Troy: Reading the Nine Cities of Hisarlik
Troy — the site of the most famous story in western literature — is also one of the most archaeologically complex sites in the ancient world. The mound of Hisarlik, on a ridge above the Trojan Plain near the Dardanelles in north-western Turkey, contains the stratigraphic remains of at least nine successive cities spanning from the Early Bronze Age (c. 3000 BCE) to the Byzantine period (c. 500 CE). Identifying which layer corresponds to the city described in Homer's Iliad, if any does, has occupied archaeologists since Schliemann's first excavations in 1870 and remains, in some respects, unresolved — though the archaeological evidence points clearly to the Late Bronze Age levels as the most plausible candidates.
The Discovery
The identification of Hisarlik as the site of Troy was proposed by the geographer Lechevalier in 1785 and supported by the English diplomat and amateur archaeologist Frank Calvert, who purchased part of the mound and conducted preliminary soundings in the 1860s. Heinrich Schliemann, the German businessman and obsessive self-promoter who had amassed a fortune and was determined to prove Homer's historicity, was directed to the site by Calvert. He began excavating in 1870, financed from his own resources and operating without institutional oversight.
Schliemann's methods were technically inadequate by even the standards of his time. Seeking the lowest and therefore oldest levels, he drove a massive cutting through the mound's centre, destroying significant portions of the Bronze Age levels he was seeking. When he found a rich treasure of gold and silver objects in 1873 — the so-called "Priam's Treasure" — and smuggled it out of Turkey to avoid the Ottoman government, he announced it as definitive proof of Homer's Troy. The treasure is almost certainly from Troy II (c. 2500–2200 BCE), a thousand years earlier than any plausible Homeric period.
The Nine Cities
Modern excavation — particularly the large-scale American project led by Manfred Korfmann from 1988 to 2005, and the current German-Turkish programme — has established the following stratigraphic sequence:
Troy I (c. 3000–2550 BCE): A small Early Bronze Age settlement with simple mud-brick architecture. Troy II (c. 2550–2200 BCE): A larger fortified town with a megaroid (long-hall) ruler's residence and the treasure that Schliemann misidentified as Priam's. Troy III–V (c. 2200–1750 BCE): Transitional phases with changing cultural connections. Troy VI (c. 1750–1300 BCE): A substantial city with impressive stone fortification walls, towers, and a large citadel, rebuilt multiple times; the residential lower city has been mapped by geophysical survey as covering approximately 75 hectares. Troy VIh (the last phase of Troy VI) was damaged around 1300 BCE, probably by an earthquake. Troy VIIa (c. 1300–1190 BCE): A rebuilt and densely occupied phase showing signs of population pressure (new houses in earlier open spaces, large storage vessels sunk into floors) and ending in a destruction by fire. Troy VIIb (c. 1190–1050 BCE): A post-destruction settlement with new cultural connections. Troy VIII–IX: Greek and Roman Ilion, occupied through the Byzantine period.
The Homeric Troy Question
The consensus among archaeologists and historians who have studied the question most carefully is that Troy VI or Troy VIIa are the most likely candidates for the Homeric Troy, with most recent opinion favouring Troy VI (particularly its last phase, VIh). Troy VI was a substantial Late Bronze Age city with impressive defensive walls and a large lower town — large enough to be a credible political centre. The destruction of Troy VIIa by fire around 1190 BCE falls within the plausible date range for the Greek heroic age.
The key problems with the identification are: the Homeric Iliad is a poetic composition of the eighth century BCE, drawing on a tradition of oral poetry that had been transmitted for five centuries since the events it describes, if those events occurred at all; and the site at Troy/Hisarlik, while significant, was never a major Bronze Age city by Near Eastern standards — it is much smaller than Mycenae, Tiryns, or any of the major Anatolian or Levantine cities of the period. Whether a siege of the kind described in the Iliad would leave detectable traces in the archaeological record is itself debated.
Schliemann's Treasure and Its Journey
The gold and silver objects from Troy II — including a gold diadem, gold beakers, gold and silver vessels, bronze weapons, and tens of thousands of gold ornaments — were smuggled by Schliemann to Athens and subsequently to Berlin, where they were displayed in the Pergamon Museum. They were evacuated for safekeeping during the Second World War and in 1945 were removed from Berlin by Soviet troops; the collection surfaced in Moscow in 1993, where it is currently held by the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. Germany has sought their return; the Turkish government has a separate repatriation claim.
The Korfmann Excavations and the Lower City
The most significant advance in Troy archaeology since Schliemann was Manfred Korfmann's demonstration, using geophysical survey and targeted excavation from the 1990s, that Troy VI had a large lower city outside the citadel walls — a lower town of approximately 75 hectares connected to the citadel by a defensive ditch (probably part of the Hittite-period defensive system) and containing residential and craft-production areas. The lower city's population at its Late Bronze Age peak was probably 4,000–7,500 — much larger than the citadel alone suggested, and large enough to be a credible Bronze Age city-state.
Visiting Troy
The site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located 30 km south of Canakkale in Canakkale Province, Turkey. The Troy Museum, opened in 2018 adjacent to the site, displays finds from over 150 years of excavation including replicas of Priam's Treasure. The site itself shows the stratigraphic walls of successive phases in a heavily excavated and somewhat confusing landscape — the companion to the museum visit rather than the centrepiece. Entry is included in a combined museum-site ticket. Open year-round; the best approach is via the Canakkale ferry from Eceabat or via the D190 highway from Canakkale.