Troy in Regional and International Context Oxford Handbooks Online Troy in Regional and International Context Peter Jablonka The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Anatolia: (10,000-323 BCE) Edited by Gregory McMahon and Sharon Steadman Print Publication Date: Sep 2011 Subject: Archaeology, Archaeology of the Near East Online Publication Date: Nov DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195376142.013.0032 2012 Abstract and Keywords This article presents an overview of Troy's place in the larger Aegean/Anatolian world, highlighting the continued important role this settlement played over three millennia. From the point of view of archaeology, Hisarlık–Troy ranks high among important sites of the Anatolian and Aegean Bronze Age. Both its Early and Late Bronze Age architecture, the treasures as well as ceramics and other finds reflecting long-distance contacts, the size of the site, its layout comprising a fortified stronghold surrounded by a larger, outlying settlement, and its strategic position clearly show that Troy served as the center of the surrounding region. Keywords: Hisarlık–Troy, archaeological sites, Aegean, Bronze Age Location and Discovery The archaeological site of Troy (Turkish Hisarlık, Homer’s Ilios, Greek and Roman Ilion/Ilium) in northwestern Turkey occupies a spur on a low ridge five kilometers from the present coastline on the Asiatic side of the Dardanelles (ancient Hellespont). The site overlooks an alluvial plain at the mouth of the rivers Karamenderes Çayı (ancient Scamander) and Dümrek Deresi (ancient Simoeis). Originally, this plain was a wide but shallow bay that has silted up with river sediments over the past 6,000 years (Kayan et al. 2003; Kraft et al. 2003). Early Bronze Age Troy was founded as a coastal settlement. Troy’s geographical position between two continents and seas, at the crossing point of land routes from Anatolia to the Balkans and sea routes from the Aegean to the Black Sea, may help explain its prosperity (Höckmann 2003; Korfmann 1986; Wright 1997). The site consists of a 300 × 200 m wide mound (“citadel”) and a surrounding settlement (“lower town”) covering the plateau and its slopes to the south and east. It was occupied continuously from ca. 3000 B.C.E. to 600 C.E. Fifteen meters of deposits on the mound contain the ruins of superimposed and frequently enlarged Bronze Age citadels, the sanctuary of Athena Ilias, and other public buildings of Greek and Roman Ilion (see Greaves, chapter 21 in this volume). Although excavations have always concentrated on the citadel mound, parts of classical Ilion and Bronze Age settlement remains have also been discovered in the area of the lower town. The stratigraphic sequence has been subdived into nine major periods, Troy I–IX, called “cities” by the early excavators Schliemann and Dörpfeld. Revised, (p. 718) refined, and radiocarbon dated, this chronology is still valid today (Korfmann and Kromer 1993; Kromer, Korfmann, and Jablonka 2003). Hisarlık was first noted in 1703 by Franz Kauffer and identified as classical Ilion in 1801 by Edward Daniel Clarke. Coins (Bellinger 1961; Mannsperger 2006) and inscriptions (Frisch 1975) confirm this identification. Charles MacLaren (1822) concluded that according to ancient tradition, Ilion must also be Homer’s Troy. Nevertheless, the search for Troy was continued at other sites in the vicinity, influenced by the ancient geographer Strabo, who believed that the Troy of the Iliad was not the Ilion of his own time. After first excavations by the British naval officer John Brunton in 1856, Frank Calvert—a British expatriate and amateur scholar living in the region—excavated prehistoric deposits at Hisarlık/Ilion in Page 1 of 13 PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy). Subscriber: Brown University; date: 28 January 2016 Troy in Regional and International Context 1863 and 1865. When Heinrich Schliemann, a retired German merchant considering a second career as scholar and archaeologist, arrived in the Dardanelles in 1868, Calvert pointed the site out to him (Easton 1991; Heuck Allen 1999; Robinson 2007). Schliemann continued excavations from 1870 until his death in 1890 (Easton 2002; Traill 1995). Finding treasures in what looked like the remains of a burned citadel, he mistakenly took this for evidence that the Trojan War had actually taken place at Hisarlık. Later it became clear that his finds belong to the Early Bronze Age, at least 1,000 years older than any possible date for the events related by Homer. Nevertheless, Schliemann’s excavations and publications (e.g., Schliemann 1881, 1884) firmly established the site as Homeric Troy in the public mind. Wilhelm Dörpfeld continued excavations in 1893 and 1894 and subsequently published his own as well as Schliemann’s results (Dörpfeld 1902). From 1932 to 1938 Carl W. Blegen and a team from the University of Cincinnati returned to Troy (Blegen 1963; Blegen et al. 1950; Blegen, Caskey, and Rawson 1951, 1953; Blegen, et al. 1958). In 1988, Manfred Korfmann of the University of Tübingen resumed excavations with Charles Brian Rose and an international team. After Korfmann’s death in 2005, Ernst Pernicka, also from the University of Tübingen, continued the work at Troy with Peter Jablonka and others (Korfmann 2006; Studia Troica 1991–2009). Apart from the archaeological museums in İstanbul and Çanakkale, the main collections of finds from Troy are in Berlin, Moscow, and St. Petersburg (Antonova, Tolstikov, and Treister 1996; Schmidt 1902; Tolstikow and Trejster 1996). In 1996 the northern Troad was designated a Turkish Historical National Park, and in 1998 Troy was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Stratigraphic Levels at Troy No doubt the attempt to find the setting of the Iliad has been the incentive for the large-scale research that has continued at the site for the past 140 years. During this long history of research, however, Troy—its legendary associations aside—has (p. 719) become an important archaeological site in its own right. With its unique, continuous sequence covering the entire Bronze Age and later periods, Troy is certainly among the most prominent sites in Anatolia and the Aegean. Troy I (ca. 3000–2550 B.C.E.) Click to view larger Figure 32.1 . Plan of Early Bronze Age Troy. Citadel, lower town area with reconstructed ancient topography (© Peter Jablonka and Troia-Projekt, University of Tübingen). Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic (Starting from ca. 6000 B.C.E.; Kumtepe A, 5000–4750 B.C.E.; Kumtepe B, 3300–3000 B.C.E.) sites have been discovered in the vicinity of Troy and on the island of Imbros (Erdoğu 2011; Gabriel 2000; Harmankaya and Erdoğu 2003; see also Özdoğan, chapter 29, Özbaşaran, chapter 5, and Schoop, chapter 7 in this volume). The earliest settlement at Troy from the beginning of the Early Bronze Age was a small village built on terraces above the coast (see figure 32.1). Houses with stone and mudbrick walls were attached to each other. Some were already Page 2 of 13 PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy). Subscriber: Brown University; date: 28 January 2016 Troy in Regional and International Context megaron-type buildings consisting of a large rectangular room with a smaller anteroom. The village was surrounded with stone ramparts that were repeatedly reinforced. Troy I has fourteen known phases (Korfmann 1999:9). Pottery was mostly dark, handmade, often burnished, and sometimes decorated with white encrustation. Although most metal objects were still made from copper, bronze artifacts have been found in Troy I Levels at nearby Beşiktepe (Begemann 2003). Troy II (ca. 2550–2300 B.C.E.) Troy II had three successive fortification walls, now consisting of mudbrick walls crowning stone ramparts (see figure 32.1). A monumental gateway was constructed on the southeast side. To the southwest, another gate was approached by a stone-paved ramp. In Middle Troy II five parallel, free-standing megaron buildings, up to forty meters long, possibly used for assemblies, audiences, or religious ceremonies, were erected inside a courtyard at the center of the citadel (Ünlüsoy 2006). Both Middle and Late Troy II ended in a conflagration. Schliemann’s “burned city” comprises both of these. We now realize that Blegen’s division of the period into eight phases needs adjustment (Easton 2002:307–8). After the first destruction, monumental buildings were replaced by densely clustered blocks of smaller houses during Late Troy II. A similar development can once again be observed in Late Bronze Age Troy VI and VIIa. An area of nine hectares to the south of the citadel was protected by a palisade uncovered during recent excavations (Jablonka 2001, 2006). Houses have been discovered immediately outside the citadel (Sazcı 2005). For the first time, the citadel of Troy II was surrounded by a larger settlement. Although there was much continuity in pottery shapes and wares throughout Troy I–V, Troy II exhibits several innovations; Wheelmade Plain Ware, notably large quantities of plates, appears in Early Troy II, along with two-handled cups, tankards and goblets (depas amphikypellon) during Middle Troy II. The first pots and lids decorated with a face in relief can be dated to Late Troy II. Red-Coated Ware begins in Troy II but continued to be used until Early Troy VI. (p. 720) In the Troy II Levels Schliemann found sixteen hoards, of which treasure A (“Priam’s Treasure”) is the largest.