The ancient city of Troy was located along the northwest coast of Asia Minor, in what is now Turkey. It occupied a strategic position on the Dardanelles, a narrow water channel that connects the Aegean Sea to the Black Sea, via the Sea of Marmara. This was one of the most important trade routes in the ancient world, and Troy’s location enabled the city and its inhabitants to flourish, especially during the Bronze Age. Over the past two centuries Troy has become one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world. Yet despite its fame, both in literature and in our imaginations, it remains a place shrouded in myth and legend, unlike almost any other. The tale of the Trojan War is perhaps the most famous story of ancient Greek mythology. For almost 3,000 years, the fabled feud between Greeks and Trojans has captivated audiences. Tradition holds that the war took place during the Mycenaean Age, toward the end of the second millennium B.C., a time of legendary heroes and warriors. Combatants on both sides, including Achilles, Odysseus, Ajax, Agamemnon, Hector, and Aeneas remain household names even today. The Trojan War and its events provide the background for two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which were supposedly composed by the poet Homer around the eighth century B.C. But these are just two examples out of the many works of ancient literature that chronicle the war’s events. The mythical conflict took place outside the walls of Troy, an ancient city on the coast of Asia Minor. But the seeds of war were sown far from there, in the city of Sparta on the Greek mainland. According to legend, the Trojan prince Paris visited Sparta, which at the time was ruled by King Menelaus. Menelaus’ wife Helen was said to be the most beautiful woman in the world. When Paris departed Greece, he left with Helen by his side, enraging the Spartan leader. Not only was Menelaus a formidable king in his own right, but his brother Agamemnon was the king of Mycenae, and the most powerful ruler in Greece. Agamemnon assembled a massive army and set sail across the Aegean Sea with over 1,000 ships, determined to retrieve Helen from Troy. For the ancient Greeks, the Trojan War was a real historical event fought by their heroic ancestors. But until 150 years ago, many modern historians doubted its authenticity, considering it to be a fictional–albeit entertaining–story created by ancient writers. There was no definitive proof that the city of Troy even existed. That all began to change in the mid-nineteenth century, when an amateur archaeologist named Frank Calvert began investigating a 100-foot-high hill near the northwestern coast of Turkey called Hisarlik (“Place of Fortresses”). Much of the topography there seemed to match Homer’s descriptions, and Calvert became convinced that the legendary city of Troy was buried beneath the hill. Calvert joined forces with German businessman Heinrich Schliemann, and in the 1870s the first large-scale excavations of the site began. They would soon unearth an extraordinary lost ancient city with a 4,000 year-old history. It would become one of the most important archaeological discoveries of all time. Over the past century and half, around 50 archaeological campaigns have been conducted at Troy. Led by some of the field of archaeology’s most renowned scholars, including William Dörpfield, Carl Blegen, Manfred Korfmann, and C. Brian Rose, they have continued to further unlock the site’s hidden history These excavations have revealed an amazingly rich, yet complex archaeological picture. The hill of Hisarlik has been built upon, erased, and built upon again in a continuous cycle that lasted millennia. Therefore we cannot accurately speak of Troy as one single city. 📷 : German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann sketching the ruins of the ancient city of Troy at Hisarlık, Turkey, during his excavations in late 19th Century. #drthehistories