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Troy: Ethnographic Study

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The archaeology site i have chosen to investigate is Troy.
This site contains 4000 years of history and is immensely significant to us as it has provided us with an understanding into the early development of European civilisation. The site appears to have been inhabited from the Early Bronze Age to arounder—bout 1180 B.C. Troy was the name given to the Bronze Age City displayed in the Trojan War of ancient Greek. Other names for this site are ‘Hisarlik’, ‘Iliios', ‘Ilion’ and ‘Ilium’. The Trojan War is said to be what destroyed the city of Troy in 1180 B.C. The war was waged against the city of Troy by the Greek’s after the King of Sparta’s wife Helen was taken by the Prince of Troy. The war was an intense battle which is thought to of lasted …show more content…

This is an important event in Greek mythology and has been recounted most prominently through Homer's Iliad which recounts the siege. The first excavations at the site were conducted in 1870 by Heinrich Schliemann. Heinrich Schliemann was a young businessman and a pioneer in the field of archaeology. Around his 40’s he retired to pursue his dream of finding the site. Prior to Schliemann’s excavation most scholars considered the site to be a mythological place. There was much scholarly debate as to whether the site actually existed, however it is almost universally accepted that the excavations have revealed the city of Troy. Due to Schliemann’s determination to uncover the site he has enabled modern civilisation to gain a understanding into European civilisation in its early years of development. Because of his finds he has been given the title ‘Father of Mediterranean Archaeology’. Schliemann collapsed into a coma on Christmas Day in 1890 with the cause being ‘Cholesteatoma’ and died the next day. Heinrich Schliemann located the city of Troy by following the geographical clues in the 'Iliad' and started excavating a hill called Hisarlick in Anatolia on the coast of North West Turkey. The …show more content…

From the beginning Frank Calvert told Schliemann to go slowly in excavating ‘Hisarlick’ and to dig a network of small trenches but Heinrich was connived that Troy was located deep down in the bed rock and attacked the hill with more than 100 workers at a time. After much persistence and even doubting himself Heinrich found huge walls and a city destroyed by fire and was convinced he had discovered the city of Troy. After walking around the site and reading the Iliad for two hours Heinrich wrote, “I was fully convinced that it was here that ancient Troy had stood.” During 1988 Manfred Kauffman accompanied by a team from University of Tubingen and Cincinnati began to excavate the site further. The team came to the conclusion that the city of Troy was much bigger than they had originally thought as they located a deep ditch around the city indicating a means of defence of a larger city. They also found an abundance of arrowheads that dated back to the 12 Century B.C. The issue with discovering information about this site is that its still unclear which level was destroyed by the Trojan War as there are nine

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