The Trojan Wars - the real Mycenae, Nestor's Palace and Troy.

The Trojan Wars and the wooden horse, the story which has led to so many books, films, and TV series, but how much is actually true? For a start, the story is not covered by a single source. Ever heard of the “Iliad”? For those of a more scholarly nature, this is of course one of the great poems attributed to the Greek poet, Homer, but only covers some of the latter stages of the story. It’s not known for sure when Homer was actually born, or if his poems are based on events which took place in his lifetime or were passed down the generations to him as stories. The latter is probably more likely having been written for the amusement of the Royal courts and festival-goers. In which case, an artistic license would have no doubt been added.

The mock-up of the wooden horse outside the Troy archaeological site

In recent years I’ve been lucky enough to visit some of the locations in Greece and Turkey which are linked to the story but just to recap, this is where Paris picks Helen of Sparta as his prize, the most beautiful women in the world in return for the handing of the golden apple to Aphrodite. With Greek legend, it’s a lot more complicated than this but will leave you to revisit the films and books to get to grips with this one! With Helen now in the city of Troy with Paris, her husband the King of Sparta was obviously not happy and relied on his brother King Agamemnon of Mycenae to raise an army to recapture his wife. This took another ten years and a cunning ruse involving a wooden horse. But as an initial question, who was this King Agamemnon?

The so-called mask of Agamemnon (Athens Archaeological museum)

Today the city of Mycenae in the Peloponnese can be visited and is one of the most remarkable Bronze Age sites I have ever seen. A powerhouse in the 13th century BCE, it's often a standing joke in my household that I like visiting 2-foot walls around the ancient sites of Europe, but at this location, we are actually talking about 30-foot walls! You then have to get your head around the fact these are over 3300 years old, which sounds crazy.

The famous Lion Gate is thought to of been built around 1240 BCE and is said to have embedded the oldest monumental relief in Europe, and was the main entrance to the citadel of Mycenae.

The Lion Gate

Before the gate lie the grave circles and beehive tombs dating from the 15th to 17th Century BCE, but those found inside by the German, Heinrich Schliemann in 1878, unearthed grave goods of gold which are now displayed in the Athens Archaeological Museum. We will come across his name again, later on.

Grave Circle A - used for 16th BCE Royal burials and contained 6 shaft graves

Grave goods from grave 4 and 5 from Grave Circle A (Athens Archaeological museum)

The so-called mask of Agamemnon is truly beautiful but would have been a death mask of a royal person living some 400 years before the Trojan War. In fact, no inscription has ever been found bearing the name of Agamemnon, he really could have been a fictitious character. But there is no getting away from the fact that this really was the powerhouse of the region during the Bronze Age with trade routes to Egypt, the Minoans, and other city-states which made up Greece at that time.

As you reach the summit of the hill, the commanding view re-enforces the strategic importance of this spot with a 13 century BCE palace complex having been identified with suggestions of structures from an even earlier period. The Megaron (palace) and the surrounding buildings would have been the administrative, military, and economic hub of the Mycenae empire..

View from the top of the Mycenae citadel where the palace once stood.

Stairs to an underground cistern show the ingenuity of the time regards a secured water supply in a time of siege.

But it’s the Cyclopean walls which steal the show, which follows the contours of the rock covering some 900 metres in length surpassing twelve metres in height and seven metres in width in places. Built-in three phases during the 13th – 14th Century BCE, the fact they are so complete today is a testimony to their strength in depth.

The Cyclopean walls of Mycenae

However from the 12th century BCE, the Mycenaean culture went into a downward spiral from which it would never recover. Some believe the emergence of the Sea people led to the disappearance of the critical trade route while evidence of a major earthquake and signs of fire which must have burnt down many of the buildings give an alternative answer. In 2020 and a couple of months before my visit, a wildfire reached the walls of the citadel, somethings never change…

A view from the artisan's dwellings across to the citadel of Mycenae

To lay a siege on Troy, Agamemnon would have needed help from many of the other Achaean chieftains with according to the Iliad included King Nestor, who contributed over 90 ships to the campaign, only Agamemnon sent more. It was not until 1939 that King Nestor’s palace would be found. Not much remains and was not fortified so is not in the same league as Mycenae as in stature, but was made up of over 100 rooms and was the administrative centre for Pylos and Messenia in the 13th century BCE.

The Palace of Nestor (near Pylos)

The view of the King's Throne room (circle) at Nestor's Palace

The smaller Queens Throne room and the only known example of a Mycenaean bath

Today both the King and Queens Throne rooms can be made out as well as storerooms, guard’s quarters and bathrooms, but it was the discovery of 800 Linear B clay tablets which made the headlines. Baked in a fire that destroyed the palace in 1200 BCE, these perfectly preserved tablets detail the administrate records giving a real insight into the running of the palace, as well as records on the political constitution, economy, and the religious matters of the day.

One of the 800 Linear B clay tablets (Athens Archaeological museum)

It would take Agamemnon two attempts to get an army to Troy and a siege of nine years if the Iliad is to be believed, with many twists and turns along the way involving well-known names such as Achilles and Odysseus. Here the poem ends with the two sides at a stalemate.

The layers of Troy as the city was abandoned and repopulated over the centuries.

A section of Troy showing the different phases as shown by the Roman numeral boards

Today, the site of Troy is a confusing site of layers attributed to various building phases between 3000 BCE through to the Roman times categorised into nine time periods. For many centuries the location of Troy was lost to the world, although in retrospect it appears Charles McLaren can lay claim to finding Troy in 1822 known locally as Hisarlik. Although it was the German again, Heinrich Schliemann, who really put the place back on the map with the discovery of a gold hoard in 1873 called Priam’s treasure which is now displayed in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

A silver vase found as part of the Troy Priam's Treasure contained two gold diadems (including this one) and 8750 gold rings, buttons, and other small objects.

It was not until the 1990s using new technology could any of the structures be dated to the age of the Troy story with any certainty. Although it also showed the site was probably completely abandoned after a devastating earthquake in 1275 BCE, only to be re-populated a few hundred years later.

Probably the main entrance for the Citadel (South gate) - 1700 - 1250 BCE

It also appears its notoriety was maintained even in ancient times with the Romans adding yet another layer of occupation on top, being a popular destination for tourists and pilgrims of the day. By the 13th century CE, the site had been reduced to a farming community.

The Greek/Roman Sanctuary at Troy (700 BCE - 500 CE)

Today it's easy to see how hard it has been for the archaeologists to unpick this site. Although it would be nice to think some of the older walls around the east gate would have been present around the time of the Troy story.

Maybe King Agamemnon once gazed at these Trojan walls?

Nowadays the sea is no longer visible but in the days of old, traders would stop here waiting for the trade winds to be more favourable before moving on.

Back in ancient times, the sea would have covered this low ground

So back to the question, is there any truth behind the story? Homer's “Odyssey” and other later texts pick up the story where the Iliad left off with the earliest depiction of the Trojan horse being found on a vase dated to 670 BCE, several hundred years after the supposed event.

The location certainly matches descriptive clues and unless some new unknown location in the region suddenly emerges from Lidar, the probability of this being Troy has to be high. Stories can be far-fetched but you just can’t help thinking there must be a real chain of events underpinning this one. Look at the tale of Atlantis and the general belief this was an advanced race living on an island in the Mediterranean wiped out by a volcanic eruption/Tsunami.

One thing is for sure, it will continue to capture the imagination and the feeling when walking amongst these ruins in northwest Turkey, that this really was the fabled city of Troy.