Why is Troy famous?
So the Trojan War
realy happene?So we have
found
Troy?Is Schliemann’s city
definitely Troy?Why did Greece
attack Troy?What else is the
British Museum
showing?What can we say
for sure about the
Trojan War?
Did the Greeks
really go to war
over a woman?IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME
Brush up on your Trojan history with this cheat sheetThe story of Troy was
immortalised by the Greek
poet Homer in the Iliad,
which was composed in the
8th century BC. This
recounts the nal days of a
10-year siege of the city by
Greek armies under the
command of Agamemnon,
king of Mycenae. This epic
and its sequel (of sorts), the
Odyssey, which charts Greek
king Odysseus’ homeward
journey, have resounded
throughout the ages.According to the Iliad, on a
visit to the Greek city of
Sparta, Paris, son of Trojan
king Priam, fell in love with
Helen, wife of the Spartan
king Menelaus, and
kidnapped her. Seeking
vengeance, Menelaus
persuaded his brother
Agamemnon to lead an
army against Troy. There is no historical record,
but it is possible. Alexandra
Villing, curator of upcomingexhibition Troy: Myth and
Reality at the British Museum
explains that “it’s a small
incident which might have
escalated”. More likely, she
says, Troy’s strategic location
at the entrance of the
Dardanelles appealed to
the Greeks.There are ancient historical
references to a conict
involving Troy in
modern-day Turkey and the
Greeks e.g. on cuneiform
tablets from the Hittite
Empire in Anatolia, dating
from the 13th century BC.
Archaeological evidence at
the ruins of Troy suggests
that the city was burned
around 1200 BC and “it
looks as though this was as
a result of conict” because
armour and arrowheads
were found in the ruins of
that period, says Villing.Self-taught archaeologist
Heinrich Schliemann spent
much of his later life trying
to prove the Iliad’s accuracy;
he started excavations at
Hisarlik in Turkey in 1871.
He dug an enormous trench
at the centre of the site,destroying much material
from later settlements and
found evidence of several
cities built on top of one
another and a cache of gold
and silver objects which he
called Priam’s Treasure. We
now know that these objects
are over 1,000 years older
than the supposed date of
the Trojan War. An
evocation of Schliemann’s
trench will be at the heart
of the British Museum’s
exhibition.“Schliemann did not nd an
inscription saying ‘This is
Troy, city of Priam’, but we
know that the city he
excavated was abandoned
for hundreds of years,
possibly after a major
conict—which could be the
war recounted by Homer—
and that once it became
wealthy again those who
lived there believed this was
the site of Homer’s Troy. Of
course, they might have
made this up because it
would have increased the
prestige of their town,” says
Villing. In short, there is
very strong circumstantial
evidence to suggest that
Schliemann did nd Troy,
but it wouldn’t necessarily
stand up in court.Almost nothing. To nd out
what we know from history
and what we know from
Homer, visit Troy: Myth and
Reality at the British
Museum (November
21-March 8, 2020).The exhibition will explore
how stories from the Iliad
and Odyssey were retold
throughout history. One
spectacular object, on loan
from the National Museum
of Denmark, is an ancient
Roman silver cup found in
the tomb of a Northern
chieftain who died in the
rst century AD. This shows
one of the key scenes from
the Iliad: Priam sneaking
into the enemy encampment
at night, kneeling at the feet
of the great warrior Achilles
and begging for the return of
the body of his son Hector
whom Achilles killed in
battle and whose body he
dragged through the dirt.
Impressed by Priam’s
bravery and moved by his
grief, Achilles declared a
temporary truce to allow
Priam to bury his son with
the proper ceremonial rites.ILLUSTRATIONS BY DAVID SPARSHOTT/HANDSOME FRANKPrivate View Bluffer’s Guide
By Cristina RuizVANITY FAIR ON ART NOVEMBER 201911-19-Bluffers-Guide.indd 30 24/09/2019 10:05
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