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===Trojan War===
===Trojan War===
The most famous part of the story of Troy is the Trojan War itself, a conflict between Mycenaean Greeks and the Kingdom of Troy that has generally been told and retold for about four centuries before being put down in writing by Homer, a Greek poet and bard who may or may not have existed. The conflict began when the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, Helen, eloped with the Trojan prince Paris, and to get her back, Menelaus received the backing of King Agamemnon of Mycenae. The army that was created sailed to Troy on a thousand ships and laid siege to the city for ten years; lacking the physical power to enter, the Greeks feigned giving up, leaving a large, wooden horse on the beach as a "gift" to Troy. The horse was pulled into the city, and the Greek soldiers who had hidden inside it crept out, opened the city gates, and allowed the Greek army to enter, resulting in the destruction of the city. Homer's tale involved age-old conflicts of right and wrong; the influence of the gods; the heroes Ajax and Nestor; the intercession of the Amazons in the aid of Priam; the doomed Patroclus who believed he could be a stand-in for his cousin, the nearly-indestructible Achilles, who would take vengeance against Hector on the plain before Troy, dragging his body around the city with his chariot. And when Troy was turned to ashes, Odysseus would face a ten-year journey to get back home to Ithaca, to find his wife the target of unwanted suitors.
The most famous part of the story of Troy is the Trojan War itself, a conflict between Mycenaean Greeks (Achaeans) and the Kingdom of Troy that has generally been told and retold for about four centuries before being put down in writing by Homer, a Greek poet and bard who may or may not have existed. The conflict began when the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, Helen, eloped with the Trojan prince Paris, and to get her back, Menelaus received the backing of King Agamemnon of Mycenae. The army that was created sailed to Troy on a thousand ships and laid siege to the city for ten years; lacking the physical power to enter, the Greeks feigned giving up, leaving a large, wooden horse on the beach as a "gift" to Troy. The horse was pulled into the city, and the Achaean soldiers who had hidden inside it crept out, opened the city gates, and allowed the Achaeans to enter, resulting in the destruction of the city. Homer's tale involved age-old conflicts of right and wrong; the influence of the gods; the heroes Ajax and Nestor; the intercession of the Amazons in the aid of Priam; the doomed Patroclus who believed he could be a stand-in for his cousin, the nearly-indestructible Achilles, who would take vengeance against Hector on the plain before Troy, dragging his body around the city with his chariot. And when Troy was turned to ashes, Odysseus would face a ten-year journey to get back home to Ithaca, to find his wife the target of unwanted suitors.
The ''Illiad'' was first written down about 750 B.C., followed by the ''Odyssey'' around 725 B.C. Both works are ascribed to Homer. About 29 B.C. Virgil wrote his epic ''Aeneid'', in which the tale recounted Trojans who fled the destruction to Carthage; led by Prince Aeneas, they would leave for the Italian peninsula, founding the city of Rome on the banks of the Tiber River. Written during the period of the first emperor [[Augustus]], Virgil's epic had the intention of giving the Romans a history as impressive as any the Greeks had.
The ''Illiad'' was first written down about 750 B.C., followed by the ''Odyssey'' around 725 B.C. Both works are ascribed to Homer. About 29 B.C. Virgil wrote his epic ''Aeneid'', in which the tale recounted Trojans who fled the destruction to Carthage; led by Prince Aeneas, they would leave for the Italian peninsula, founding the city of Rome on the banks of the Tiber River. Written during the period of the first emperor [[Augustus]], Virgil's epic had the intention of giving the Romans a history as impressive as any the Greeks had.
Excavating at the second layer from the bottom, he brought to light an immense treasure and thought he had discovered the legendary treasure of Priam narrated in the ''Iliad''. Its findings, however, date to the 13th century B.C. and not to the period of the Trojan War. Subsequent excavation campaigns were conducted by Wilhelm Dörpfeld (1893-1894) and Carl Blegen (1932-1938), whose research led to the discovery of nine superimposed levels, with various subdivisions, and dated with the help of the analysis of the objects found and the examination of the construction techniques used.
Excavating at the second layer from the bottom, he brought to light an immense treasure and thought he had discovered the legendary treasure of Priam narrated in the ''Iliad''. Its findings, however, date to the 13th century B.C. and not to the period of the Trojan War. Subsequent excavation campaigns were conducted by Wilhelm Dörpfeld (1893-1894) and Carl Blegen (1932-1938), whose research led to the discovery of nine superimposed levels, with various subdivisions, and dated with the help of the analysis of the objects found and the examination of the construction techniques used.
The many excavations made it possible to reconstruct a history of Troy, establishing ten phases of occupation over time. The first four settlements (Troy I-IV) developed during the 3rd millennium B.C., and have a clear cultural continuity even with the fifth settlement. Troy VI attests to a second flowering of the city, leading to the main candidate - Troy VII - of the city identified as the site of Homer's epic tale.
Troy VIII and IX respectively cover archaic Greece to the period of classical Greece represented by the so-called "age of Pericles", the epoch of Hellenism and finally that of Roman civilization. Troy X is the urban center at the time of the Byzantine Empire. From the first settlement up to Troy VII there are no written records left to help evaluate the historical and social development of the city.
===Troy I===
The original citadel of Troy has at least twelve different phases of construction which developed, according to [[Carl Blegen]] and others, over the course of five centuries between 2920 and 2500/2450 B.C. Its stratigraphy measures more than thirteen feet deep on only half of the northwestern hill.
Unearthed by Schliemann, it consists of a fortified stone wall enclosure of quadrangular bastions nearly eight feet; the traces found on the east side (irregular stones and reduced from the upper side) measure a height of 11.4 feet and control the entrance. Other foundational structures found include a rectangular plan for homes with remains of an internal megaron, i.e. a house or room with an open forecourt and internal hearth<ref>http://smea.isma.cnr.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Hopkins_The-Megaron-of-the-Mycenaean-Palace.pdf</ref>. Also appearing for the first time are ceramics decorated with schematic human faces. It housed a population whose culture, called Kum Tepe after a nearby hill<ref>http://www.ascsa.edu.gr/pdf/uploads/hesperia/147895.pdf</ref>, is considered to belong to the early Bronze Age. It was destroyed by fire and then rebuilt, giving rise to Troy II.
===Troy II===
Although abruptly destroyed, there is no chronological or cultural interruption between Troy I and Troy II, which was developed between 2500/2450 and 2350/2300 B.C. and comprised at least eight construction phases occupying an area of nearly 97,000 square feet. This phase of occupation was initially discovered by Schliemann and reviewed by Dörpfeld, a real small town with brick houses that show signs of destruction by fire. It was Troy II which Schliemann erroneously assumed to be the Troy of Homer.
According to Dörpfeld it was a very prosperous city, as the remains of the great city walls were found, as well as the imperial palace and its 600 wells and more, where supplies were usually kept: these generally contained fragments of large jars for storage of assets.
The polygonal wall was built with bricks erected on a stone base. It had two large access doors, which could be reached through stone ramps and square towers at the corners. The main door is located on the south-west side, which through a small portico led directly to the royal palace, the most important building. Originally about 130 feet wide, Dörpfeld found the remains of a platform that could have supported a large house. The other structures that ran alongside it, also discovered by Dörpfeld, should assumed to be the private residences of the royal family and the central warehouse where the surplus stocks were brought and stored.
The great simplicity of the buildings of the whole Troy II complex is in stark contrast to the architecture of contemporaries, such as Akkad of Mesopotamia or the Old Kingdom of Egypt; both of whom enjoyed richly-laid, colorful architecture and lush gardens. This simplicity of the Trojan buildings of Troy is even more surprising when compared with the discovery there of the famous [[treasure of Priam]], the most massive and significant artistic heritage of the third millennium B.C., and one of the most important findings in the history of archeology. Composed of valuables in precious metals and precious stones, Schliemann donated it to his hometown of Berlin, Germany, which kept it in a museum until the Second World War. Among the precious objects there was a large disc provided with an ''omphalos'' (''ὀμφᾰλός'' "navel"<ref>https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/omphalos</ref>) - a kind of swelling in the center of the object - and a wide flat handle ending with a series of smaller discs, and possibly used to sift for gold in a fashion similar to tools found in Ur and in Babylon. The gems consisted of personal jewelry: earrings, two diadems of solid gold which adorned the forehead with a thin fringe, thick gold chains each ending with a pendant of gold leaf or leaf shaped leaves; all have been recovered together with a series of necklaces and pendants placed in a large silver pitcher. And it was during the Second World War that this treasure would disappear, not to be seen again until 1993 when Russian president Boris Yeltsin revealed that they were war booty, and stored in the Pushkin Museum<ref>http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-04-16/news/9604160105_1_trophy-art-trojan-gold-major-treasures</ref><ref>https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/moscow-to-show-off-gold-of-troy-1463628.html</ref>.
==References==
==References==