Ancient site · City
Troy (Hisarlik)
Also known as Ilion, Hisarlık, Wilusa
A mound near the Dardanelles in northwest Turkey with nine main layers of cities built on top of each other over about 4,000 years. Heinrich Schliemann and Frank Calvert dug it from 1871 looking for Homer's Troy.
In the Late Bronze Age the city was probably the Wilusa named in Hittite texts, and one layer was destroyed around 1180 BCE. Whether any of this matches the war in the Iliad remains unproven.
- Dates
- c. 3600 BCE – c. 500 CE
- Still standing
- Yes
- UNESCO World Heritage
- Yes
- Location
- 39.96° N, 26.24° E
How we know
The city's ruins are real, and most scholars accept Hisarlik as Homer's Troy, but there is no firm proof that the Trojan War of legend happened.
Nearby sites
- Theodosian Walls of Constantinople c. 405–413 CE; defended the city until 1453
- Sesklo c. 7000–4400 BCE (earliest levels possibly older)
- Acropolis of Athens (Parthenon) Parthenon 447–432 BCE; damaged 1687
- Varna Necropolis c. 4570–4340 BCE
- Mycenae citadel c. 1600–1100 BCE (Lion Gate c. 1250 BCE)
- Akrotiri settled by c. 4500 BCE; buried c. 1600 BCE