14 May 2012
We hopped on a dolmus (local mini bus) to travel the 30 km from Canakkale (Turkey) to visit the ruins of the ancient city of Troy (Turkish: Truva or Troya ) made famous in Homer’s epic poem, the Iliad. According to Iliad, this is where the legendary Trojan War took place. Although for most of the last 3000 years, people assumed that Homer's Iliad was fiction, and that Troy never existed.However, in 1863 Frank Calvert, a British expatriate, discovered ancient ruins at Hisarlık (Troy) and was convinced they were the ruins of Troy. Later in 1868 Heinrich Schliemann provided money for more digging and eventually took credit for discovering Troy!
Today Troy is an archaeological site popular with travellers from all over the world. In addition to being a Turkish national park, it is on the World Heritage List of UNESCO .
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Replica Wooden Horse of Troy in Canakkale
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| Replica Wooden Horse at Troy is mostly used as a Playground |
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| The Pithos Garden |
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| Ruins of Troy are scattered all over the site. |
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| The Dig is continuing today |
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The Dig is under a huge sail like cover.
Troy was destroyed and rebuilt nine times over, and each of nine different layers still has something left to this day, although archaeological excavations of late 1800s damaged some of the layers.The layer that is thought to be depicted in Homer's Iliad is likely Troy VII, a portion of the legendary walls of which is still intact.
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| Some of the 9 levels |
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| The Troad (plains of Troy) looking towards the Dardanelles. |
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| More of the Ruins |
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| Tom resting in the Amphitheatre |
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| Scattered Fragments |
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| More Fragments |
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Fran testing one of the Walls of Troy.
After visiting Troy we almost decided to read the Illiad again but... decided not to!
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