Did the Trojan War actually happen?

The Great Trojan War, the legendary tale of an era long gone, where heroes fought for honor and gods interfered in the battles between the mortals. The tale had a profound influence on ancient Greece. Children grew up with the stories, numerous plays were written and even Alexander the Great is said to have always carried a copy of the Iliad with him. But its influence went beyond Even today, it still influences many people all over the world with cities, sports teams and people adopting Homeric names and the Iliad as well as the Odyssey being studied all around the world. But did the Trojan War actually happen? Did Troy even exist? To understand what happened, we must go way back in an age where history intermingled with myth and study an often overlooked period of the Late Bronze Age. During the last centuries of the Bronze Age, in the eastern part of the Mediterranean, there were thriving empires, kingdoms and city-states in Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Greece and North Africa. These great powers had developed a very large trading network with each other, while each of them was unique. But these powers often fought each other for supremacy. We are going to focus on two specific powers of the time, the Achaeans and the Hittites. The Achaeans are known today as Mycenaeans but we'll refer to them as Achaeans in this video as it is one of the names that Homer used for them and it is more relative to the Trojan War. The Achaeans lived in mainland Greece and expanded to the Aegean islands and the western Anatolian coast over the years. They were people of trade and warfare, mainly living around city-state citadels and comprised a loose federation. The Hittites, on the other hand, were an empire in eastern Anatolia and their capital city was called Hattusha, located in the mountainous central region of Asia Minor. The Hittite empire was powerful and intimidating. It had vassal states from which the Hittites extracted tributes, while they often went to war against Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians and other kingdoms. One of the city-states located in the north part of the western Anatolian coast was called Wilusa. The city served mostly as a vassal to the Hittites but at certain times it was independent. Most scholars agree that this city was in fact Troy. This theory is supported by many historians for two reasons. The first is that according to Hittite records, the city was located in the same region where Homer situated Troy. The second reason is its name. You see, in the ancient Greek alphabet, there was a letter called Digama and it is pronounced like the English W. After the 8th century BC, this letter was silenced in the spoken language but was still used in most of the writings. In many texts, the city of Wilusa was written with Now, Wilus and Wilusa are very similar names and it makes sense that this is how the Hittites would call the city. Another interesting fact is that the Hittites sometimes refer to the city as the steep Wilusa while Homer referred to it as the steep Ilion. Assuming that Wilusa is the city of Troy, we now have to look at the Hittite clay tablets that refer to the city. History shows that the Hittites had continuous relations with Wilusa for around 400 years, sometimes as friends and sometimes as enemies. Many written records have been found about Wilusa and conflicts are mentioned in some of them. In this text, we find that the Achaeans who the Hittites called Achaeans were involved in nearly all of them. But the first text that mentions a war between the Hittites and Achaeans was written around 1430 BC. It describes a battle between the king of the Achaeans called Atarsia against the Hittites and Maduata, king of Arzawa, a large region south of Wilusa that was a vassal kingdom of the Hittites. The Hittites eventually won the battle and the Achaeans retreated. From its description, we conclude that the battle was quite large. Regarding Wilusa, there are four texts that inform us of its involvement in the conflicts. The first text is from the early 14th century BC and it is known as the Asuwa rebellion text. The Asuwa confederation was a union of 22 city-states which rebelled against the Hittites. Wilusa was among these cities. The Asuan king Piyama-Kuruntu fought against the Hittite king Tudalia I who crushed the Asuans and took thousands of prisoners to Atarsia. After executing Piyama-Kuruntu, he freed his son Kukuli and put him in charge of the Asuan league. Kukuli was then ordered to maintain relations with the Hittites as a vassal state but he rebelled again, confronted the Hittites, lost the battle and was executed. Soon after that, the Asuan confederation dissolved. An interesting finding in Hattusha is a sword with an inscription reading As Tudalia the great king shattered the Asuwa country, he dedicated this sword to the storm god, his lord. What is rather interesting about this sword is that it is most probably an Achaean sword. It seems that the Achaeans had some role in this war either by joining the Asuan forces or by providing them with weapons. The second text is called the Alexander treaty which seems to be a call for an alliance between the Hittite king and the king of Walusa whom the Hittites called Alexander. In this letter, the king of the Hittites writes, you Alexander benevolently protect my majesty and later protect my son and grandson to the first and second generation and as I my majesty protected you Alexander in goodwill because of the word of your father and came to your aid and killed your enemy for you later in the future my sons and my grandsons will certainly protect your descendant for you the first and second generation if some enemy arises for you i will not abandon you just as i have not abandoned you i will kill your enemy for you. It appears that the Hittite king aided Alexander and crushed an enemy that attacked Walusa. The third text is known as the Tawagalawa letter. Very few fragments have survived from it but it contains valuable information. It is a letter from a Hittite king probably Hattushidi the third to an Achaean king. The Achaean king's name is not mentioned but we know that his brother is called Tawagalawa hence the name of the letter. The Hittite king writes about a man called Piyama Radu who has caused many uprisings and conflicts in the Hittite empire. As he is hiding in Achaean territory, he urges the Achaean king to hand Piyama Radu to the Hittites or at least advise him to go and settle in another land and stop causing any further troubles in the Hittite empire. An important information that we get from this letter is that the Hittite king calls the Achaean king his brother, a noble title that only the leaders of the great powers used to call each other. He is also writing in a very diplomatic manner so he must have considered the Achaeans as a powerful state at that time. The fourth letter was written during the late 13th century BC by the Hittite king Tudalia the fourth to an Achaean king. Tudalia writes Now my son, as long as you look after the well-being of my majesty, I, my majesty, will put my trust in your goodwill. Turn Wamu over to me, my son, so that I may reinstall him in kingship in the land of Wulusa. He shall now be king of Wulusa as he was formerly. He shall now be our military vassal as he was formerly. From the text, we understand that the Achaeans attacked Wulusa, overthrew its king and were holding him captive. The letter was written probably around the time when the Trojan war supposedly happened. As we can see there is plenty of information about the relations between the Achaeans, Wulusa and the Hittites and this is only from the tablets that have been deciphered so far. Another interesting fact is the connection between some of the names mentioned by the Hittite kings and the ones from the Homeric poems. For example, we see names like and Tawagalawa. Alexander seems likely that it was the Hittite version of the Greek name Alexander, the second name of Paris of Troy, according to Homer, although Alexander did not live in the time of the supposed Trojan war. The Achaean king Atreus is speculated to be Atreus, the father of both Agamemnon and Menelaus, according to Homer, but he is also not contemporary with the Trojan war timeline. Piyama-Kuruntu and Piyama-Raudu both start with Piyama, an ancient Anatolian name that Priamos is believed to be its Greek version and Priam its English version. There was also Tawagalawa, the brother of an Achaean king called by the Achaeans by a similar name in the Linear B tablets and later Ateocles in classical Greece. Although none of these people that the Hittites refer to did not live during the Trojan war, there is still an interesting connection between the names. Now, in order to examine the matter further, we also have to look for archaeological evidence other than written texts and try to find evidence of the actual city of Troy. Erich Schliemann, a German archaeologist, excavated many cities in search of evidence for the Homeric tales. He excavated Mycenae, Tiryns, some regions in Ithaca and a city in the northwestern coast of Anatolia. This city is believed by many modern scholars to be the ancient city of Troy. But how did Schliemann knew that there was a city buried there? What information did he rely on to find out about its location? At that time, there was no archaeological evidence for the existence of Troy. It was known however that the Greeks, centuries after the Trojan war, in the period when they were establishing colonies and founding many new cities, founded the city-state of Ilium in the supposed location of ancient Troy. Nearly 900 years later, when the Roman Empire conquered the Greek city-states, Ilium had declined and was almost empty. In its place, the Romans built Ilium. 400 years later, it became a small insignificant city and after two centuries it was completely abandoned. In the 19th century, Frank and Frederick Calvert had bought a large area of land in the region of Canakkale that contained a 32 meter mound which was called Hisalik in Turkish, meaning fortress. After thorough research, they concluded that this was the place the ancient city of Troy once stood. They convinced the archaeologist Eric Schliemann to help them excavate the mound and when he agreed, they began working together. While digging, they found that the site had actually nine cities built one above the other with its earliest settlement founded around 3000 BC. The cities at the top were the ones that the Greeks and the Romans had built but Schliemann had gone there to find the ancient city of Troy and not its successors. He believed that the ancient city would be one of those close to the bottom so he started digging through to reach it. Now the technology of the archaeologist at the time was not very sophisticated and as a result many parts of the upper cities were damaged or destroyed. But this was not the first time they were damaged as the Greeks and the Romans had already cut off part of the mound to build temples and other structures. When Schliemann finally reached Troy II, the second built city, he found pottery, shields and gold. He named these findings Priam's treasure because he believed that Troy II was the Homeric city. However, he would soon realize that Troy II, although built with a palace and walls, was far too small to be the city of the epic tales and actually predated the Trojan war by approximately 1000 years. Some years after the excavation of Troy II, Schliemann died at the age of 68. Schliemann's architect Wilhelm Derbfeld, after studying the site, concluded that the number one candidate layer for the Homeric city was Troy VI, believed to be built around 1750 BC and was destroyed around 1300 BC. This was a radiant city in its prime with limestone fortifications going up to eight meters tall and five meters thick, enhanced with watchtowers and large gateways. It is believed that these walls were much taller with mud bricks and wood structures built on top of them. Inside there were wide streets, large buildings and a grand palace, a very wealthy city indeed and also very busy with trade as objects from all around the Mediterranean have been found. It was also built with a unique architecture. A large town circling the citadel was excavated later with a small wharf around it for protection. Now, according to evidence, when this city was destroyed around 1300 BC, despite some evidence of fire, it is almost certain that it was destroyed by an earthquake. So, even though the city was outstanding and worthy of the Homeric poems, we have no proof of any foreign invasion whatsoever and although we cannot be completely sure, it was most probably destroyed by an earthquake. When they had completed the excavation of Troy VI, an archaeologist called Carl Bleggen started excavating together with He believed that Homeric Troy was actually the next city, Troy VII, which was actually the same city as the previous one but with some changes. A very interesting fact is that the city was much more crowded. The buildings were semi-repaired after the earthquake but were divided into smaller ones so they could contain all the people that had flooded the city all of a sudden. It seems like the people of the region were trying to escape from invaders and were possibly preparing for a siege. Another sign of uproar was the large number of huge storage jars found inside hundreds of houses again suggesting that the people were ready for a siege. Now, according to research, it is almost certain that this city was destroyed by invaders. Skeletons have been found in the streets along with many signs of fire and violently damaged walls and buildings. Another evidence that proves its destruction by invasion was the arrowheads and sling stones that were found in the site. Specifically, the arrowheads were of the Aegean type which suggests Achaean involvement. The destruction took place around 1260 to 1240 BC which is the most approximate period of the Trojan war according to modern and ancient scholars. Although we cannot yet be sure, there is a large number of evidence to support the existence of Troy and perhaps the legendary Trojan war. With exaggerations by poetic license, the epic tales seem to have been a mythical interpretation of an actual war.