Sep 24, 2025
bronze age woman from Troy / Hisarlik, wearing priam's treasure / helen's jewels
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bronze age woman from Troy / Hisarlik, wearing priam's treasure / helen's jewels
Relief showing Helios, sun god in the Greco-Roman mythology. Fragment from the temple of Athena in Ilion (Troy). It was found by famed archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in 1872. Currently at the Pergamon-Museum’s collection, Berlin, Germany. Marble, 85,8 x 86,3 cm. Hellenistic Greece, 1st quarter of the 3rd century BC - 390 BC.
Turkish archaeologists claim they have found the Trojan Horse. Archaeologists at a historical site have unearthed a wooden structure.
Pretty cool if it turns out not to have been a myth...
Troy/Hisarlık, Turkey.
Ancient city of Troy at Hisarlık Hill in Çanakkale, Turkey
Turkish vintage postcard
The Treasure of King Priam
The tale of Troy is well-known among many. For some, the tale of the Trojan Horse was simply the start of Odysseus’s journey back home. For others, it was the tragic end of Achilles after his friend, Patroclus was killed by Hector, which led him to seek revenge before losing his life to Paris (which helped spawn the best selling novel of The Song of Achilles. At least, I think that’s what it’s about. I have yet to read Madeleine Miller’s book).
According to the Romans, of course, the war with Troy also led to the founding of their city. As to whether there is any truth to that, who’s to say. But a displaced group of people finding a home across continents does sound plausible.
But the tale of Troy is not simply a fight between two warring human factions. It was also a battle between the Greek Gods. In fact, the entire story of woe began with Eris, Goddess of Strife and Discord, and her being slighted by the other Gods. In turn, she created the Golden Apple on which was was inscribed: For the Fairest.’ This, in turned, sparked competition between the three main Goddesses: Hera, Athena and Aphrodite.
Not wanting to suffer the anger that would come as a result of choosing who the apple would go to, Zeus nominated Paris, prince of Troy, to choose in his stead. And, as the story goes, he chose Aphrodite. And thus, he was rewarded the love of the most beautiful woman in the world: Helen of Sparta.
The problem, of course, was that she was already married to King Menelaus.
And so, from one simple choice, war sprung forth for ten long years. After all, Helen’s face was the one that led the launch of a thousand ships to bring her back home. The war the raged was one where heroes rose and fell on the battlefield until, at least, Odysseus came up with the most clever of ploys: hiding Greek troops in a wooden horse that would be presented to the Trojans as a symbol of the Greeks’ surrender. Feigning retreat, they would return in the dead of the night to an open gate and storm the city.
Ever since playing Age of Mythology and becoming obsessed with such stories, the tale of Troy was one of the very first to capture my imagination at a very young age. But I was the first such individual. In the 1800s, an archaeologist by the name of Heinrich Schliemann was also intent on uncovering the lost city. Though a dedicated scholar, he was also something of a treasure seeker and smuggled away many precious valuables out of Turkey for his personal gain. In his excavations, he also damaged quite a bit of the city and also incorrectly pronounced that Troia II as the one from the Iliad, though later scholars would grant the honour to Troia VI based on the defensive structures an imposing citadel.
While not as impressive as the remains at Ephesus, I still enjoyed my time exploring the ruins of Troy, or Troia as it was written, despite the cutting wind. There was even a statue of a wooden horse (not the original) created by the Turkish artisan: Izzet Senemoglu.
Another interesting fact about Troy/Trioa/ Hisarlik is that it isn’t very far from the Dardanelles Strait. Now, a student of modern history, and in particular, the world Wars, will know that this is where the famous battle of Gallipoli was held. And it was here that the allied forces launched the attack against the Turks in order to take the waterway linking the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.
After we finished looking around Troy, we drove to a restaurant in Gelibolu (Gallipoli) for lunch before taking the scenic route along the Sea of Marmara back to Istanbul for our second last day in Turkey.
Tomorrow promises to be an interesting day where we will visit a mosque and maybe do some shopping before heading to the airport for the long flight back to Sydney.
My time overseas has felt both long and short in equal measure but all such things must come to an end. I, certainly, am eager to go back home and bask in the familiar, even if the idea of returning to work and the stresses it promises doesn’t seem very appealing.
Still, I’ll be starting in a new position (which at time of writing this post, has been about a week and it’s going okay!). And there’s also the Toymaker story that I’ve been writing which needs to get finished before I can editing! Then onto the next the next story project that I’ve been meaning to write for a while now!
Oh, and games. Can’t forget those video games. During my time overseas, I was playing through quite a bit of Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line and there’s an impressions blog just waiting to be written up and uploaded!
Archaeology Fun Fact:
All right I am absolutely swamped by school work but I feel the need to rant about my absolute least favorite human in the history of Archaeology (as of right now.) So lets talk about the asshole who decided that excavating with dynamite was a good idea, accidently blew up Troy with said dynamite and potentially perpetrated a fraud that is still celebrated as a cultural heritage piece of Greece to this day. Let’s talk about Heinrich Schliemann. So this Mr. Schliemann; this guy is a wealthy businessman/arms dealer turned antiquarian (which at the time was the same as archaeologist) who was obsessed with finding the lost City of Troy because he believed that the poetry of Homer was historical, which is actually true to a point. So in 1869 he met with another fellow named Frank Calvert, who said that he owned the land that the city of Troy was supposedly located on based on the texts. This land is now known as Hisarlık, and its a protected UNESCO site in Turkey. Anyways, Schliemann was like “Rad, can you show me the site and we will dig up the lost treasure of the King of Troy?” To which Calvert agreed because its not like the Turkish government would want to be informed of a historic and potentially monumental discovery within their borders. The two men got to work and assumed on arbitrary terms that the ruins of Troy would be on the lowest level of the site. Heinrich almost completely destroyed all 9 layers on top of the site in their search for treasure. This included the use of heavy digging equipment which heavily featured dynamite. Frank Calvert (having half a braincell) actually opposed this practice and even published articles revealing Schliemann’s destructive practices.
The ironic thing is that these men were both not the first people to claim that this site contained Troy, and they also basically destroyed most of Homeric Troy that they were looking for. The first ‘academic’ European to note that there was a Roman presence at Hisarlik was Edward Daniel Clark in 1801. The local people living in the area also had some idea that the area was linked to the Romans and Troy, but of course this was the period of time where no one asked the native peoples what they thought on any particular matter. The actual site of Homeric Troy was also located around level 4, which Schliemann completely burned through in his quest for shinies.
After stealing all his treasures from Turkey and failing to tell the Turkish Government about his finds (they only found out he had found something after photos of his wife wearing said ancient jewelry started circulating) people were obviously skeptical about the creditability of this man’s research/findings. So, this leads us to the second reason I hope this man is rotting in the pits of Tartarus and/or Hell. This scumbag potentially created a fraud that is still displayed in the Museum of Athens, as is fairly well known throughout the public eye. It is known as the Mask of Agamemnon, and it is quite beautiful;
This is a solid gold masks that was originally interpreted as the death mask of the King of the Myceneans. This is a site located in Greece, which is a palace complex left over from one of the two major civilizations during the Greek Bronze age, and fell during the Dark Age. However, there are stylistic differences that make it likely a clever fraud for Schliemann to continue his own showboating and con-man career. The most notable one is a fabulous mustache that was all the rage during the 19th century, but not as much during 3200 BCE. There also also some other stylistic things with the ears and how the nose is formed that make a lot of archaeologists very skeptical about the origin of the masks in general. For context, this is another mask found in the same locality in Grave Circle B.
While this controversy would be easily settled with isotopic analysis, The National Archaeological Museum of Athens has never actually permitted testing to be done to the mask. While this seems super sketchy, it does makes some sense. The mask is both a massive tourism draw that keeps the Museum afloat and is also a source of national pride and propaganda. To claim that an object that brings so much income and positive feelings to the field is fake would probably not end well in the short term. However, I do not consider this to the the fault of the museum or academic as a whole. It is mainly the fault of someone who has been mythicized and romanticized to the point where he has Archaeologist on his Wikipedia page, and is considered the “Father of Classical Archaeology”. If you want to blame anyone for the loss of valuable history and the perpetration of false information I urge you to slander the name of a fleabag of history; Heinrich Schliemann. (I made a bibliography in the *Keep Reading* this time because I couldn’t remember all the specifics of this shit show of a story. I encourage you to message me to add anything I forgot or ask questions if you disagree with me; most of archaeology is just civil disagreement. ) Rant over. I need to go read my textbooks on pottery, See you all for the time that I decide to cover the nine year lawsuit regarding the Kennewick Man Skeleton.
Hisarlik Yaylasında kar yağışı sonrasında kış güzelliği ☃️❄️🌨️ 📸 Ali Özdemir #Hisarlik #Bozkir #Konya (Bozkır, Konya) https://www.instagram.com/p/CIx9nGrJchK/?igshid=13rvju9btl2wh