Ancient City of Troy (Truva)

The Ancient City of Troy, known in Turkish as Truva, occupies the mound of Hisarlık on the coastal plain of the Troad in Çanakkale Province, roughly 30 kilometres south of Çanakkale city. The site preserves the stratified remains of nine successive settlements — Troy I through Troy IX — spanning more than three thousand years of continuous habitation from approximately 3000 BCE to 500 CE. Troy II (c. 2550–2250 BCE) yielded the spectacular Priam's Treasure of gold and silver artefacts unearthed by Heinrich Schliemann in 1873, now dispersed across museums in Moscow, Berlin, and Istanbul. Troy VI and VIIa (c. 1700–1180 BCE), recognised as the most likely candidate for the city of the Homeric Iliad, feature impressive limestone defensive walls up to five metres thick and a distinctive paved ramp gate. Troy IX, the Greco-Roman city of Ilion (c. 350 BCE–500 CE), introduced a large Athena temple, a bouleuterion, and an odeon, remnants of which remain visible on the northern terrace. Schliemann's pioneering excavations beginning in 1870 were continued and refined by Wilhelm Dörpfeld, then by Carl Blegen's Cincinnati team in the 1930s, and most recently by Manfred Korfmann and the Tübingen University project (1988–2005), which revealed a much larger lower city extending south from the citadel mound. The site was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998 in recognition of its exceptional universal value as the meeting point of Anatolian and Aegean Bronze Age civilisations. A replica wooden horse near the entrance provides context for the mythological tradition, while interpretive panels throughout the site explain stratigraphy and major discoveries in both Turkish and English.