Troy

Troy is the city besieged by the Greeks in the legend of the Trojan War, told in Homer's Iliad and later poems. Most archaeologists identify it with the mound of Hisarlik near the Dardanelles in northwest Turkey. Heinrich Schliemann began digging there in 1870, followed by Wilhelm Dörpfeld, Carl Blegen and later teams; UNESCO lists some 24 excavation campaigns over about 140 years.

The mound holds many cities built on top of one another, from the early Bronze Age to Roman times. Layers known as Troy VI and VIIa, from the late Bronze Age, are the usual candidates for Homer's city. Whether a war like the one in the Iliad really happened is still debated; the size and power of Bronze Age Troy are also argued over.

In Hesiod's Works and Days, the heroes who fought at Thebes and Troy form the fourth of five races of humankind, the demigods, some of whom were taken to the Isles of the Blessed. Later, Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda even identified the Norse gods' home, Asgard, with Troy.