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For nearly 3,000 years the site of Troy and its battles have captivated audiences, while archaeologists have searched for proof that the Trojan War really happened. Troy is located in northwestern Turkey, near the modern city of Çanakkale, and it occupied one of the easiest crossing points between continental Europe and Asia. In antiquity the site controlled the entrance to the Dardanelles or Hellespont, a narrow strait that connected the Aegean Sea with the Sea of Marmara, Constantinople/Istanbul, and the Black Sea.
Troy's strategic geographical location made it a target of attack throughout its history. We speak of one Trojan war, but in fact there were many, stretching from the third millennium B.C. through 1915, the date of the Battle of Gallipoli, which occurred on the opposite side of the straits from Troy. Whoever controlled Troy, or Gallipoli for that matter, could control all maritime traffic between the Aegean and Black Seas. The wars, in other words, were fought for money and power, not for a woman named Helen.
The site of Troy is now a mound measuring roughly 650 x 500 ft., which consists of nine settlements, one built above the other, representing a period of nearly 4,500 years of occupation. The first settlement was founded ca. 3,000 B.C., and the last settlement dates to the late Byzantine period, ca. 1400 A.D. In the course of this sequence of habitation, the mound rose more than thirty feet above the surrounding plains.
In antiquity the site developed into a major center for tourism with a steady stream of high profile visitors, including the Persian king Xerxes, Alexander the Great, and many of the Roman emperors, who claimed descent from the Bronze Age Trojans.
The Jewelry of Troy
When Heinrich Schliemann was excavating the second settlement of Troy in 1873, he discovered what he regarded as proof of the Trojan War: a cache of vessels and jewelry of gold, silver, and bronze, as well as axes made of lapis imported from Afghanistan. Schliemann labeled his discovery the "Treasure of Priam," named after the legendary king of Troy, and photographed his wife Sophia wearing some of the associated jewelry.
He initially argued that it supplied evidence for the existence of the Trojan War, but realized toward the end of his life that the settlement he had found dated approximately 1,000 years too early for a battle that would have involved Greeks and Trojans. Nevertheless, the treasure indicated the level of wealth at Troy during the mid-third millennium B.C., as well as the extent of her trade contacts, which reached as far east as Afghanistan.
The "Treasure of Priam" is now in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, but you can get a sense of its form and quality from the Penn Museum's "Troy Treasure." The gold jewelry in this hoard can be dated to ca. 2500 B.C., contemporary with the "Treasure of Priam," and its style points to Troy as the likely place of discovery. Both filigree and granulation have been used in the production of this jewelry, which would have been worn by an aristocratic woman living 4,500 years ago. Moreover, some of the decorative motifs and technical features that appear in the Troy gold also appear in the jewelry from the Royal Tombs of Ur. Consequently, it looks as if the same workshops supplied both Troy and Ur with their precious metalwork.
