Why Was There A Trojan War

Q: Was there a Trojan War? Compare the literary with the archaeological evidence.

"...in that matter of Wilusa over which we were at enmity."

Despite the continuing debate, the literary and archaeological evidence indicates that there was a Trojan War. The reality of this war however, was not the epic conflict as narrated by Homer, but more likely part of an ongoing enmity between the Mycenaean 's and the Hittites. Troy was a wealthy city, well placed at the mouth of the Hellespont in the north west corner of Anatolia to be of vital strategic and commercial importance. Unfortunately it was also situated on the periphery of two of the most powerful and aggressive civilisations of the Late Bronze Age. The archaeological evidence for the
The relatively recent excavations of Manfred Korfmann have been especially productive in establishing the size of the lower city, (which was built of mud brick and has therefore not survived), and supporting the case of Troy level VI as the citadel involved in the Trojan War. In The Iliad Homer gives us many details about the city of Troy that he would not have been able to know first-hand. He describes a windy city with, "wide, well-paved streets." Hisarlik is a very windy site and Troy VI does indeed have wide open streets. He describes the unusually "steep walls" of the citadel. "Three times Patroclus charged the jut of the high wall, three times Apollo battered the man and hurled him back." Archaeological excavations have confirmed the walls of Troy VI does have unusual angles. Carl Blegen notes that there were sections of the wall that his workmen could have scaled in a similar manner as Pactroclus. Homer also describes a weak stretch in the western side of the city walls in Book VI. "Draw your armies up where the wild fig tree stands, there where the city lies most open to assault and the walls low and easily overrun." Wilhelm Dorpfeld found that the city walls of Troy VI had been rebuilt everywhere except for one short stretch of inferior construction on the western side of the city, the weak spot pointed
The Hittites controlled most of ancient Anatolia during the time of the Trojan war, c.1250B.C.E. Over 5000 cuneiform clay tablets have been unearthed in Hattusa and more tablet archives have come to light in regional administrative centres of the kingdom, though most of these are as yet untranslated. These tablets provide us with an abundance of literary evidence of the Middle to Late Bronze Age Hittite kingdom and it 's spheres of influence. Wilusa is the Hittite name for Troy which was, for the most part, a vassal state of the Hittite empire. In philological terms Wilusa can be equated with the Greek (W)ilios, or Ilion. There appears to be some form of factional struggle in Wilusa with Wilusan King Walma at one point being deposed. He fortunately had support of the Hittite king and, "As Walma was previously our kulawanis vassal, so let him again be a kulawanis vassal." In this document it is suggested that the Hittites were struggling to maintain dominion over their interests in Western Anatolia. Manfred Korfmann 's discovery of the lower city of Troy has confirmed it to be of an Anatolian