In Search of Troy

The excavated area thought to be "Troy" had about nine distinct layers. The "Troy" that everyone is interested was one of the upper layers (like Layer VIII, the second from the top), which Schliemann kept digging through. The one he finally settled on and brought "Priam's Treasure" from was much older, long before the era of the fabled Trojan war.

To boot, with each successive layer, the previous layer he simply dumped to the side and didn't take much care in preserving. So much of the Trojan layer that the classicists are interested in studying has actually been destroyed by his attempts to dig deeper.

This is very misleading. Anyone familiar with history knows that Anatolia was part of the West — it was, after all, held by the Roman Empire for centuries. It was only lost during the Arab-Byzantine Wars, and the Arabs were eventually replaced by the Turks. But once upon a time, Anatolia was Western.

If you happen to visit the area, I would actually recommend to skip it. Go to Assos instead: the citadel, the walls, the theater... all more impressive than Troy. Go the Alexandria Troas and see the baths, the aqueduct, the temple they were digging up a few years ago. Go to see the grandiose Temple of Apollo Smintheum in Gülpinar.

The most impressive thing sadly left in Troy is Schliemann's trench.