HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF GREEK MYTHOLOGY 45ditch. "The outer defense system consisted of an over-ten-foot-wide rock-cut
ditch which would have stopped the advance of any horsedrawn chariot out-
side "^13 Behind this ditch was a fortification wall, "a palisade built of wooden
posts set directly into the bedrock. ... A parallel series of postholes undoubt-
edly served as support beams for a sentry walk behind the wall." There are also
clear indications of an entrance gate with doorposts (about three meters wide),
presumably offering access to a major street through the lower town. Also, part
of this fortification wall of the lower town of Troy VI was found to join up to
the northeast bastion of the citadel; "at no other Bronze Age site is there evi-
dence for such a sophisticated wooden fortification system." A cemetery with
cremation-burial urns lay to the south. Many bones attest to the common use of
the horse. There is evidence from pottery of commercial links between Troy and
the Mycenaean world. Thus we have greater proof that Troy VI, a large, pala-
tial trading center, with its fortified citadel and inhabited lower city, protected
by a ditch and a wall, could certainly have been of a magnitude and significance
worthy of the power of Priam celebrated in the heroic tradition. From the con-
jecture that the Trojans probably charged tolls for those traveling through the
Dardanelles or Hellespont, serious economic causes may be easily conjured up
to explain a conflict between the Mycenaeans and the Trojans.
The excavators have also found, just as Blegen did, indications within the
lower town of a violent destruction for the end of Troy Vila, for example, a
hastily buried fifteen-year-old female and "a number of long-range weapons,
such as arrowheads and spearheads, and over one hundred stone pellets, prob-
ably used for slings, which were piled in heaps. This may indicate defeat in bat-
tle because successful defenders usually clean up such piles, whereas victorious
aggressors tend not to care about them." Perhaps the most exciting and signif-
icant find of all, thus far, is a bronze stamp seal in the Luwian script, an Indo-
European language found in the Hittite kingdom and some other sites in West-
ern Anatolia (modern Turkey). Found in a house inside the citadel of Troy VI,
here is the very first evidence for writing in Bronze Age Troy. New Hittite texts
recently discovered elsewhere "indicate strong connections between the Hittite
kingdom and 'Wilusa/ which should probably be identified with Troy." Also
one of the texts (called the Alaksandus treaty) identifies among the deities of
Wilusa a deity named Appaliunas, almost certainly the name for Apollo, the
great god on the side of the Trojans in the Iliad. The cult of Apollo is believed
to be Anatolian or Cypriot in origin; after all, Homer does call him "Lycian-
born."
Other excavations under Korfmann's direction in the area of the Troad have
unearthed further confirmation for the authenticity of Homeric geography and
legend. Five miles south west of Troy lies Besika Bay, where the original sea-
shore at the time of the Trojan War has been identified; nearby, a cemetery con-
taining about 200 graves surrounded by a single wall has been unearthed; the
cremations and burials were accompanied by pottery and funeral offerings