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Hisarlik ( Turkish: ''Hisarlık'', "Place of Fortresses"), often spelled Hissarlik, is the Turkish name for an ancient city located in what is known historically as
Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
.A compound of the noun, hisar, "fortification," and the suffix -lik. The suffix does not create a plural, which would be hisarler, but an abstract, "fortification-place," where "fortification" is of indefinite number; i.e., one or many. The current translation appears in . It is part of
Çanakkale Çanakkale (pronounced ), ancient ''Dardanellia'' (), is a city and seaport in Turkey in Çanakkale province on the southern shore of the Dardanelles at their narrowest point. The population of the city is 195,439 (2021 estimate). Çanakkale is ...
,
Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
. The archaeological site lies approximately from the
Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea ; tr, Ege Denizi (Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος: "Egéo Pélagos", Turkish: "Ege Denizi" or "Adalar Denizi") is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans ...
and about the same distance from the
Dardanelles The Dardanelles (; tr, Çanakkale Boğazı, lit=Strait of Çanakkale, el, Δαρδανέλλια, translit=Dardanéllia), also known as the Strait of Gallipoli from the Gallipoli peninsula or from Classical Antiquity as the Hellespont (; ...
. The site is a partial tell, or artificial hill, elevated in layers over an original site. In this case the original site was already elevated, being the west end of a ridge projecting in an east–west direction from a mountain range. After many decades of scientific and literary study by specialists, the site is generally accepted by most as the location of ancient
Troy Troy ( el, Τροία and Latin: Troia, Hittite: 𒋫𒊒𒄿𒊭 ''Truwiša'') or Ilion ( el, Ίλιον and Latin: Ilium, Hittite: 𒃾𒇻𒊭 ''Wiluša'') was an ancient city located at Hisarlik in present-day Turkey, south-west of Çan ...
, the city mentioned in ancient documents of many countries in several ancient languages, especially ancient Greek, where it appears as Ilion in the earliest literary work of Europe, the
Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyss ...
. The site is still being excavated under the name of Troja. It also has been promoted as a major tourist attraction visited by many thousands of persons per year. A Turkish village, Tevfikiye, has been created on the east end of Troy Ridge, as it is now universally termed, to service the site and its visitors and students.


Geography

Located at the edge of a cape projecting into the Aegean between the Dardanelles and the Gulf of Edremit, which was known in antiquity as the Troad, Hisarlik was one of many successful pockets of human civilization which arose and prospered in Anatolia. Paleogeographic studies carried out around Hisarlik by John C. Kraft, head of the Geology Department of the
University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially UD or Delaware) is a public land-grant research university located in Newark, Delaware. UD is the largest university in Delaware. It offers three associate's programs, 148 bachelor's programs, 121 mas ...
and Professors Ilhan Kayan and Oğuz Erol from
Ankara University Ankara University ( tr, Ankara Üniversitesi) is a public university in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. It was the first higher education institution founded in Turkey after the formation of the republic in 1923. The university has 40 vocati ...
indicate a favourable environment for settlement existed from around the eighth millennium BC, when receding seas left a fertile, well watered plain which over time became a shallow, but navigable estuary. Above this natural harbour, the hill was large enough to support extensive building, providing natural protection from invasion and a commanding view of the sea.


Human settlement in the region

Elsewhere in Anatolia, there is abundant archaeological evidence of a thriving
neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several part ...
culture at least as early as the seventh millennium BC. What may have been the world's first urban settlement (c. 7500 BC) has been uncovered at
Çatalhöyük Çatalhöyük (; also ''Çatal Höyük'' and ''Çatal Hüyük''; from Turkish ''çatal'' "fork" + ''höyük'' "tumulus") is a tell of a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from ap ...
in the Konya Ovası (Konya Basin). Evidence from a cave at Karain near
Antalya Antalya () is the fifth-most populous city in Turkey as well as the capital of Antalya Province. Located on Anatolia's southwest coast bordered by the Taurus Mountains, Antalya is the largest Turkish city on the Mediterranean coast outside the A ...
shows human occupation in the region extending over an estimated 25,000 year period. The inhabitants of Hisarlik lived among a number of vigorous, interactive and often warlike cultures. Apart from the mainland
Greeks The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, oth ...
whence they may have sprung, the Trojans counted such neighbours as the
Hittites The Hittites () were an Anatolian people who played an important role in establishing first a kingdom in Kussara (before 1750 BC), then the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom (c. 1750–1650 BC), and next an empire centered on Hattusa in north-centra ...
,
Phrygians The Phrygians (Greek: Φρύγες, ''Phruges'' or ''Phryges'') were an ancient Indo-European speaking people, who inhabited central-western Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) in antiquity. They were related to the Greeks. Ancient Greek authors use ...
and
Lydians The Lydians (known as ''Sparda'' to the Achaemenids, Old Persian cuneiform 𐎿𐎱𐎼𐎭) were Anatolian people living in Lydia, a region in western Anatolia, who spoke the distinctive Lydian language, an Indo-European language of the A ...
. It has been suggested that the polity at ancient Hisarlik might be one and the same with that known to the Hittites as
Wilusa Wilusa ( hit, ) or Wilusiya was a Late Bronze Age city in western Anatolia known from references in fragmentary Hittite records. The city is notable for its identification with the archaeological site of Troy, and thus its potential connection ...
. The region around Hisarlik is still inhabited by the descendants of the many and varied peoples who laid claim to the shores and hillsides of Anatolia. Present day Çanakkale is a thriving settlement close to the ancient site of Hisarlik.
Çanakkale Çanakkale (pronounced ), ancient ''Dardanellia'' (), is a city and seaport in Turkey in Çanakkale province on the southern shore of the Dardanelles at their narrowest point. The population of the city is 195,439 (2021 estimate). Çanakkale is ...
lies on both sides of the Dardanelles and touches both Europe (
Gelibolu Gelibolu, also known as Gallipoli (from el, Καλλίπολις, ''Kallipolis'', "Beautiful City"), is the name of a town and a district in Çanakkale Province of the Marmara Region, located in Eastern Thrace in the European part of Turkey on th ...
Peninsula) and
Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
(
Biga Biga may refer to: Places * Biga, Çanakkale, a town and district of Çanakkale Province in Turkey * Sanjak of Biga, an Ottoman province * Biga Çayı, a river in Çanakkale Province * Biga Peninsula, a peninsula in Turkey, in the northwest par ...
Peninsula) and, just as it was in the time of Homer, maritime traffic connects both sides of the straits.


Troy

The assumed location of Troy was apparently well known in the ancient world, visited by
Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to ...
and
Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...
. In more modern times, a site associated with Ilium (and more readily identifiable as Hisarlik) was being shown to curious visitors as early as the 15th century, when
Pedro Tafur Pedro Tafur (or Pero Tafur) (c. 1410 – c. 1484) was a traveller, historian and writer from Castile (modern day Spain). Born in Córdoba, to a branch of the noble house of Guzmán,He dedicated his manuscript to Don Fernando de Guzmán, Chief Co ...
was guided from the Genoese port of Fojavecchia (Phocaea):
I travelled by land for two days to that place which they say was Troy, but found no one who could give me any information concerning it, and we came to Ilium, as they call it. This place is situated on the sea opposite the harbour of
Tenedos Tenedos (, ''Tenedhos'', ), or Bozcaada in Turkish, is an island of Turkey in the northeastern part of the Aegean Sea. Administratively, the island constitutes the Bozcaada district of Çanakkale Province. With an area of it is the third la ...
. The whole of this country is strewn with villages, and the Turks regard the ancient buildings as relics and do not destroy anything, but they build their houses adjoining. That which made me understand that this was, indeed, ancient Troy, was the sight of such great ruined buildings, and so many marbles and stones, and that shore, and the harbour of Tenedos over against it, and a great hill which seemed to have been made by the fall of some huge building.Pedro Tafur, ''Andanças e viajes'',ch. XIII
the text written in 1453/54 recounts a voyage of the 1430s.
Tafur, like most early visitors, was distracted by the more prominent Hellenistic and Roman remains close to the modern shoreline. While the
archaeological record The archaeological record is the body of physical (not written) evidence about the past. It is one of the core concepts in archaeology, the academic discipline concerned with documenting and interpreting the archaeological record. Archaeological th ...
has much to say about the physical remains, it reveals little about the people who built and rebuilt the fabled city of Troy. The historical record for Troy is dominated by the epic poems of
Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the '' Iliad'' and the '' Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of ...
and peopled with gods and heroes whose identities and histories formed part of the oral tradition of the area for centuries before the great Greek poet committed some of them to verse. Homer was not, however, overly concerned with history. Not surprisingly, the historical context for the epic ''
Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyss ...
'' and ''
Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Iliad'', th ...
'' is not as clear as one would wish. Various attempts have been made over time to identify the origins of the inhabitants of Troy. As early as 1946, American classical art historian Rhys Carpenter argued that the
Trojan War In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and has ...
, far from being a historical event, was in fact a synthesis of many such events involving peoples whose mutual involvement stretched back centuries. In the ''Iliad'', the word most commonly used for the city of the Trojans is not "Troy" but "Ilion". Carpenter saw this as evidence of the possibility that Troy was not the name of a town at all, but rather the name of an area or district inhabited by the Trojans. The Greeks clearly had a legend about a war against the Trojans, but may have disagreed about where these people lived. At least one group of Greeks put them at a place called
Teuthrania Teuthrania ( grc, Τευθρανία) was a town in the western part of ancient Mysia, and the name of its district about the river Caicus, which was believed to be derived from a legendary Mysian king Teuthras. This king is said to have adopt ...
in the area known as Mysia. Carpenter suggests that the real "Troy" is located in neither the Troad nor Aeolis but rather that the memory of a pan- Achaean expedition elsewhere was located at two different points in Asia Minor by later poetic traditions: at Ilion by the Ionic poets, because they found in this area a local folk tradition about a strong citadel sacked near the end of the
Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...
(Hisarlik); and at Teuthrania by the
Aeolic In linguistics, Aeolic Greek (), also known as Aeolian (), Lesbian or Lesbic dialect, is the set of dialects of Ancient Greek spoken mainly in Boeotia; in Thessaly; in the Aegean island of Lesbos; and in the Greek colonies of Aeolis in Anatoli ...
poets, to correspond with Aeolic traditions connected with their own occupation of this area. If one is willing to accept Carpenter's line of argument this far, one can place "Troy" virtually anywhere in the eastern
Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...
where bands of
Mycenaean Greeks Mycenaean Greece (or the Mycenaean civilization) was the last phase of the Bronze Age in Ancient Greece, spanning the period from approximately 1750 to 1050 BC.. It represents the first advanced and distinctively Greek civilization in mainlan ...
may have undertaken joint piratic raids. Carpenter goes so far as to place "Troy" in
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...
and to connect the story of the Trojan War with the raids of the
Sea Peoples The Sea Peoples are a hypothesized seafaring confederation that attacked ancient Egypt and other regions in the Eastern Mediterranean, East Mediterranean prior to and during the Late Bronze Age collapse (1200–900 Common Era, BCE).. Quote: ...
mentioned in Egyptian sources at the end of the 13th and beginning of the 12th centuries BC. Whoever the ancient inhabitants may have been, the fact remains that for over two millennia a thriving civilisation existed at Hisarlik.


Archaeological excavation

An alternative site, Hisarlik tell, a thirty-meter-high mound, was identified as a possible site of ancient Troy by a number of amateur archaeologists in the early to mid 19th century. The most dedicated of these was
Frank Calvert Frank Calvert (1828–1908) was an English expatriate who was a consular official in the eastern Mediterranean region and an amateur archaeologist. He began exploratory excavations on the mound at Hisarlik (the site of the ancient city of Troy) ...
, whose early work was overshadowed by the German amateur archaeologist
Heinrich Schliemann Johann Ludwig Heinrich Julius Schliemann (; 6 January 1822 – 26 December 1890) was a German Empire, German businessman and pioneer in the field of archaeology. He was an advocate of the historicity of places mentioned in the works of Homer and ...
in the 1870s. The site of Hisarlik has been under near-constant archaeological excavation ever since Schliemann began in 1871. While much has been discovered about the structural layout of the many layers of occupation, there has been a paucity of writing found from before the classical era. In fact, the only written document heretofore discovered is a small cylinder seal with an inscription in
Luwian The Luwians were a group of Anatolian peoples who lived in central, western, and southern Anatolia, in present-day Turkey, during the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. They spoke the Luwian language, an Indo-European language of the Anatolian sub-fam ...
.
Troy VII Troy in the Late Bronze Age was a thriving coastal city consisting of a steep fortified citadel and a sprawling lower town below it. It had a considerable population and extensive foreign contacts, including with Mycenaean Greece. Geographic and l ...
is an archaeological layer of Hisarlik that chronologically spans from c. 1300 to c. 950 BC. It coincides with the collapse of the
Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...
and is thought to be the Troy mentioned in Ancient Greece and the site of the
Trojan War In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and has ...
.


Notes


References


Bibliography

* * . Copyrighted in 1985, this book was published in a number of paperback and hardcover formats in the later 20th century, all of which, however, kept the same pagination. The year and the publisher varied. This citation is only an example. In the references, "Wood, 1993" can refer to any of them.


External links


"Ancient Troy's Possible Location in Hisarlik"
{{Authority control Former populated places in Turkey Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Turkey Archaeological sites of classical Anatolia Archaeological sites in the Marmara Region Populated places in Çanakkale Province Troy