Troy and Schliemann

Once upon a time on the southern shore of the Hellespont (Dardanelles) was the ancient city of Troy, whose walls, according to legend, was built by the god Poseidon himself. The city of Troy lay on the sea trade route from Asia Minor to Pontus Euxines (Black Sea) and was famous for its power and wealth. The last ruler of Troy was the wise old Priam.

Once upon a time on the southern shore of the Hellespont (Dardanelles) was the ancient city of Troy, whose walls, according to legend, was built by the god Poseidon himself

Around 1225 BC the warlike Greek tribes of the Achaeans united for a large military campaign on the city of Troy. Only in the tenth year they managed to seize the impregnable city of Troy and destroy it...

King Troy Priam and many townspeople were killed. Only a small group of Trojans, led by the youngest son of Priam, Eney managed to escape from the burning city of Troy. Sailing to the ships, they swam somewhere in the sea, and their traces were later found in Carthage, Albania, Italy. The descendant of Aeneas considered himself Julius Caesar.

A few centuries later, the great blind singer Homer, taking as a basis the subjects of the songs, composed a large poem called "Iliad". Until the 19th century, no one had ever considered the Iliad as a historical source. And the first person who believed "fairy tales of the blind Homer", was the German Henry Schliemann (1822-1890). Young Schliemann believed Homer to the end and vowed that he would find the ancient city of Troy.

The search for the city of Troy led him to a 40-meter high hill with a promising name called Gissarlik ("fortress", "castle"), whose top was a flat square plateau with sides at 233 m.

For the sake of justice, it should be noted that Schliemann was not the first to set out to seek Troy on the southern shore of the Dardanelles. Herodotus wrote that King Xerxes, the ruler of Persia, stayed here and the locals told him the story of the siege and capture of Troy. Alexander of Macedon, stopping in the city of Troy, performed a ritual ceremony: he poured himself butter, ran naked around the "tomb of Achilles" and put on himself the ancient weapons that were kept in the local temple of Athena of the Troyan. Julius Caesar found here only the ruins of the city of Troy - forty years before this city was destroyed by the Romans. He erected an altar on the ruins of Troy and burned incense. The Emperor Constantine, who visited in the 120's. e. ruins of Troy, wished to found here the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, but then his choice fell on Byzantium - so appeared Constantinople.

Excavations of the city of Troy were preceded by a tormenting expectation of permission to conduct them. When, in April 1870, the work finally began, it became clear that Schliemann faced a very difficult task: to get to the ruins of Homeric Troy, he had to break through several cultural layers belonging to different times - the Gissarlyk hill, as it turned out to be a real "puff cake". Already many years after Schliemann it was established that there are nine extensive strata on the Gissarlik that absorbed about 50 phases of the existence of settlements of different epochs. The earliest of these dates back to the 3rd millennium BC, and the later ones by 540 AD.

Finally, before the eyes of Schliemann appeared the remains of huge gates and fortress walls, scorched by a fierce fire. Undoubtedly, Schliemann decided that these were the remnants of the palace of Priam, destroyed by the Achaeans. Subsequently it turned out that Schliemann was mistaken: the city of Priam lay above what he had mistaken for Troy. But the true Troy, though greatly spoiled her, he nevertheless dug out, himself not knowing that.

As shown by the latest research, on the Gissarlyk hill there were nine different cities "Troy". The uppermost layer, destroyed by Schliemann - Troy 9, - was the remains of a city in the Roman era known as the New Ilium, which existed, at least until the 4th century AD. Below lay Troy 8 - the Greek city of Ilion (Ila), inhabited about 1000 BC and destroyed in 84 BC the Roman commander Flavius Fimbriem. This city was famous for its temple of Athena of the Troyan, which was visited by many famous people of antiquity, including Alexander the Great and Xerxes. Troy 7, which existed for about eight hundred years, was a rather insignificant settlement. But Troy 6 (1800-1240 BC) most likely was the city of the king of Priam. But Schliemann literally swept through him, trying to get to the next layers, because he was convinced that his goal was much deeper. As a result, he severely injured Troy 6, but he stumbled upon the burned ruins of Troy 5, a city that existed for about a hundred years and died in a fire of fire around 1800 BC. Below it lay the layers of Troy 4 (2050-1900 BC) and Troy 3 (2200-2050 BC) - comparatively poor settlements of the Bronze Age. But Troy 2 (2600-2200 BC) was a very significant center. It was here in May 1873 that Schliemann made his most important discovery...

On that day, watching the progress of work on the ruins of the "Priam palace", Schliemann accidentally noticed an object. In the greatest haste, working with one knife, Schliemann extracted from the earth treasures of unheard value - "treasure of the king of Priam"!

The treasure consisted of 8833 items, among which were unique cups of gold and silver, vessels, household copper and bronze utensils, two gold diadems, silver bottles, beads, chains, buttons, clasps, wreck daggers, nine battle axes made of copper.

What was actually Homeric Troy?

It was a large urban center of the late Bronze Age. On the crest of the Gissarlyk hill in those days towered a powerful fortress with towers, the length of the walls of which was 522 meters. The walls of the city of Troy were made of large limestone slabs 4-5 m thick. In one of the towers, which had a 9-meter height, an underground well was built, carved into the rock at a depth of 8 m. Behind the ring of walls was the palace of the ruler (Priam?) And "Arsenal" - a large (26x12 m) structure, in the ruins of which were found 15 clay cores for stone stones. Residential buildings of the city of Troy were built of stone and bricks. In the city lived at that time about 6 thousand people.

Judging by some data, the main reason for the death of "Troy of King Priam" was not a war, but an uncommon earthquake in those places. It is possible that the city affected by the natural cataclysm was raided by the Achaeans, who finally destroyed and plundered it.

During the past hundred years, the ancient walls of the excavated city of Troy, subjected to constant exposure to rain and wind, began to crumble and crack. Only in 1988, managed to stop the devastating process of destruction - an international group of archaeologists, headed by the German Manfred Korfman, was engaged in the conservation of ancient walls.

In October 1995, a new discovery took place - in the ancient city of Troy there was a written language! On the found bronze seal with Hittite hieroglyphs (1100 BC) Manfred Korfman came to the conclusion that Troy is the same city, which is mentioned not only in Homer, but also in the oldest Hittite epic. There is one more point of view: the German archaeologist Zangger, referring to Plato's famous text, claims that Troy is Atlantis! Anyway, but the excavation and exploration of the city of Troy continues. Ariadne's thread of legends leads into the depths of history already a new generation of scientists.

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