Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries

still the Greeks could not breach the great walls of Troy and gain
entrance to the city. In the 10th year of the war, the cunning Odysseus organized the building of a giant wooden horse, the inside hollowed out in order to conceal Greek warriors, including Odysseus, within. The horse was placed outside the gates of Troy, and the Greek fleet in the harbor sailed away, as if in defeat. When the Trojans saw the ships leaving and the huge wooden horse outside the city, they believed victory was theirs and dragged the horse inside the walls of Troy. That night, the Greeks climbed down from the horse and opened the gates of the city, letting in the whole Greek army. The Trojans, caught completely by surprise, were slaughtered. Polyxena, daughter of Priam, was sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles, and Astyanax, son of Hector, was also sacrificed. Although Menelaus had been intent on killing the disloyal Helen, her beauty overcame him and she was spared.
The story of Troy was first told in Homer's Iliad, written around 750 B.C. Details were added by later writers, such as the Roman poet Virgil in his Aeneid, and Ovid in his Metamorphoses. Most ancient Greek historians, such as Herodotus and Thucydides, were convinced of the historicity of the Trojan War. These writers took Homer at his word and placed Troy on a hill overlooking the Hellespont (modern Dardanelles)-the narrow straits between the Aegean and Black Seas. This was a position of great strategic importance in terms of trade. For hundreds of years, explorers and antiquarians fascinated by the legend of Troy searched the area, known in antiquity as the Troad, now part of northwest Turkey. The most famous and successful searcher for the great city of Troy was German businessman Heinrich Schliemann. Guided by the Iliad of Homer, he decided that Troy was located on a mound at Hisarlik a few miles from the Dardanelles, and began excavations there in 1870, continuing until 1890. Schliemann discovered the remains of a series of ancient cities beginning in the early Bronze Age (third millennium B.C.) and ending in the Roman period. Believing Troy must be located in the lower levels, Schliemann quickly and carelessly hacked through the upper levels, irrevocably destroying much vital evidence in the process. In 1873 he unearthed a variety of gold artifacts, which he dubbed Priam's Treasure. He announced to the world that he had found Homer's Troy.
There has been much debate about whether or not Schliemann actually found the gold artifacts in the place where he claimed, or if he had them
planted there to verify his claims that the site was in fact the fabled city of Troy. Schliemann is known to have distorted the facts on more than one occasion. Although he claimed to have discovered the site of Troy at Hisarlik himself, when Schliemann first visited the Troad, English archaeologist and diplomat Frank Calvert had already been excavating on part of Hisarlik for some time, as it was on his family's land. Calvert was convinced Hisarlik was the site of ancient Troy and later collaborated with Schliemann on his early excavation on the hill. However, when Schliemann later received worldwide acclaim for discovering the Homeric city, he refused to admit that Calvert had anything to do with the discovery. Currently, English and American heirs of Frank Calvert are pursuing claims for a portion of the treasure that Schliemann and Calvert recovered from the site of Hisarlik. The spectacular gold finds discovered by Schliemann are now believed to have come from a much earlier city on the Hisarlik mound than he believed. The city Schliemann thought was Homer's Troy in fact dates from 2400 to 2200 B.C., at least 1,000 years before the generally accepted date for the Trojan War.
1880 map of Troy.
Despite Schliemann's egotistical attitude, he did bring the site of Hisarlik to the attention of the world. After his excavations, further work at Hisarlik was undertaken by Wilhelm Dorpfeld (1893-1894), American archaeologist Carl Blegen from 1932 to 1938, and from 1988 to 2005 by a team of the University of Tubingen and the University of Cincinnati, under the direction of the late Professor Manfred Korfmann. Excavations at Troy have shown that there were nine separate phases and cities at the site, with various sub-phases. These phases begin in the third millennium B.C. (early Bronze Age) with Troy I and finish in the Hellenistic period (323 B.C.- c. 31 B.C.) with Troy IX. The Late Bronze Age phase Troy VIIa (c. 1300c. 1180 B.C.) is the city usually put forward as the most likely candidate for Homer's Troy, mainly due to its date, which seems to tie in with Homer's descriptions, and the fact that traces of fire indicate that the city was destroyed during a war. Contact between mainland Greece and Troy VIIa is attested to in the form of imported Mycenaean (Late Bronze Age) Greek artifacts, especially pottery. Furthermore, the city of Troy VIIa was of considerable size, and finds including partial human remains and some bronze arrowheads have been made in the fort and city. However, a large part of Troy VIIa remains unexcavated, and
the finds are generally too meager to argue with certainty that the destruction of the site was done by human hands over that of a natural catastrophe, such as a massive earthquake. Nevertheless, if we are to interpret the Homeric city of Troy as a historical truth, then on present knowledge Troy VIIa would seem to fit the facts best. Recently, evidence that would seem to support the view of the Hisarlik mound as the site of Troy was revealed by geologists John C. Kraft from the University of Delaware, and John V. Luce from Trinity College, Dublin. The pair undertook a geological study of the landscape and coastal features of the area around Hisarlik, which revealed that the region's sedimentology and geomorphology are consistent with the features described in Homer's Iliad.
There may even be some historical fact behind what