Troy

On a cold, rainy Monday I ventured out from Cannakale to tour the (probable) site of Homeric Troy, also called Ilios. Or Wilusa, if you look far enough back.

Photo with the different city layers labeled.

See, Troy isn't just one city; it's more like nine cities built on top of each other, the earliest one dating from roughly 3000 BCE.

The buildings were made largely of mud bricks, impossible to repair when damaged. So the old bricks raised the level of the hill the cities were built on, and the people built up terraces to deal with these new slopes.


Homeric Troy is now thought to have been Troy VI or VII.

It's not as big as Hollywood makes it seem...

The "beautiful walls of Troy"--the vertical lines in the defensive walls might have been to allow it to curve around the city, but more likely they were simply decoration.

The builders didn't have mortar to secure the walls, so the stones are custom-carved to fit together.

And here is the horse that breached those walls... I'm told that a few years back, the beast was looking rather more battered, and so the tour guides would pass it off as the original, stairs, windows and all. (That's me in the middle window, by the way--just call me Odysseus!)

House walls from Troy II

Greek inscriptions at the theatre. The first archaeologist to believe this site was Troy  actually married a Greek girl, apparently with the idea that she could translate anything he found (not sure how that worked out, or how he justified the decision in marriage counseling.)

Good prices on Greek marble if you buy in bulk...

Actually in Cannakale and not Troy, but it wouldn't do to forget the *other* Trojan Horse.