Truva - Troy

Known as Truva in Turkish, Troy is one of the most spectacular archeological sites in Turkey. The remains of Troy lie just west of the main road around 20 kilometers south of Canakkale. Until 1871 Troy and the famous Trojan War were generally thought to have existed in legend only. The Troad Plain, where the ruins lie, was known to be associated with the Troy that Homer wrote in Iliad, but all traces of the city had vanished completely. In 1868 Heinrich Schliemann obtained permission from the Ottoman Government to start an excavation where earlier excavators had already found the remains of a classical temple.


Scliemann's excavations uncovered nine layers of remains representing distinct and consecutive city development that span 4 millennia. The oldest Troy I, dates back to 3600 BC and was followed by 4 similar settlements. Either Troy VI or Troy VII is thought to have been the city described by Homer; the former is known to have been destroyed by an earthquake around 1275 BC, while the latter shows signs of having been wiped out by fire about a quarter of a century later, around the times the ancient historians generally estimate the Trojan War to have taken place. Troy VIII, which thrived from 700 to 300 BC, was a Greek foundation, while the final layer of development, Troy IX, survived between 300 BC and 300 AD, during the heyday of the Roman Empire.
Although there's no way of being sure about the existence of the Trojan War, there's a fair amount of evidence showing that Troy was the scene of some kind of armed conflict. It's possible that Homer's epic is based on a number of wars between the Mycenaean Greeks and the inhabitants of Troy. A replica of the wooden horse, the famous trick of Odysseus in the Trojan War, can also be found in the site of Troy.