Student Travel toTroy Turkey

by Jesse Tattersall

Troy Turkey

Troy (Troja) by Jesse---Turkey

We traveled north along the highway towards Gallipoli watching for the Troy site and eventually there were signs directing us into the site. Troja is the name used in Turkey for the city we call Troy in Australia. Because it is written as Troja on all the signs I'll use that name here.

Outside the ticket office there where stalls everywhere with people trying to sell us Troja stuff like miniature Trojan Horses. We bought a guide book to the site.

Once we had purchased tickets and entered the site itself life was easier as there were no more hawkers selling things and we could look around without hassles. There were lots of signs to direct where to go and to explain the history of the city itself and to give details of each separate thing we were looking at.

After reading the first information board we walked over to the reconstruction of the 'Trojan Horse'. It is about 10 or 12 meters high and a little tacky, not very well made. We were able to climb up inside the horse and it is fairly comfortable inside.

At around the 8th century the Homer wrote his famous poems 'Iliad & Odyssey' without which, historians believe, would have meant that we wouldn't have even heard of Troja.

Over the three and a half thousand years that the city was occupied there was a range of different layouts for city. Each new age of the city had extensions and stronger fortifications. The information boards showed that the general design of the place was changed 9 times and around the site they refer to each of the buildings by detailing which age it was from e.g. You walk past the east walls when you enter the city and they are from Troja VI which lasted from 1700 to 1250 BC.

In the info centre inside the site, there are 9 models that show the layout of the city in the different ages. The information boards have overlay diagrams showing the same thing.

The information shows that until reasonably recently the site of Troja was just a grassy hill. The excavations have shown that there were a lot of civilizations there, as I said 9 are recorded. The original level of the hill before excavation is shown by a canvas roof over the oldest ruins. The roof follows the lines of the old hillside.

We started walking through the site entering through the south gate which was still existing in reasonable condition and continued into the city.

The east walls, as I said earlier, where from the VI age of Troja. The path was on the inside of the walls and there were houses for the priestess on the outer side of the path. This was a temple to Athena. All of that was able to be seen from the ruins still standing but as we moved further into the site the condition of the building was of a much poorer standard and without the guide boards we would not have been able to tell what we were looking at.

The Efes site had many buildings reconstructed so you could tell what was there. In Troja the reconstruction has not been done and much of the site is frankly just piles of rocks. It was disappointing initially that the condition was so bad but once you have read a batch of the information boards and visualized what was there compared to the movies of ancient Troy it all started to come together.

Looking out over the plain though you can picture where the armies were when they spent 10 years in siege of the city.

Going around the path there were clear signs showing which areas they didn't want you to walk on and wooden boardwalks were built throughout the site and over the top of precious areas to protect the site while allowing you to get a good look at everything.

As we kept on walking around we saw lots of building foundations and each had info boards tell when they were built with pictures of what the building would have looked like.

There was a sign saying that there was wild life in the area and due to the fact that Troja was park of a nation park they are protected, within a minute Phoebe found a turtle so we got a photo.

At the northern side we saw an excavation pit which showed foundations of all the ages' right back to the 1st age. There was also a diagram there that shows how the place would have looked over the ages.

In a further area we came across a mud brick building that was used for cult rituals during the 2nd age. The ancient building has a material roof put over the top to protect it form the elements and also allow the ruin to be kept outdoors. That roof is the one that shows ground level before excavation started.

There were about 5 temples and religious centres throughout the ruins of the ancient city.

There is a smallish amphitheater that can hold a couple of hundred although it has not been fully uncovered and like everything else there has not been restored.

Over all I liked the ancient city. It has a lot more to it than just the story of the Hellenistic Wars and of the Trojan horse.

Traveling around the world is a great activity to pursue at almost any age provided you are in proper health to handle the rigors of international student travel.

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