Archaeology of Troy and the Trojan War
There is a highly readable exporation of the various issues surrounding the
attempt to verify the story of the Trojan War in Michael Wood's book, In
Search of the Trojan War (1985), the companion volume to a very successful
and widely popular BBC documentary series. The book is in Davidson Library and
is still readily available from booksellers. Unfortunately, it preceded the
resumption of excavations at Troy by Manfred Korfmann.
Heinrich Schliemann
- A good survey of Heinrich Schliemann's life and the controversy over his
work can be found at Wellington King's Heinrich
Schliemann: Heros & Mythos.
- The renewed attack on the authenticity of the famous gold masks from Mycenae
found by Schliemann is well covered (pro and con) in the August 1999 issue
of Archaeology
magazine.
Troy (Ilium)
- Map of the Troad
(i.e., area around Troy) (Carlos Panada). Scroll down from top of page.
- Nice panoramic
image of the east gate of Troy VI, the putative Troy of the Iliad,
courtesy of Bruce Hartzler's Metis Project. Try also image #21.
- Plan of the Citadel
at Troy, with the structures of Troy II ("Schliemann's Troy")
marked in orange-brown and the great walls of Troy VI in pink. The relationship
between the Citadel and the lower city can be seen on
this map. (Project Troja, next item.)
- The website for the current
excavations at Troy (Project Troja), in both English and German-language
versions, is quite informative. (For English, however, you will have to click
on "Englisch" on the bottom left (i.e. German portion) of the page.)
- A recent major exhibition
in Germany of artifacts from the new excavations has a splendid website,
complete with a Quicktime video walk-through (pull down the "Forschung"
menu and click on "VR Panoramen") and images of some of the recent
finds. It's in German, but can probably be appreciated without knowledge of
the language.
- For Bronze Age archaeology, whose connections with Greek
mythology are evident but controversial, see Prof. Jeremy Rutter's superb,
well-illustrated on-line course in The
Prehistoric Archaeology of the Aegean (Dartmouth College). Especially
relevant to debates about the historical basis of Greek mythology is lesson
27: "Troy
VII and the Historicity of the Trojan War."
- A recent news item from the BBC
website on geological verification of changes in the coastline below ancient
Troy.
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