Ever since its excavation by Henrich Schliemann, the site of Hissarlik in Turkey has become synonymous with the location of Homer’s Troy. Schliemann and his predecessors based the identity of the site and their interpretations of the excavations around the evidence of Homer’s Iliad and other ancient texts which suggest that the site was that of ancient Illium.

Archaeology supports the idea of Hisarlik as an Anatolian city that could have been a rival to the Greek city states. Hissarlik was wealthy and powerful and equipped with impressive defences. But was the city Homer’s Troy?

The Evidence of the Illiad

The region around Hisarlik was associated with the Trojan war since ancient times. Strabo describes the area in his Geography, (13.1.32), as the location of “old Illium” and “new Illium” — a reference to the Hellenistic and Roman city of Illium built near the supposed site of ancient Troy.  

But it was not until the early nineteenth century that Professor Edward Clarke identified Hissarlik as Troy based on clues offered by Homer’s Iliad. Professor Clarke located what he believed to be the location of the ten-years war fought between the Trojans and the Mycenean Greeks, based on Homer’s descriptions of geographical features of the land around Troy.  The Illiad describes Troy as at the entrance to the passage between the Aegean and the Black Sea and a crossing point between Europe and Asia, in a mountainous region, earning it the name “steep Illios’— a position which corresponds with the location of Hisarlik. 

The events of the Trojan war are datable to the Late Bronze Age. However, the Illiad is not contemporary with the events it describes. It began as an oral tradition that was passed down by word of mouth for several centuries before Homer wrote it down in the eighth century BC. The nature of its survival meant its narrative was distorted and embellished by the passage of time as the Dark Age Greeks attempted to make sense of their history. However, a kernel of truth may have lain at the heart of its narrative, as other sources closer in date to the poem’s events suggest. 

The Hittite Evidence: The Ahhiyawa Texts

Specific details from ancient Hittite texts verify certain information from Homer’s poem. The documents record treaties made with a city named Wilusa in 1295BC. The capital of a late Bronze Age Anatolian kingdom, Wilusa was also known as Ilios  — an alternative name for Troy. Wilusa’s kingdom was powerful and mention is made its rivals elsewhere in the Mediterranean world — rivals who could have been the Mycenaean Greeks.  

In the 1960s the Ahhiyawa texts were also taken as evidence for the historical basis for Homer’s Troy. The texts include twenty-six documents found in the Hittite capital of Hattusa dating from the fifteenth — thirteenth centuries BC. They detail the interactions of successions of Hittite Kings with the lands of western Anatolia — including Wilusa.

The key text regarding the legend of Troy is the Indictment of Madduwattos, part of a legal document by an unnamed Hittite King against Madduwattas, the King’s western Anatolian trading partner. The Hittite King accused Madduwattas of breaking his oaths to the Hittites after brokering their support from a foreign invader known as “Attarsiya, man of Ahhiya.” Attarsiya was supposedly threatening Madduwattas’s Anatolian territories — including Wilusiya. 

The key connection between the text and the legend of Troy is the identity of the mysterious Attarsiya. For the Hellensied version of the name has been associated with the Greek King Atreus — and his son, King Agamemnon, making “Ahhiya” Mycenaean Greece. Some scholars have taken this text as evidence that sometime in the Late Bronze Age, the Mycenaean Greeks attempted to expand into western Anatolia — an invasion that formed the basis of the Trojan War. 

However, names alone are tenuous evidence for a historical basis for the Trojan war. Those in the Ahhiyawa texts are tenuous at best and could simply have been interpreted to fit the desired context rather than providing clear evidence. 

Can archaeology make the picture any clearer?

The Archaeological Evidence

There are parallels between the archaeological evidence from Hissarlik and Homer’s descriptions of the city of Troy. A series of tunnels found carved into the bedrock running under the lower town directed water directly into Hisarlik’s water cisterns. They match the descriptions of the sacred springs of Troy/Wilusa described by Homer and the Hittites.

Then there is the city itself. Certain features of Hisarlik’s late Bronze Age “Troy VI”  find their uncanny echo in Homer’s poem. Schliemann and Dorpfeld believed this phase to correspond with Homer’s legendary city, not least because of the Mycenean pottery found in the remains. The archaeology of Troy VI suggests a city enjoying its heyday when it was a power to be reckoned with. Like the Troy of the Illiad, the citadel of Troy VI was “steep and lofty” with bolted monumental gates and watchtowers overlooking the surrounding plains.

It could be the physical description of Homer’s Troy only matches this phase of Hisarlik because its remains were still visible in the eighth century BC and so used as the setting for Homer’s story. However, not so immediately discernible to Homer’s Greeks were the reasons for Troy VI’s demise. For this incarnation of Hisarlik ended with fire. Buildings also collapsed, suggesting an attack, an earthquake — or both. 

The concept of destruction by an earthquake again finds a parallel in Homer’s poetry.   Fritz Schachermeyr, an Austrian professor of history, suggested in the 1950s that the Trojan horse was a euphemism for the god Poseidon. Poseidon, as well as being the god of the sea, was also the god of horses — and earthquakes.

 The final piece of archaeological evidence that links Hisarlik with Homer’s Troy is at the Besik Tepe burial site 8 km south of Hisarlik at Besika Bay. Here can be found the so-called “Tomb of Achilles, a conical hill surrounded by an enclosed bronze age cemetery comprising of 200 Mycenean burials.

Is Hisarlik the City of Troy?

Archaeology and ancient texts do suggest the existence of a powerful Anatolian city-state at Hissarlik. This state was wealthy enough to have attracted rivals elsewhere in the Mediterranean and based on the archaeology, was certainly the focus of attacks.

The evidence suggests Hisarlik could have been the inspirational basis for Homer’s Troy. However, this does not mean that the events of the Trojan War ever occurred quite as the Illiad describes them. Nor does it mean that the Troy of the Iliad ever existed —at Hissarlik or indeed anywhere else. 

At best, the remains at Hisarlik can be viewed as a reflection of the events similar to those portrayed in Homer’s Illiad, at a time when the safety and prosperity of any successful Bronze Age city was no means certain — no matter how prosperous or well defended.

Sources

Carl W Blegen, Troy and the Trojans. London: The Folio Society. (2005)

Gates, Charles, “Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece and Rome.” Routledge, 2003.

Illustrated Dictionary of Archaeology

DF Easton in Lin Foxhall and John Davis (eds), Hittite History and the Trojan War, The Trojan War: Its Historicity and Context.Bristol Classical Press. (1981)

Jordana Leavesley, The Archaeological Remains of the Various Cities of Troy and how Ancient literary Sources can add to our knowledge. 

Herodotus, The Histories, 

Homer, The Illiad, Penguin Classics, 1987

Strabo, Geography