Troy / Hisarlık

What happened

1. 1863Frank Calvert, who owns part of the Hisarlık mound, begins trial excavations there.
2. 1865Calvert publicly identifies Hisarlık as the site of Troy to London's scholarly community.
3. 1871Schliemann, who adopted Calvert's identification from 1868, begins large-scale excavation, cutting a deep trench through the mound.
4. 1873Schliemann announces finding 'Priam's Treasure' in the Troy II layer and removes it from Ottoman territory without authorization.
5. 1890Schliemann dies; his architect Wilhelm Dörpfeld takes over the excavation.
6. 1893Dörpfeld's campaigns (1893-94) expose Troy VI, a fortified Late Bronze Age city above (later than) Troy II, correcting Schliemann's mistaken layer.
7. 1932Blegen re-excavates (to 1938); Troy VI fell to earthquake, he concludes; Troy VIIa's fire (c.1180 BCE) may be too late for a Mycenaean attack.
8. 1983Traill argues Schliemann's 1873 accounts of the find are inconsistent; Easton (1984) disputes how much was fabricated.
9. 1988Manfred Korfmann (Tübingen) begins new excavations and later argues for a large lower city beyond the citadel.
10. 1998Hawkins reads the Karabel hieroglyphic inscription, firming up Hittite geography linking Wilusa to the Troad.
11. 2002After 2001 press criticism and a Tübingen symposium, Kolb (2004) and Hertel disputed the lower city's scale; Easton et al. defended the broader picture.
12. 2005Jablonka and Rose respond to Kolb; Troy/Wilusa's identity is uncontested but the lower city's scale stays disputed.

Objections 1 of 7 proved wrong

• ✕
  Hisarlık is too small and too close to the coast to match Homer's description of Troy; Bunarbashi (Pınarbaşı), further inland, fits the Iliad's topography better.

  Natural, not human · supporters of the Bunarbashi identification (after Le Chevalier) · 1865

  Proved wrong — Subsequent excavation found dense Bronze Age fortification and occupation at Hisarlık and none at Bunarbashi; Hisarlık is now the identification accepted by nearly all archaeologists.
• ✓
  Schliemann gave conflicting accounts, in about a dozen places, of discovering 'Priam's Treasure,' and his autobiographical writings elsewhere contain demonstrably false claims.

  Fraud or provenance · William M. Calder III (1972); David A. Traill (1983) · 1983

  Held up — Comparing Schliemann's early reports shows contradictions in date, location and who was present; how much of the discovery story was invented, versus merely retold inconsistently, is disputed (Easton 1984).
• ✓
  Schliemann identified the 'Burnt City' (Troy II) and its gold treasure as Priam's Homeric Troy, but this layer considerably predates the Late Bronze Age setting of the Iliad.

  Natural, not human · Wilhelm Dörpfeld (from 1893) · 1893

  Held up — Dörpfeld's and later Blegen's stratigraphy showed Troy VI and VIIa, later and higher layers than Troy II, belong to the Late Bronze Age; the 'Treasure' layer predates the traditional war by roughly 1,000 years.
• ?
  Korfmann's claim of a large lower city beyond the citadel, making Troy VI/VIIa a major Anatolian trading hub or 'Bronze Age federation of cities,' is unsupported by the excavated evidence.

  Layers or association · Frank Kolb (2004); Dieter Hertel · 2001

  Unresolved — A ditch and some lower-town structures were excavated, but the scale, population and economic importance of the lower settlement remain disputed among specialists.
• ?
  The identification of Hittite Wilusa with Troy/Ilios rests on a chain of contested name associations (Alaksandu-Alexandros, Wilusa-Ilios, Appaliunas-Apollo) rather than direct proof.

  Natural, not human · Diether Schürr (2019) · 2019

  Unresolved — Most Hittitologists regard the convergence of geography (Hawkins 1998) and texts as strong; Schürr goes further, denying Hisarlık was Wilusa's stronghold at all, a minority view.
• ?
  Even granting Hisarlık is Wilusa, no text names a specific war matching the Iliad's cast and events; Bronze Age Wilusa saw several documented conflicts over centuries.

  Contradicts the accepted model · M.I. Finley (1964) and others · 1964

  Unresolved — Hittite records mention repeated Wilusa-related conflicts from the 15th-13th centuries BCE; which, if any, Homer's poem reflects (or whether it conflates several) is unresolved (Cline 2013).
• ?
  Troy VI's destruction looks like an earthquake, not a sack; Troy VIIa's fire (c. 1180 BCE) is generally dated too late for a Mycenaean attack, and its attackers are unidentified.

  Dating or samples · Carl Blegen; later re-dating of Troy VIIa · 1932

  Unresolved — Blegen attributed Troy VI's fall to earthquake and favored Troy VIIa as the war layer, but VIIa's destruction date is widely seen as too late for the Mycenaeans; who destroyed it remains unknown.

Evidence at the time within ~5 years of the claim

• Unambiguous evidencePartly — Man-made walls and pottery, not natural, but by 1865 not yet distinguished from the known Greco-Roman ruins above; the Troy identification rested on topography and tradition, not the finds.
• Documented contextPartly — Calvert recorded his 1863-65 trial trenches in his own publications, but not to modern stratigraphic standards; no full excavation had yet been conducted by 1870.
• Independent dating methodsNo — No scientific dating method existed in the 1860s. The identification rested on topography, ancient testimonia (Homer, Strabo) and comparison of exposed masonry and pottery to known ancient styles.
• More than one labNo — Not applicable in the 1860s; no laboratory analysis was involved in the original identification.
• Professional recoveryPartly — Calvert was an experienced excavator and had dug elsewhere in the Troad for years, but archaeology was not yet a formal profession and no trained team accompanied him.
• Peer-reviewed reportPartly — Calvert announced the identification to London's scholarly community in 1865, the norm for the period, but not peer review in the modern sense.
• Open to criticsPartly — Calvert owned part of the mound and hosted visiting scholars, including Schliemann from 1868, but no independent excavation by another party had yet occurred.
• Independent teamsNo — Before 1871 only Calvert and Schliemann's 1870 probe had dug at Hisarlık; neither constituted a second independent team confirming the identification.
• Outside stakeUnknown — Calvert owned part of the mound (S1); no read source documents a profit motive for his 1865 claim. Schliemann's later self-promotion and fabrications (1873) postdate this claim; see objections.

What would settle it for a field partner

1. Apply Bayesian radiocarbon modelling to archived samples from the Troy VIIa destruction deposits at an independent laboratory.Medium cost
   Would show: A precise calendar date for the destruction, testable against Hittite-recorded conflicts and the wider Late Bronze Age collapse.
2. Independently re-analyze the published Troy VIIa destruction evidence (fire layer, skeletons, sling-bullet caches) alongside Troy VI's earthquake evidence, for trauma versus natural-catastrophe indicators.Medium cost
   Would show: Whether the c. 1180 BCE destruction reflects warfare specifically, rather than earthquake or accidental fire, and whether Troy VI's earlier quake is unrelated.
3. Extend geophysical survey and targeted excavation of the proposed lower-city ditch and wall circuit.High cost
   Would show: The true extent and defensive function of the Late Bronze Age settlement, resolving the Korfmann-Kolb size dispute.
4. Systematically re-examine Hisarlık's Late Bronze Age finds for local Luwian/Hittite-script material and compare naming formulae to the Alaksandu treaty and Ahhiyawa texts.Low cost
   Would show: Stronger direct (not just geographic) textual anchoring of Hisarlık to the Hittite toponym Wilusa.

What settled it New excavation, Expert review

What would change this record

Discovery elsewhere in the Troad of a larger Late Bronze Age fortified city with a stronger claim (e.g. texts naming it Ilios or Wilusa) would overturn the identification. A Hittite text placing Wilusa elsewhere would undo only the Wilusa equation.

Notes

• Status. Core claim vindicated: nearly all archaeologists and Hittitologists accept Hisarlık as Bronze Age Troy (Wilusa); Schürr (2019) disputes the Wilusa link. Whether the Iliad's war happened is a separate, unresolved claim.
• Accepted view then. Most 19th-c. topographers placed Troy at Bunarbashi, following Le Chevalier; others saw it as legend. Hisarlık was known only as Greco-Roman New Ilium.
• Now understood. Troy VI-VIIa, c. 1700-1180 BCE (= Wilusa)
• Dating basis. No physical dating existed in 1865; the claim rested on topography, Homer/Strabo and ancient chronographic tradition (Eratosthenes' 1184 BCE). Schliemann later (1873) wrongly placed this in the older Troy II layer.
• Refined since. Schliemann's 'Priam's' city was the wrong layer: Troy II predates the Iliad's setting by about 1,000 years; Dörpfeld (1893-94) and Blegen (1932-38) placed Late Bronze Age Troy in Troy VI-VIIa.
• Refined since. Schliemann's accounts of finding 'Priam's Treasure' conflict (Traill 1983; Easton 1984 disputes how much was invented); the objects' Bronze Age authenticity is generally accepted.
• Refined since. Hittite geography now anchors the site: Hawkins's 1998 Karabel reading placed Wilusa in the Troad, and most Hittitologists equate Wilusa with Troy; Schürr (2019) disputes the name equations.
• Refined since. Korfmann (from 1988) argued for a large lower city and trade hub; its scale and role are disputed (Kolb 2004 vs Jablonka & Rose 2004), though a ditch and some lower-town structures were excavated.
• Correction. Brief credits 'Frank Calvert in the 1860s' as first to propose Hisarlık=Troy. Charles Maclaren's 1822 book (verified via Internet Archive) argued this decades earlier; Calvert was first to excavate (from 1863) and renewed it in 1865.
• Correction. The brief frames the Korfmann-Kolb debate as about whether the war happened. Sources (Kolb 2004; Hertel & Kolb 2003; Easton et al. 2002) show it was about Troy VI's lower-city scale and economic importance, not the war's historicity.
• Correction. Schliemann's account of finding 'Priam's Treasure' is documented as inconsistent (Traill 1983), though Easton (1984) disputes how much was deliberate fabrication; the objects' Bronze Age authenticity is separate and generally accepted.
• Claim moment: anchored to Calvert's 1865 identification (best-sourced, fieldwork-tied: Allen 1995, checked), not Maclaren 1822 (topographic only; book's existence confirmed via Internet Archive, content not re-read this session) or Schliemann's 1873 Troy-II claim (a later, narrower error). The claim splits cleanly: (1) Hisarlık=Troy/Wilusa, essentially settled by 1894 (Dörpfeld), nearly unanimous since; (2) a Homeric war, still unresolved. Mundane check: no hoax; Schliemann's unreliability (S2) is about his narration, not the remains' authenticity. 'Inscription' = the Karabel relief (Hawkins 1998), distinct from Hittite 'written-sources' (treaties).

People and evidence

• Proponents. Frank Calvert, Heinrich Schliemann, Wilhelm Dörpfeld, Carl Blegen, Manfred Korfmann, C. Brian Rose
• Critics. Frank Kolb, Dieter Hertel, David A. Traill, Diether Schürr, M.I. Finley
• Evidence types. stratigraphy, architecture, artifacts, inscription, written sources, geology · 4 independent lines
• Record confidence. medium — Core dates and the Korfmann-Kolb debate are now well sourced and checked (S11-S15, S17, S18). The 1184 BCE tradition (S16) and Maclaren's priority (S19) are confirmed only at metadata/existence level.