Trojan War

It was an exciting time during the first few exications of the Troy cite, and it seemed like new artifacts in suppot of Troy the city seemed to be growing every day. The finding however was no where near enough evidence to laitamize the Trojan War. In spite of these discoveries proving that Troy existed, the actualities of the fabeled War were still waiting to be reckoned with. The Problem with people accepting Homers account of a Trojan War is because of the additions and interjectins in the epic. Cyclops and mermaids certainly did not exist. On top of the mythical creatures Homers account of the war contains many unlikely events such as the famous wooden horse. After further research and digs many of these seemingly discrediting factors of
the War can be explained. There are multiple Troys build one on top of the other. As the landscape changes over the centuries the city had to be rebuild. The Citadel was found on the uppermost layer and so Schliemann dug deeper into his site finding a total of nine cities. Because of this we can refer to certain Troys as different points in time in the city’s history. As Stefan Lovgren from National Geographic says “Today archaeologists believe that the sixth and seventh oldest cities found in layers at Hisarlik are the best candidates for the Troy of The Iliad.” Reading through the Iliad and looking for corralations between the different Troys one might deduce that there was rather than a single Trojan war multiple Trojan Wars. Eric Cline. Cline is a historian and archaeologist at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C and he says that Homer most likely took major events from several Trojan wars over the decades and centerys and combined them into his famous epic. Such an argument would help explain the exaggerated long nature of both Homers epics.
After finding the many cities, many excavations were undertaken to further understand more about Troy.
Troy six and seven are though to be the Troys referenced by Homer and so much research was focused on these two cities. Upon furthers investigation however, it appeared that Troy 6 was destroyed by an earthquake rather than a war. With skeptisisim of any notable war taking place in Troy this news was a blow to belivers. However the destruction of the city actually helps explain the orgin of the most iconic parts about the Trojan War, the Trojan Horse. In the Iliad the city of Troy is destroyed by a horse which completely decimates the state. Considering that the historical site of Troy 6 was destroyed by earthquake, a parallel might be drawn between the god Poseidon and the destruction. Poseidon was often times depicted as a great horse in Greek mythology and was the god of the sea and earthquakes. Due to Homers recording the Event as a poem it may not be so unlickly that he choses to reference the eqrthquake with the story of the Trojan Horse. This is not far fetched if one is to consider Homers audience. The people listening to this poem already know about the fate of Troy and how it happened, and it was okay for Homer to anthropomorphize the earthquake for audience. Troy seven on the other hand lines up with the Iliad nicely in that there are arrow heads and weapons found in the streets. The only deviation from the Iliad is how the city was visually potrayed compared to
the actual city. Again the most likely senarion is that Homer blended the destruction of Troy six with the war of Troy seven to help create the war in his Epics.