Why Troy Might Still be Lost, and how it went missing in the first place
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- Опубликовано: 18 апр 2024
- The archaeological site of Hisarlik is generally believed to be the site of the a city that Hittite documents call Wilusa, and which Greek sources call Troy. Certainly during the Greco-Roman period it was known as Troy, but today some archaeologists are not so sure. And, for that matter, if Troy was so well known during the Roman period, how did it go missing anyway?
SOURCES:
The Trojans and their Neighbors, Bryce
The Trojan War: A Very Short Introduction, Cline
Digging for Troy: From Homer to Hisarlik, Cline & Rubalcaba
Schliemann's recklessness is one of the reasons so much is still up in the air, what a waste.
It's understood now that even moving something at an archaeological site is an act of destruction, as doing so takes it out of its historical context. That is not even close to the actual physical destruction that Schliemann committed with his crude methods. Artifacts discovered in modern digs may have to be moved, whether for preservation or further analysis, but meticulous record keeping is vital.
schliemann is definitely one of the archeologists of that ageI kinda hate for their actions because they destroyed so much by disregarding everything that didn't fit their pattern of a big find, while I at the same time admire him. For his passion for the subject.
If you are ever in Athens, his tomb is in the first cemetery, very visible as it was made to resemble a classical greek temple and has a bust statue of him on the front, make sure to drink a lot of water the morning before visiting him and avoid bathrooms before your visit.
@@takashitamagawa5881Calvert warned him not to excavate the site like he did, but in typical Schliemann style, he couldn't be bothered to take the time to do it right.
What a loss for all time.
Schliemann gets way too much hate. Hindsight is 20/20 and we can’t judge him for the century of formalized archaeological standards and practices that have developed since his time (which he surely would have embraced if he were around today). He was a product of his time and as a gentleman scholar he was way ahead of many of his peers.
It's always so sad that a man went looking for Troy and blew it up in the process.
Maybe he was looking for fame, by means of "finding" Troy.
No, it's actually at the site of Yetanother Tepe, just south of Tell Nowon.
We don't know for certain.
@@gomahklawm4446ThatsthejokeTepe
Make the video.
@@kamilb1729 Whooosh
I totally agree with you. I think Wilusa isn't in Hisarlik, but it's an attraction for tourists and many people don't want to change their view about the whole thing.
My theory is that Schliemann actually just wanted to finish off what Agamemnon didnt.
I always wonder about Schliemann. I mean, yes, his methods were brutal, but it was the age where "archaeologists " blew holes into pyramids.
He dug an exploratory trench, which was good, kind of as it's the reason we know about the almost unbroken chain of civilisation beginning with the neolithic.
What I really wonder about, as at that time, archoelogy was about tangible treasure and less about knowledge. Did he have some Turkish goldsmith fake the gold treasures he found there and in Greece, just to have something tangible to show to polite society, for all his efforts?
Like many paleontologists and archaeologists of the era, they had very personal agendas and were more interested in proving their own worldviews or attaining fame than being empirical or objective.
@Ironclad17 in Schliemanns case that Homer was actually historically correct, this then led to nutcases taking Plato as historically factual too and so he's collateral responsible for 1000's of crappy books and TV documentaries about Atlantis.
@@marcusott2973 To be fair to Schliemann in that very respect, I am not sure if the Atlantis cult could have been avoided even if he had found nothing....
If Hisarlik isn't Troy, then you'd have to explain why classical-age Greeks clearly thought that's where it was (as they built the city of Ilion on top of it) AND more importantly, you'd have to explain what this city was that was buried on Hisarlik, because a lot of what was found by subsequent archeologists sure as hell matches Homeric descriptions of Troy.
Of course, it's true that all of this could have been solved if Schleimann hadn't been so reckless. He left us mostly just the walls of the Bronze Age Troy and a few foundations of houses. But it's highly likely that he destroyed the palace and any archives that were there... and all because he thought the Troy he was looking for had to be deep in the mound.
I think there are more reasons to doubt Hisarlık, was Troy. For instance, while we have found walls at the citadel, we never found even a hint of a city wall. That only doesn't work with Homer's source material, it also makes a long siege of the city impossible. Even a long siege at the citadel is impossible since a harbor city can ship in food but you can easily surround a land based citadel. They could hold out for a few months but I doubt they would had more food stored then for 6 months and that is if they refused shelter for civilians.
I did read Cline's book on the subject, he at least claims there are pretty good evidence for Troy 7A to have been ended by a massive earth quake and unless the reference of the Troyan horse is a strange kenning (Horses were associated with Poseidon, God of the sea and earthquakes), that doesn't really fit either.
But I don't think Homer made the entire thing up either, because a lot of his descriptions do seem to be from the bronze age even if he adds in things from his time like how warriors used chariots for instance.
So while I can't say for certain that we have the wrong place, that is a clear possibility. But there are also things that do fit, like the period it was around and that Greeks moved in after 7A was destroyed. I think someone really need to go through those piles of the 19th century excavation.
We also do have the possibility that Homer mashed several stories together and did not use a single event at a single city as his inspiration. There are hints in his story to back that up, some of the Greeks use gear and fights in a way that are several hundred years older then the others. He might have made that by mistake or on purpose to tell a more interesting story. It do also seem unlikely that the siege actually lasted for 10 years, while there are a couple of historical examples of that, I don't think either side had the logistics to feed all their people during a 10 years siege.
Someone would have to ship in food to Troy for 10 years without actually sending them military aid and the Greeks could not survive on forage for 10 years and their supply lines would had been terrible. 10 months sounds more likely,
Anyways, I am unsure if it is the right place or not and unless either a huge archaeological survey finds new evidence at the place or someone finds another Troy I don't think we ever will be certain.
to be completely accurate, the Iliad doesn't deal with the sacking and destruction of Troy. It ends before the death of Achilles, which takes place before the Trojan horse. Fragments of other works do, and later authors like Virgil in his Aeneid
What's the point of writing such a comment? Everyone that follows this channel knows that
@@thedripkingofangmar6778 Hey, most people who follow this channel will probably know that ... but people who have just watched movies may not, its worth point it out. Sounds like a case of Hubris on your part.
@@thedripkingofangmar6778 I appreciated the comment, dick.
@@iainmc9859Indeed. I didn't know that fact. Some people can't help but assume and patronise others.
I don't know much about the Ilyad and Troy, but one has to start somewhere.
My prediction is somebody will claim it’s in Hungary by this time tomorrow.
Omfg FACTS
It’s definitely in Serbia and/or North Macedonia.
i have screenshots of a guy swearing it’s in macedonia and it’s so funny
It's in Serbia under a giant 50K year old pyramid!
@@cmt6997Ah yes, Tròjiča
You’re one of my favorite RUclips channels. You do a fantastic job at relaying good researched information, and telling us what we do and don’t know. I absolutely love your videos on antiquity, and I’m always interested in Troy. Keep up the good work!
Mike, you are really keyed in and busy lately. I think it’s easy to disparge Schliemann, but he was a pioneer and foundational to our understanding of the city. Whilst I wouldn’t advocate his methods today, we do owe much to his spirit and pioneering work.
Thanks so much for all of the videos.
Thank you! Had a lot going on the past few months that kept me away but I’m happy to be back at it
Schliemann used the Iliad’s geographic clues to locate Troy and excavate. We can judge his methods in hindsight, but using a book people thought was strictly myth to locate the city is remarkable.
I'm newer to your channel, but so far, I've loved the content.
Thanks for this illuminating video👍🏻.
I do not think that Iliad says anything about destruction of Troy. Iliad stops sooner.
But the Odyssey and Aeneid both do
The relatively new museum at the site does a decent job trying to sort this out, although they are still quite pissed off over all the stolen goods and devote much space to saying so.
Finders keepers - sincerely,
The British Museum.
@@vorynrosethorn903
So the Turks aren't happy about it. Just what relationship do the modern Turks have to the Bronze Age population.
@@mpetersen6 They exterminated the descendants. That has to count for something.
@@mpetersen6 Recent genetic studies suggest that modern citizens of Turkey owe most of their genes to the peoples who had inhabited Anatolia for thousands of years. Estimates of the specifically 'Turkic' contribution to their genes vary, but 9% is one figure which may be about right.
This means that the Greek speaking Christians who inhabited Anatolia mostly converted to the Muslim faith and the Turkish culture in the centuries after the Turkish invasion.
Wikipedia has a page on this at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_studies_on_Turkish_people#:~:text=Multiple%20studies%20have%20found%20similarities,also%20found%20Central%20Asian%20contributions.
@@nickreid5297 Yeah, but have you ever looked at one. I'm pretty sure that the Byzantine emperors did not bear any family resemblance to genghis khan, nor could the Hittites be confused with the arabs.
I'm sure that like with statistics the raw numbers alone are very misleading before they get crunched.
It is Troy, watch Michael Wood's "In search of the Trojan War".
I was just about to make the same suggestion.
I had this question in my mind for a while now of how do we know the city they found was really Troy. Great video!
The fall of Troy and the fall of Jericho at the same time seems like a strange coincidence.
it went missing when Schliemann blew it sky high lol
"I'll make sure Homers Troy will really be lost to history!"
Anyone try wet-sifting the spoil heaps to see what can be found?
The Schliemanns Troy does not corespondent with geographical description from poem. At poem you can find that Troy was surrounded with mountains, lake, rivers. Also tribes who were coming to help in a battle were coming on foot not by boats, not crossing Bosfor or Dardanele.
Speculation is so much fun, but it is critical to respect the limits the evidence permit. Thank you.
A tragic tale, worthy of a Greek epic!
All I can think about when I hear "Troy" is dynamite.
Oh boy! Here I go dynamiting again!
I like to fantasize that there was one warrior from Troy called Des, marching out to face Achilles and declared. "I'm Des of Troy!" Then get a spear in the face. The name stuck. Now when whatever is...to be ridden off violently, it's Destroyed.
Always Excellent and elucidating to the point that despite being the curmudgeon I am, I am nonetheless left without any criticism. That’s why I am subscribed.
... back when academia was respectable it was widely acknowledged that Troy may not even exist at all because the Iliad / odyssey constitute a founding myth.
Those early archeologists sure loved their dynamite 🧨
I don’t think Troy was attacked by Greeks at the end of the Bronze Age, it was attacked later by the Greeks, but I think the story is just a half remembered story of the Bronze Age collapse. Like they know all the kings and warriors left on ships and came back 10-20 years later. Everything else is just made up.
They should send the Oak Island guys in there to find the treasure that is the city.
You can't lose it if you never found it.
could the destruction of 7b layer be site of Trojan war?
Shout out to all my fellow Scythians!
Everybody wants to take credit for finding the end of the rainbow.
I always wonder about the feces and sewage, where is the piles?
Decal feliac
TO STOP PEOPLE FROM SAYING FIRST
First to reply to you.
Second
Okay, so he blew stuff up - but shit, cities were sacked and people have reconstructed shattered tablets.
What did Heinrich do - take the dirt he blew up and then scatter it over 20 sq km or something? Wouldn’t the busted archive be in a pile of dirt from his first bonkers excavation?
I think at least parts of Homer were written under the pretense of Pergamon being Troy.
🗿👍
Schliemann may seem reckless to us but in 150 years will we not seem reckless as well?
Maybe sloppy as our techniques aren’t as refined as future techniques might be
Schliemann was reckless (to put it very mildly) even to his contemporaries, so no.
One small issue: the events of the "Trojan war" are from a Greek/Mycenaean perspective. In reality it looks like it was just a revolt of the locals because Troy was a local powerhouse and the Mycenaeans might have sent a few "volunteers" with supplies (weapons, shields, arrows, helmets and other stuff). After that the Mycenaeans could have claimed that they conquered it.
It's in Finland.
😂
Alexander the Great discovering Achilles one of the Greek legends Sounds more like fiction than reality..
And discovering his armor would just be impossible because Because it wouldn't have existed by the time of Alexander the Great because it probably had degraded over a million..
Bronze lasts basically forever since only a tiny layer of oxide forms on the surface and everything underneath is protected.
Came to say the same thing. Bronze preserves veeery well@@alexdunphy3716
We have the helmet of the Athenian general at marathon, a lot of this stuff lasted, the surprising thing is that someone didn't nick it before Alexander got to it.
All you need to find the armour of Achilles is a medium gifted craftsman that you take care keeps his mouth shut. Oh, and the armour will miraculously even be still shiny...
@@LarthV They have found bronze swords in rivers that are still sharp.
I cannot understand why the put the stratigraphic archaeological levels in reverse order, ridiculous and illogical.
Because they're numbered in forward chronological order of when they were created, not the order that we see them as we dig down.
@Asa-bh7zi completely opposite to geologists and the actual order.
@@HighWealderYeah well, you see, we don’t care what geologists think.
@@HighWealder What do you mean "the actual order?" Troy I is the first settlement at the site. Troy IV is the fourth.
Nah it's in NY
FIIIIIRRRRRSSSSTTTTT
Nope, another got there before you
Just south of Palmyra, NY? 😂
'Wilkens argues that Troy was located in England on the Gog Magog Hills in Cambridgeshire, and that the city of Ely refers to Ilium, another name for Troy. He believes that Celts living there were attacked around 1200 BC by fellow Celts from the European continent to battle over access to the tin mines in Cornwall as tin was a very important component for the production of bronze. In fact, Homer names the attackers of Troy as Achaeans, Argives and Danaans, not Greeks. '
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Troy_Once_Stood
Maybe that's why the location of Troy is so elusive?
Lol, we all know the true troy was in China, the survivors then founded Scotland.
He also writes that "It also appears that Homer's Greek contains a large number of loan words from western European languages, more often from Dutch rather than English, French or German."
Yeah, I'm not inclined to take this Economics major's opinions too seriously.
Interesting. Thanks bro.
Another good theory is that it was in Britain which makes more sense considering the tin mines there, the flat plains for the battles that occured, the fair haired people. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Troy_Once_Stood
"educated in Economics at the University of Amsterdam"
"He also writes that "It also appears that Homer's Greek contains a large number of loan words from western European languages, more often from Dutch rather than English, French or German."
"Wilkens believes that Havana's topography greatly resembles the description of Telepylos"
10/10, good theory, would shag again after 5 pints.
I would say this idea belongs up there with Graham Handcock and his asteroid, but tbh I think even he would be uncomfortable being associated with such rarified heights of stupidity.
I think "good" is an exaggeration. His only evidence is claiming that random mountains and cliff faces are places mentioned in the Iliad. The idea that Bronze Age Greece did have contact with the British Isles and that was forgotten isn't implausible, but there is no physical evidence to back the theory let alone to claim it's the historical site of Troy.
@@lempereurcremeux3493 Much better than Turkey. That is the stupidisty theory
@@ochre379 Much better than Turkey. That is the stupidisty theory