We’re quick to ask the question, why weren’t shields made of bronze, too? Well, consider how heavy those shields would have been. . .if they’re so heavy you can’t pick them up to protect yourself, what good are they? Better to have a shield you can actually lift and use, even if it’s made of slightly weaker materials, right?
The Warrior Vase and the wall paintings like the one to the left were discovered by a man named Heinrich Schliemann. He doesn’t have a very good reputation among scholars, despite his many important findings. Read on to learn why!
WHO WAS HEINRICH SCHLIEMANN?
Many archaeologists and scholars have a love/hate relationship with Schliemann. He’s most famous, or infamous, for having discovered what is believed to be the ancient remains of Troy in Çanakkale, Turkey, as well as the city of Mycenae in Greece. Sounds like great news to Homeric students and history buffs, right? Yes. . . and no. See, Schliemann was not a trained archaeologist; he was a millionaire businessman who was obsessed with the romantic idea of discovering the mythological city of Troy. When he thought he had finally found it, he dug so quickly in his fervor to find proof of the opulent city that he destroyed many important layers of earth that were important to Troy’s story. Once you remove these layers, you can’t put them back, so the evidence they contain was essentially destroyed.
If Schliemann would have been more patient, he would have discovered that the layers know known as Troy VI and Troy VII had just the kind of evidence he needed to prove that the battle of Troy actually happened: fragments of Mycenaean pottery. This proves that the Mycenaeans were in Troy! What’s more, these pottery fragments were found among layers of destruction: the Mycenaeans were there when Troy burned!
Heinrich Schliemann and his wife, Sophia, wearing the so-called “treasure of Priam.”
Priam was the mythical king of Troy, according to Homer. The discovery of this hoard of gold would have been one of archaeology’s greatest stories if it weren’t for two things: 1) the gold was not found all in the same place, nor was it all discovered at Troy. 2) the gold dates from Troy II, hundreds of years earlier than Homer’s Troy. Schliemann lied about the discovery of this “treasure” because he was so gung-ho about proving that Homer’s Troy was a real city.
He did the same thing at Mycenae: he thought that if Troy was a real city, so was Agamemnon’s city and its palace. As it turns out, he was correct. Mycenae, in mainland Greece, was a real city, and was grand and rich enough to fit the bill as Agamemnon’s home. The “lion’s gate” served as the entrance to the Bronze Age city of Mycenae.
Schliemann discovered, in a massive burial of a rich man, a funeral mask made of beautifully hammered gold. With the size of the burial and the richness contained within, he knew he could only have stumbled upon the grave of one man: Agamemnon himself. Though still considered a masterpiece of Bronze Age art, the funeral mask, shown below, does not belong to Agamemnon: once more, in his haste, Schliemann misdated the age of the mask by some 300 years. Just like Troy II and the “treasure of Priam,” Schliemann misinterpreted the dates in order to achieve his goal of proving the existence of Troy, Mycenae, and the great heroes of the Trojan War.
ART AFTER TROY
Just like we are today, the ancients were obsessed with the story of Troy and its great heroes. Artists, poets, musicians, you name it: they couldn’t get enough of Troy. It’s believed that the story of the Trojan War, if it did indeed occur, was passed on through the oral tradition. This means that, from generation to generation, over hundreds of years, people would tell the story out loud to those that would listen. And believe me, people would listen! The story was a popular tale at weddings, and would sometimes take days to recount! For centuries, poets would tell the story to younger poets, who would memorize it and, in their turn, pass it on to the next generation of poets.
That is, until about 750 BCE, 500 years after the battle would have happened. Supposedly, a blind poet named Homer finally decided to have the poem written down. Thus, the Iliad and the Odyssey were born. Since Homer was reportedly blind, he would have told the story aloud to scribes who wrote it down on either clay tablets or papyri, an ancient form of paper made from the papyrus plant. Because of his efforts, or the combined efforts of many poets called as a collective “Homer,” we now have the story of the Trojan War and its aftermath. While no manuscript from Homer’s lifetime has been uncovered, earlier manuscripts, or fragments of the story, are being discovered all the time. See below a piece of the papyrus scroll called the Bankes Homer, dating to the 2nd century CE.
Fantastic images come to us through pottery. This black figure neck amphora dates to around 510 BCE. It depicts Achilles and Ajax the Great playing a board game during some down time. The goddess Athena, who championed the Greek army, watches on.
If you’re interested in pottery from this period, and what black figure or neck amphora means, let us know! We have lessons for that too.
The Romans were particularly obsessed with Troy. Why? It may seem complicated at first, but the Romans, specifically Julius Caesar’s family, considered themselves to be descended from the Trojans. The Trojan prince Aeneas was the son of Venus, goddess of love, and Anchises, a Trojan prince and King Priam’s cousin. When the Mycenaeans sacked Troy, Aeneas escaped to Italy with his elderly father Anchises and young son Iulus in tow. Iulus founded the city of Alba Longa in Italy, the mother city of Rome. This is where Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were born. Iulus looks a lot like the name Julius, doesn’t it? Indeed, Caesar’s last name in Latin was Iulius, meaning he was of the gens Iulia, the family of Iulus.
The Romans therefore idolized the Trojans and put images of them everywhere. The city of Troy itself received great benefaction from the Romans, including being a tax-free city and the recipient of large-scale building projects. The image here shows a marble relief from Aphrodisias, a Roman city near Troy. We see Aeneas carrying a (damaged) Anchises while taking Iulus by the hand. Venus, his mother, looks on and guides their escape from Troy. This relief dates from the 1st century CE.
Medievalists likewise loved the tale of Troy. One manuscript, depicted here, was written in Greek around 1059 and was passed down through the Renaissance, where it was continually adored. Men of the Renaissance praised the beauty of classical art, and therefore the tales and imagery of the Trojan War was celebrated throughout the Renaissance.
The discovery of a large statue group, called the Laocoön and His Sons, was unearthed in Rome in 1506 and sparked new interest in classical sculpture and ancient stories. Laocoön was a priest of Troy and warned of its sacking by Mycenaeans. He told the Trojans to beware the Trojan horse. He and his sons were killed by sea monsters sent by the gods. Why? Because the Greeks were destined to win the Trojan War and his warning, if taken seriously by the Trojans, would have prevented a Greek victory. The statue group, now in the Vatican Museums, is one of the most famous of all classical sculpture.
One of the most famous images from the Trojan War is the Trojan horse, the structure in which Greek soldiers hid. The Greeks pretended to withdraw from Troy, effectively ending the war, or so the Trojans thought. As a sign of peace, the Greeks left a large wooden structure in the shape of a horse on the Trojan beach (Trojans were known for their mastery of horses). However, danger lay within: when the Trojans took the horse into their city, Greek soldiers came out of it at night, opened the gates of Troy, and let the entirety Greek armies inside the city’s wall. Slaughter ensued, and thus ended the Trojan War.
This is what the structure looked like in the 2004 movie. Do you think this is what it really looked like, if it actually existed?
So ends this Site Profile on Troy! Of course, this only scratches the surface of the history of Troy and its archaeology. Thanks for reading and, as always, message us if you want to learn more about a particular area of this Profile.
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