Archaeology and Dating
Every student knows of the story of Troy, the tale told by Homer in the Iliad thousands of years ago. For centuries, it was believed that it was just that, a story, while the city of Troy lay buried beneath the sands of Turkey and the mythology of the past. But in 1870, a German entrepreneur by the name of Heinrich Schliemann set out, with Iliad in hand, to discover the ancient city and validate the story of Homer. By 1873, he had unearthed the city of Troy, one of archaeology's most famous discoveries.
After a brief false start in another place, Schliemann heard from a less well-funded explorer who also happened to be in the area hunting for Troy that a promising-looking mound lay in a plain near the Turkish village of Hissarlik. It's important to note, however, that Schliemann had many possible dig sites in front of him. The Near East is littered withtells, mounds which were once ancient settlements and cities. So, Schliemann might have dug in many places, but he decided to work at the mound that lay near Hissarlik.
Almost upon first digging into it, it was clear that the site he was uncovering had been an important city in antiquity. For one, this mound had many levels which meant the city had been rebuilt several times but, more important to Schliemann, it had large walls just as Homer describes those around Troy. The German archaeologist captured the ears and hearts of many of his contemporaries when he announced across Europe he had found Homer's Troy.
Schliemann's discovery of this city and his claim that it was the Troy of Greek legend brought with it many important implications. First and foremost was that Homeric epic was not merely myth, not just a story but history. This opened a new door to the past. After all, if Homer's Troy could be real, why not Abraham's Ur or Moses' Goshen? In the years following Schliemann's announcement, more than one religious organization began funding digs in the Near East, and whatever truths might lie behind the tales of the past became the subject of dinner-table conversations across the western world. The popularization of classical archaeology was under way.
Soon thereafter Schliemann again took center stage when he proclaimed he'd found a trove of jewels and gold buried in a chest. These, he supposed, were the riches of Troy hurriedly buried in the panic of the Greek siege. Dubbing them Priam's Treasure, he told a remarkable tale of how he'd uncovered and secured them, that after he'd dug the pieces up he had his wife hide the treasure in her clothing and in this way she sneaked it past the overseers assigned to ensure no native antiquities were smuggled out of Turkey. Clearly, Schliemann saw this as a victory for archaeology and science, not the pillage of an eastern culture by greedy westerners as many see it today.
But problems lay ahead for Schliemann and his dig at "Troy." It was quickly apparent there was something odd about Priam's Treasure. For one, the artistic styles of the various pieces constituting the collection covered a wide range of dates, an unusually broad spectrum of types for a single hoard, leaving the impression of "treasures" rather than one coherent hoard. Furthermore, Schliemann reported finding it in a location which he could not have known at the time dated it several centuries prior to the age when Homer's Troy would have fallen if such an event were historical (ca. 1180 BCE). All this made it seem unlikely that Priam's Treasure was a single find which had ever belonged to anyone named "Priam."
And, in general, things didn't go Schliemann's way on other fronts. For instance, the cultural zenith of this site—that is, the level with the richest deposits and largest population—also belonged to an age long before Agamemnon could have led the Greek siege. Instead, the Troy that properly dated to Homer's city, a level which archaeologists have termed Troy VIIA, turned out to be a shabby resettlement of a once great city. Worse yet, it wasn't clear how Troy VIIA had met its end. It might have been destroyed by siege but, if so, there wasn't a comprehensive "burn layer" capping it, evidence of a cataclysmic conflagration, the way Troy falls in Greek myth. If Homeric legend were at all historical, there ought to have been evidence of some massive fire and mayhem, but there wasn't. True, other earlier "Troys" had clearly fallen prey to violence, but not Troy VIIA.
Nor would evidence of a siege necessarily constitute definitive proof this was Homer's Troy anyway, since virtually all cities of any standing in Asia Minor were attacked at some point during the second millennium BCE. It was a time of great turmoil and upheaval throughout the ancient world, and other civilizations in Asia Minor, like the once mighty Hittites, had collapsed and disappeared around the same time as Troy was said to have fallen. All in all, if Schliemann's site was indeed Homer's Troy, many of the archaeological pieces didn't harmonise well with the literary evidence, on the surface at least.
But Schliemann was a businessman who knew how to keep his eye on the big picture and not obsess over details. When confronted with the anomalies of his Troy, he simply turned his attention from Asia Minor to mainland Greece and started excavating a new site. There he found even greater fortune and fame. Among the ruins of Mycenae, the legendary home of Agamemnon in the northeastern Peloponnese (the southern part of Greece), the German archaeologist uncovered another lost civilization. This extraordinary instinct for where to dig was, without doubt, his greatest gift and for which he is deservedly called the Father of Mediterranean Archaeology.
At Mycenae, Schliemann again unearthed the remains of a thriving, second-millennium culture now known as Mycenean Civilization. Among the many rewards for his efforts there, a fortress and several rich tombs were discovered. Particularly, in the Grave Circle where the Myceneans had entombed their rulers, Schliemann brought to light a series of gold death masks which had been used to cover the faces of dead princes. When Schliemann found a particularly handsome death mask, he wired back to his colleagues in Europe, "I have looked on the face of Agamemnon." Thus, this discovery came to be known as the "Mask of Agamemnon" and has turned into one of the most famous archaeological artifacts ever unearthed, gracing more books on Greek archaeology than perhaps any other single find.
But what did Schliemann really find? Certainly, his "Troy" was an important city in the prehistory of Asia Minor. Nor can it be doubted that he uncovered a Greek civilization which thrived during the latter half of the second millennium BCE. Nevertheless, the question remains: Is this the Troy of legend? Is this Mycenae the home of Homer's Agamemnon? And even if they are, to what extent does any of this confirm the historicity of Homer, namely, Homeric epic as a record of what-really-happened? One thing's for certain: there's nothing's simple or straightforward about any of this, nothing like the way archaeological evidence is often seen in the popular mind as compelling and incontrovertible proof of what-really-happened-in-the-past.
Moreover, none of this makes much of an impact on the central question at hand—are Homer's epics an account of actual past events?—if Homer and his poetic predecessors were making up the story of Troy. Schliemann's dream of proving that Homer's saga constitutes a record of a real military campaign which took place in the second millennium BCE, his discovery of Priam's Treasure and the grandiose claim to "have looked on the face of Agamemnon," all of it has little hope of historical validation if Homer and his audience saw The Iliad and The Odyssey as essentially works of beautiful but fantastical fiction.
And how could they not? People in Homer's day had no access to the sort of historical records on which we today depend, especially regarding the period when Agamemnon supposedly led the Greeks to Troy. That's because a long dark age of unrest and illiteracy (1100-800 BCE) separated Homer's audiences from Achilles and Odysseus and the world embodied in Homeric myth. Besides that, we now know Homer was an oral poet, a bard whose epics were composed on the spot for performance (see above, Section 3). Thus essentially an entertainer, possibly blind, recounting events which happened centuries before his lifetime, is there any real chance that Homer preserves an accurate picture of the past, anything like history in the modern sense of the word? It's impossible to answer that question with any certainty, making it wiser on the whole to doubt than believe the assertion.
Despite all these problems, however, most archaeologists still refer to the site near Hissarlik as "Troy"—and, of course, the general public follows suit—and a good many historians today speak of the Trojan War as something historical. Whatever its validity, Schliemann's vision of Troy as a real place and Homer as a historian of sorts shows one thing for certain: histories will linger around, even when they entail serious contradictions and face grave challenges, if for some reason people wantto believe them. So, no matter how much of it is invented, an important aspect of this historical inquiry concerns not the reality but the attraction of Homer's Troy.
That was not the end of the story of Troy, however. Today, excavations are still going on to learn more about the newer settlements on the site. It has been found that at least nine cities were built on the site, ranging from the original Troy, c. 3000 B.C., to Roman New Ilium, c. 600 A.D. Most interesting are Troy VI (c. 1700 - 1250 B.C.) and VIIa (c. 1250 - 1000 B.C.). Troy VI was greatly damaged by Schliemann's expeditions, but researchers have found that it was built after Troy V was destroyed by fire. Troy VI was a major reconstruction and renovation of the original settlement, much larger and more magnificent. The people of Troy VI probably spoke Luvian, and Indo-European language, and hunting and fishing were major sources of food. Troy VI was destroyed by earthquake, but due to the lack of human remains, archaeologists believe the majority of the people escaped. The survivors built Troy VIIa, whose inhabitants prepared for and were destroyed by war. Troy VIIa is the best candidate for the Troy of Homer, which is dated somewhere around 1250 B.C. Additionally, a foreign graveyard dating to about the same time was discovered outside the city, where Greek armies may have landed and set up camp. Researchers are still excavating parts of this rich site. Despite the fact that it was first discovered over a hundred years ago, new discoveries are still being made at this amazing ancient city.
After a brief false start in another place, Schliemann heard from a less well-funded explorer who also happened to be in the area hunting for Troy that a promising-looking mound lay in a plain near the Turkish village of Hissarlik. It's important to note, however, that Schliemann had many possible dig sites in front of him. The Near East is littered withtells, mounds which were once ancient settlements and cities. So, Schliemann might have dug in many places, but he decided to work at the mound that lay near Hissarlik.
Almost upon first digging into it, it was clear that the site he was uncovering had been an important city in antiquity. For one, this mound had many levels which meant the city had been rebuilt several times but, more important to Schliemann, it had large walls just as Homer describes those around Troy. The German archaeologist captured the ears and hearts of many of his contemporaries when he announced across Europe he had found Homer's Troy.
Schliemann's discovery of this city and his claim that it was the Troy of Greek legend brought with it many important implications. First and foremost was that Homeric epic was not merely myth, not just a story but history. This opened a new door to the past. After all, if Homer's Troy could be real, why not Abraham's Ur or Moses' Goshen? In the years following Schliemann's announcement, more than one religious organization began funding digs in the Near East, and whatever truths might lie behind the tales of the past became the subject of dinner-table conversations across the western world. The popularization of classical archaeology was under way.
Soon thereafter Schliemann again took center stage when he proclaimed he'd found a trove of jewels and gold buried in a chest. These, he supposed, were the riches of Troy hurriedly buried in the panic of the Greek siege. Dubbing them Priam's Treasure, he told a remarkable tale of how he'd uncovered and secured them, that after he'd dug the pieces up he had his wife hide the treasure in her clothing and in this way she sneaked it past the overseers assigned to ensure no native antiquities were smuggled out of Turkey. Clearly, Schliemann saw this as a victory for archaeology and science, not the pillage of an eastern culture by greedy westerners as many see it today.
But problems lay ahead for Schliemann and his dig at "Troy." It was quickly apparent there was something odd about Priam's Treasure. For one, the artistic styles of the various pieces constituting the collection covered a wide range of dates, an unusually broad spectrum of types for a single hoard, leaving the impression of "treasures" rather than one coherent hoard. Furthermore, Schliemann reported finding it in a location which he could not have known at the time dated it several centuries prior to the age when Homer's Troy would have fallen if such an event were historical (ca. 1180 BCE). All this made it seem unlikely that Priam's Treasure was a single find which had ever belonged to anyone named "Priam."
And, in general, things didn't go Schliemann's way on other fronts. For instance, the cultural zenith of this site—that is, the level with the richest deposits and largest population—also belonged to an age long before Agamemnon could have led the Greek siege. Instead, the Troy that properly dated to Homer's city, a level which archaeologists have termed Troy VIIA, turned out to be a shabby resettlement of a once great city. Worse yet, it wasn't clear how Troy VIIA had met its end. It might have been destroyed by siege but, if so, there wasn't a comprehensive "burn layer" capping it, evidence of a cataclysmic conflagration, the way Troy falls in Greek myth. If Homeric legend were at all historical, there ought to have been evidence of some massive fire and mayhem, but there wasn't. True, other earlier "Troys" had clearly fallen prey to violence, but not Troy VIIA.
Nor would evidence of a siege necessarily constitute definitive proof this was Homer's Troy anyway, since virtually all cities of any standing in Asia Minor were attacked at some point during the second millennium BCE. It was a time of great turmoil and upheaval throughout the ancient world, and other civilizations in Asia Minor, like the once mighty Hittites, had collapsed and disappeared around the same time as Troy was said to have fallen. All in all, if Schliemann's site was indeed Homer's Troy, many of the archaeological pieces didn't harmonise well with the literary evidence, on the surface at least.
But Schliemann was a businessman who knew how to keep his eye on the big picture and not obsess over details. When confronted with the anomalies of his Troy, he simply turned his attention from Asia Minor to mainland Greece and started excavating a new site. There he found even greater fortune and fame. Among the ruins of Mycenae, the legendary home of Agamemnon in the northeastern Peloponnese (the southern part of Greece), the German archaeologist uncovered another lost civilization. This extraordinary instinct for where to dig was, without doubt, his greatest gift and for which he is deservedly called the Father of Mediterranean Archaeology.
At Mycenae, Schliemann again unearthed the remains of a thriving, second-millennium culture now known as Mycenean Civilization. Among the many rewards for his efforts there, a fortress and several rich tombs were discovered. Particularly, in the Grave Circle where the Myceneans had entombed their rulers, Schliemann brought to light a series of gold death masks which had been used to cover the faces of dead princes. When Schliemann found a particularly handsome death mask, he wired back to his colleagues in Europe, "I have looked on the face of Agamemnon." Thus, this discovery came to be known as the "Mask of Agamemnon" and has turned into one of the most famous archaeological artifacts ever unearthed, gracing more books on Greek archaeology than perhaps any other single find.
But what did Schliemann really find? Certainly, his "Troy" was an important city in the prehistory of Asia Minor. Nor can it be doubted that he uncovered a Greek civilization which thrived during the latter half of the second millennium BCE. Nevertheless, the question remains: Is this the Troy of legend? Is this Mycenae the home of Homer's Agamemnon? And even if they are, to what extent does any of this confirm the historicity of Homer, namely, Homeric epic as a record of what-really-happened? One thing's for certain: there's nothing's simple or straightforward about any of this, nothing like the way archaeological evidence is often seen in the popular mind as compelling and incontrovertible proof of what-really-happened-in-the-past.
Moreover, none of this makes much of an impact on the central question at hand—are Homer's epics an account of actual past events?—if Homer and his poetic predecessors were making up the story of Troy. Schliemann's dream of proving that Homer's saga constitutes a record of a real military campaign which took place in the second millennium BCE, his discovery of Priam's Treasure and the grandiose claim to "have looked on the face of Agamemnon," all of it has little hope of historical validation if Homer and his audience saw The Iliad and The Odyssey as essentially works of beautiful but fantastical fiction.
And how could they not? People in Homer's day had no access to the sort of historical records on which we today depend, especially regarding the period when Agamemnon supposedly led the Greeks to Troy. That's because a long dark age of unrest and illiteracy (1100-800 BCE) separated Homer's audiences from Achilles and Odysseus and the world embodied in Homeric myth. Besides that, we now know Homer was an oral poet, a bard whose epics were composed on the spot for performance (see above, Section 3). Thus essentially an entertainer, possibly blind, recounting events which happened centuries before his lifetime, is there any real chance that Homer preserves an accurate picture of the past, anything like history in the modern sense of the word? It's impossible to answer that question with any certainty, making it wiser on the whole to doubt than believe the assertion.
Despite all these problems, however, most archaeologists still refer to the site near Hissarlik as "Troy"—and, of course, the general public follows suit—and a good many historians today speak of the Trojan War as something historical. Whatever its validity, Schliemann's vision of Troy as a real place and Homer as a historian of sorts shows one thing for certain: histories will linger around, even when they entail serious contradictions and face grave challenges, if for some reason people wantto believe them. So, no matter how much of it is invented, an important aspect of this historical inquiry concerns not the reality but the attraction of Homer's Troy.
That was not the end of the story of Troy, however. Today, excavations are still going on to learn more about the newer settlements on the site. It has been found that at least nine cities were built on the site, ranging from the original Troy, c. 3000 B.C., to Roman New Ilium, c. 600 A.D. Most interesting are Troy VI (c. 1700 - 1250 B.C.) and VIIa (c. 1250 - 1000 B.C.). Troy VI was greatly damaged by Schliemann's expeditions, but researchers have found that it was built after Troy V was destroyed by fire. Troy VI was a major reconstruction and renovation of the original settlement, much larger and more magnificent. The people of Troy VI probably spoke Luvian, and Indo-European language, and hunting and fishing were major sources of food. Troy VI was destroyed by earthquake, but due to the lack of human remains, archaeologists believe the majority of the people escaped. The survivors built Troy VIIa, whose inhabitants prepared for and were destroyed by war. Troy VIIa is the best candidate for the Troy of Homer, which is dated somewhere around 1250 B.C. Additionally, a foreign graveyard dating to about the same time was discovered outside the city, where Greek armies may have landed and set up camp. Researchers are still excavating parts of this rich site. Despite the fact that it was first discovered over a hundred years ago, new discoveries are still being made at this amazing ancient city.