GCSE Classical Civilisation · The Homeric World · 1.4 · Revision
Troy and Homer
The city of the Iliad on the ground: where Troy is, the layers of the mound, and the case for and against Troy VI and Troy VIIa being Homer's city.
Troy and Homer
At a glance
The mound at Hisarlik todayTroy guarding the Dardanelles · the Aegean–Black Sea strait
Key facts
What: a tell — a mound built up from one settlement on top of another over thousands of years
Where: Hisarlik in northwest Turkey, guarding the Dardanelles, the strait between the Aegean and the Black Sea
When: settled from around 3000 BC down to Roman times; the Mycenaean-age layers are Troy VI and Troy VIIa
Excavated: by Heinrich Schliemann from the 1870s, convinced he had found Homer's city
Why it matters
this is the city of the Iliad, so the big question is whether its ruins are really Homer's Troy
behind that lies an even bigger one: did the Trojan War actually happen?
The site of Troy
A mound at Hisarlik — and its many layers
Where it is
A mound at Hisarlik in northwest Turkey, guarding the Dardanelles.
whoever held it controlled a key sea route and its trade — a believable reason a city there might be fought over, more so than a quarrel over Helen
A mound of many cities
Troy is a tell: layer built on layer over thousands of years.
Layer
Roughly when
Why it matters
Troy I
c.3000 BC
the oldest settlement on the mound
Troy VI
down to c.1250 BC
large and rich, with strong walls and towers
Troy VIIa
c.1250–1180 BC
rebuilt, short-lived, with signs of war
up to Troy IX
Roman times
people lived on the mound for around 3,000 years
the two layers that fall in the Mycenaean age, and so could be Homer's Troy, are Troy VI and Troy VIIa
The layers of Troy in section
Schliemann's warning
A reminder of what happens when the remains are read through the poems.
Schliemann dug Troy from the 1870s, sure he had found Homer's city
in his haste he cut straight down through the layers and damaged the site
the gold he called “Priam's Treasure” turned out to come from Troy II — over a thousand years too early for any Trojan War
a useful warning about reading the remains through the poems
The walls of Troy VI
What the Iliad claims
The picture any candidate layer has to match.
Homer's Troy is a great, wealthy city with high walls and towers
the test for any layer is whether it matches that picture
Was this Homer's Troy?
Two candidate layers, weighed
So which layer, if either, fits? Troy VI's evidence mostly points one way, with a single objection; Troy VIIa's evidence is genuinely read two ways.
Troy VIdestroyed c.1250 BC
Evidence
Homer's Troy?
Walls over 7m high, with towers
For — matches the high, towered walls in the Iliad
A large, rich city of perhaps 10,000 people
For — the thriving city Homer describes
Destroyed around 1250 BC
For — close to the traditional war date of about 1200
Looks to have been destroyed by an earthquake
Against — a natural disaster rather than the fire and sack of the legend
Troy VIIadestroyed c.1180 BC
Evidence
Read as a siege (for)
Read another way (against)
Destroyed by fire
the burning of the city in the legend
a fire could be accidental rather than a sack
Houses crammed inside the walls
people sheltering during a siege
simply a poor, overcrowded city
Storage jars sunk into the floors
food stockpiled to survive a siege
just a way to save space
The verdict
there is no certain answer as to which layer, if either, was Homer's Troy, though in recent decades scholars have leaned towards Troy VIIa
the bigger point: there was probably no single Trojan War exactly as Homer tells it — more likely the tradition merged the memory of one or more real conflicts at this site into one great story
The honest answer is that we cannot be sure. The remains show a real, fought-over city that could lie behind the legend, while the poem's single ten-year war stays a story shaped by centuries of retelling.
Exam focus
Practice questions — from short answers to the extended response
Short answer & explain
Describe two pieces of evidence that Troy VI could have been Homer's Troy. [short answer]
Explain why it is difficult to identify Homer's Troy from the archaeology. [explain]
Source usefulness
How useful is the site of Troy for understanding whether the Trojan War really happened? [source usefulness]
Extended response · how far do you agree
“The archaeology of Troy proves that Homer's Trojan War really took place.” How far do you agree? [extended response]
Flashcards
6 cards — click to flip, use arrows to move through
