We know about Troy because of Homer’s epic poetic tomes in which he tells the story of Troy and Helen and the horse. Romantic and dramatic, she had the face that launched a thousand ships and armies of men fought for her honour. Sigh. Not like that these days is it girls.

This is mind, Troy was naturally a place I’m drawn to. Whether the story is true, or more likely an exaggeration (power not just beauty launches ships you know.), it was still a pillar of the ancient world and I’m fascinated when these great cities crumble and why. First thing I found was that there’s some dispute about whether the archaeological site is the same as the site of Homer’s legend. There were apparently many cities built on top of each other here (interesting in itself though), with Homer’s Troy being the 7th, the 6th having been totally flattened by an earthquake. The 7th is thought to have been destroyed by war which fits in with the rest of Homer’s story. And I’m not the only one who thought it would be nice to learn more about where this story took place – the first excavations took place here in the 1860’s and 70’s when the layers of Troy began to be discovered.

I was slightly disappointed by how touristy the site is now. At first I was excited by the wooden horse that has been built then I thought it was a bit showy. Walking around you can see that the site was excavated too early and not enough care was taken with it. My kindly guide backed me up here, they went for the bulldozer approach, thinking Homeric Troy was going to be the bottom layer, they knocked down a lot of interesting stuff to get to it.

What I fund out and really appreciate is that, not knowing whether it was myth, legend or history, it became popular for first Roman and later European princes and royalty to claim their ancestors were Trojans, so that Rome’s founders as well as Franks and the legendary Kings of the Britons were all supposed to be descended from Aeneas – who was Paris in the version most of us understand.

Written by  romantic poet.

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