by Patrick Hunt
What kind of trade goods would have come through Troy from east to west and vice versa? Luxury goods bound for the West would take this northern route when the Mesopotamian route to the south was wracked by instability or brigand tribes or lawless robbers. This is most likely when there was no centralized government with an army large enough to protect trade. History tells us there was just this sort of power vacuum in Mesopotamia in the Late Bronze Age between the fifteenth and twelfth centuries BC, making Troy’s route more likely since merchants and traders almost always sought the cheapest route for moving goods.
Textiles—possibly even silk—came to the West along this northern route, skirting the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea to the east. Gems and precious stones like blue lapis lazuli could follow the same route. Spices and salt for food and perfumes might also come this way if the southern route was too dangerous, as mentioned. The ancestors of the early Greeks would have wanted to trade their wine, olive oil, and maybe their grain or even their gold, silver, copper or other metals for eastern luxury goods they could not produce for themselves. But Troy offered an ideal emporium due to its seaway location between the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea. War over this trade would have been inevitable and so some kind of Trojan war is more likely historical than the myths suggest. Naturally, a myth narrative has more human interest when it is a fight over a beautiful woman than over bolts of cloth.
The Trojan Horse is not just myth—horses first arrived here from the East
As mentioned, mythology can sometimes contain a kernel of historical truth. The presence of a giant wooden horse in the story of Troy symbolizes far more than hidden danger. Everyone knows the symbol of the Trojan Horse, but what is really behind the myth of this horse and why does this animal so symbolize Troy’s downfall? Troy was famous for its horse breeding even in myth. In Greek myth, the sea god Poseidon was also the god of horses and one of the gods, along with Apollo, who helped build the walls of Troy. The crown prince of Troy was Hector, whom the last line of the Iliad described as “Hector, tamer of horses.” The long plume on Hector’s great helmet was also of horsehair and many other quotations in the Iliad link Hector and the Trojans with horses. Thus the myth idea of a Trojan Horse as a trap sprung by Odysseus for the people of Troy was not as far-fetched as it might seem, since this was already an attractive image to them and one with which they readily identified.
Historians of animal breeding tell us that around 2000 BC, horses first found their way into the Mediterranean world, funneled from central Asia through the Black Sea and the Dardanelles strait, most likely also through Troy, as this was clearly the connecting point between Asia and Europe, established in trade. They were ridden by migrating peoples and were traded and bred as beasts of burden and as steeds for war chariots, the juggernaut of war in the ancient world that would give powerful advantage to whoever had horses over those who did not. A horse in this myth story can thus be a clue to the history behind Troy, an image of migrating peoples who rode this animal as they moved over the steppes and ultimately through the same gateway of Troy as exotic trade goods—perhaps even first seen as centaurs by the westerners who would not have recognized the duo of man and domesticated animal. This mythic horse motif is yet another possible piece in the jigsaw puzzle found behind the rediscovery of Troy, suggesting other fascinating answers waiting to be found when the significance of Troy is further understood, uncovering more historical facts embedded under the layers of myth.
Texts from the Bronze Age Hittites show they knew Ilion as Wilusa, proving Troy’s existence at that time
Language and linguistics continue to add more concrete evidence to Troy’s existence as the widening ripples of knowledge from its rediscovery settle other old debates. Facts of archaeology are thus connected to linguistic discoveries. Specialists in ancient Hittite culture (1500-1100 BC) in Anatolia—modern Turkey—have found Troy in that ancient language as well. Hans Güterbock, for example, has shown that the name Ilion in Greek is closely related to the Hittite name for a place that must have been Troy. The apparent Hittite place-name for Troy was Wilusa, and this word also parallels Mycenaean Proto-Greek words that survived in Linear B texts. In the most ancient Greek, a “w” sound often precedes words beginning in vowels. So tracing the Hittite word and following early Greek, if we drop the “w” from Wilusa, it becomes Ilusa, which is recognizably similar to Ilion.
Furthermore, the Hittite name for the marauding and seafaring people who colonized or traded with their western coast-lands and islands—the Aegean shore of modern Turkey—was Ahhiyawa. This is again recognizable as the same name by which the Mycenaean Greeks are called in Homer, the people from Achaea, whose name survives throughout classical history as the Achaeans. Although a myth poem, why shouldn’t Homer’s Iliad agree with linguists that both myth and fragments of ancient language in some way record the fact that a number of Greeks and Trojans could identify each other by name? Like the archaeological data coming from excavations at Troy, showing hybridized culture from both East and West, ancient language uncovered because of Troy’s rediscovery now makes more sense. In fact, this new linguistic evidence for Ilion/Troy as Wilusa and the Achaeans themselves would most likely not have been linked had the site and its importance not been rediscovered.
These and similar linguistic evidences flesh out how Troy was not just the subject of an epic poem of Homeric lore but increasingly shown to be a historical place, as pioneering archaeology in the last half of the nineteenth century proved.
Modern excavations at Troy continue to show its importance
J. Lawrence Angel was a famous paleoanthropologist from the Smithsonian who paved the way for archaeosteology, the study of ancient human bones. He proved some years ago that cemeteries around Troy yielded an important fact. From the burials in the area Dr. Angel deduced that there were three kinds of skull shapes in the region: an Aegean one, which would be European or probably Greek or Hellenic from the west; an Anatolian one, which could be identified with the Hittites from the east and southeast; and a third that was hybridized between the two, especially found around the region of Troy. The suggestion is that because it was an emporium for trade, Troy had a mixed population of Hittite and Mycenaean ethnic elements where such physical characteristics would be blended over time.
Starting in 1988, Manfred Korfmann from the University of Tübingen began directing a new archaeology project at Troy. Collaborating with colleagues from all over the world, including Machteld Mellink from Bryn Mawr College and Brian Rose from the University of Cincinnati, Korfmann’s bold conclusions are not accepted by all, but the drama he has unfolded again drew attention to Troy. Korfmann died in 2005, as did Mellink in 2006, but their monumental work has underscored Troy’s historical importance since the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially in light of a new research question: did the Trojan War really happen?
Korfmann’s staff innovated such current remote sensing techniques as GPR (ground-penetrating radar) and magnetometry and discovered new material evidence that is still debated but extremely valuable to archaeology. Many critics had earlier doubted the ruins at Hisarlik as the location of Troy because its enclosing walls were too small to surround a city of epic proportions. The new scientific research discovered portions of datable Late Bronze Age walls down on the plain, far from the citadel higher on the hill. Thus, the hill of Hisarlik is most likely only the acropolis, in keeping with ancient cities, and the city of Troy was much larger than previously thought. Aerial photography even shows the likely “footprint” of the old city now outlined in olive groves where modern agricultural production cannot be so easily cultivated because of irregular ground, possibly hiding the rest of the city of Troy. Korfmann’s modern findings actually also proved one of Schliemann’s (or Calvert’s) early intuitions true, that the citadel was only a small part of old Troy, as Schliemann wrote in Ilios in 1873:Up to the beginning I had believed that the hill of Hissarlik, where I was excavating, marked the site o
f the Trojan citadel only; and it is the fact that Hissarlik was the acropolis of Novum Ilium . . .
By Novum Ilium, Schliemann meant the much later Roman city that was also located there. Schliemann went on to claim, however, that his excavation results contradicted this intuition. This hunch could have led to a scientifically valid deduction had he dug in the right places, as Korfmann appears to have done over a century later.
Perhaps the most exciting element of the most recent archaeological research at Troy is that Korfmann’s teams have also found substantial evidence of warfare, excavating buried arrowheads, sometimes even embedded in the burned material archaeologists call carbonized “ash lenses” from burning wood. While the evidence is still being sorted and analyzed, Korfmann’s legacy may well be ultimately seen as proof of at least one Trojan war, even if only on a regional scale and not, as epic Homeric literature related, in such widespread magnificent terms as have inspired artists, poets and historians alike ever since.
Conclusion
The discipline of archaeology as material history began with Troy’s excavation, changing once and for all the misperception that our only sources for understanding ancient history were in written texts. The soil and what lies in it can also be read by a different kind of historian: the archaeologist. However Troy’s history and its sometimes questionable pioneering excavators like Schliemann will be revised, edited and corrected, Troy’s reemergence from its buried past in 1871 - 72 remains a seminal discovery that shook the world and rewrote history.
Chapter 3
Nineveh’s Assyrian Library
The Key to Mesopotamia
Kuyunjik mound, outside Mosul, 1849
Alone for the first time in weeks, he had waited at least a decade for this moment, crossing continents and braving long miles over stormy seas and hot deserts, listening to the clamor and din of calls to prayer, breathing exotic spices in tented markets, and haggling with caravans of camel drivers in a babble of languages. It was all behind him now and the moon was rising as he climbed the huge mound, his long shadow breaking the silvery light. His name was Austen Henry Layard, and he had been searching several years for the famous lost city of Nineveh. Although he had trained as a lawyer back in London, so far away now, and was serving as a young diplomat, it was antiquity that really drove him, ancient history that excited him most. One of his favorite reads was the old biblical prophetic book of Nahum, whose poetry described the fall of Nineveh. His love of the mostly forgotten ancient world was why, two years before, he had assembled a team of Ottoman workers and obtained a firman, a permit to dig the mound of Nimrud some miles away. His valuable experience at Nimrud led him to the nearby city of Mosul, where a few junk sellers in the marketplace had showed him a few dusty objects. When he asked the source, they had pointed to this mound of Kuyunjik he was now ascending.
As he looked over this huge hill that stretched away for at least an acre in every direction, Layard suspected the dried mud lumps of rubble and deep furrows of earth showing in moonlit relief were all that was left of old broken walls. This had once been a fortress, and judging by its size, a mighty one. One particular rampart, mostly shapeless, even seemed like it could have been a gateway in its deeper shadows. He strode over to it, noting it must shelter lizards in the daylight. He decided he would start right here in the morning, as soon as the workers arrived for whom he had bargained with their clan chief. It was now time to return to the sleepy town of Mosul, and Layard knew he would dream that night the same dream about Nineveh. He hoped with all his passion for history that this hill was really it. Descending, he heard the cries of jackals in the distance and an owl flew across the moon looking for a mouse or two before dawn, a day that would not come soon enough for Austen Henry Layard. . . . However much this version of the story may differ from other accounts, Layard knew he was hot on the trail of the ancient city.
Layard indeed found Nineveh in those next few days in 1849, his workers digging out the massive palace gates with their bearded demigods, gigantic beast bodies and great eagle wings. Although it wasn’t confirmed as Nineveh for at least a decade or so by the clay text tablets, written in cuneiform, found in an archive dug up from one of the former palaces on this hill that nature had started and humans had finished, Layard’s dream was fulfilled. The archive was what remained of the Royal Assyrian Library. What we know now from this royal library, created by King Ashurbanipal, has vastly changed history. Through Layard’s discovery, we came to understand a Nineveh that was both similar and dissimilar to the legendary biblical city, and that surprisingly, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon may actually be in Nineveh rather than Babylon. Unearthing the Royal Assyrian Library revealed a whole history previously lost—containing a huge body of Mesopotamian lore, science, medicine, magic, and epic poetry and literature like the Epic of Gilgamesh. When Layard published his seminal exploration book, Nineveh and Its Remains, it was to a public with a huge new appetite for history. A few years later, George Smith’s discovery of the Flood Tablet became pivotal for biblical studies as these connect to the other ancient Near Eastern traditions, many far older.
This riveting find of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal’s royal library in Nineveh brought to light a whole library of cuneiform texts, not only from ancient Assyria but also texts copied from far older Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian and other great civilizations. For the most part this great literature was now seen for the first time in the West. This discovery changed world literature, as demonstrated in such works as the Epic of Gilgamesh, Enuma Elish and the Law Code of Hammurabi, among so many other texts. From 1847 onward, Nineveh was no longer a fable, but a reality.
Assyrian background
In 612 BC Nineveh, one of the world’s greatest cities, was utterly destroyed. Nineveh had been the lofty capital of the Assyrians, whose conquests had made their name feared throughout the lands of the ancient Near East, from the deserts of Egypt to the mountains of Persia. Assyria had been the world’s first military empire, a juggernaut that had laid waste to city after city, besieging them with massive armies. Its commanding rulers had styled themselves as kings of all kings. Assyrian cruelty was legendary; captives were skewered on poles or decapitated, their children were blinded and their royal families were dragged off into captivity, yanked on chains connected to bronze hooks pierced through their tongues. If the Assyrians did not invent psychological warfare, they certainly practiced it well. In their seemingly invincible prime between the ninth and seventh centuries BC, their clever propaganda about what they would do to any resisting peoples often made their trembling enemies capitulate as soon as they heard the clank of Assyrian armor approaching.
But now it was the Assyrians’ turn in the balance scale of history. Weakened by years of neglecting internal matters, with an economy dependent on slavery and war booty rather than trade, there was hardly any unconquered wealth left to seize. The southern vassal state of Babylon had risen up under its dynamic and charismatic ruler, Nabopolassar, father of the more famous Nebuchadnezzar who sacked Jerusalem. Nabopolassar persuaded his people that the Assyrians were now only a shadow of their former mighty selves. Although it had been attacked a few years before by the Medes to the east, Nineveh had survived, but now the city was ripe for the plucking. Nabopolassar quickly marched an army up the Tigris and launched an attack that soon had the Assyrians trapped in their royal city by a prolonged siege that gave the residents no respite. Nabopolassar could count on the fact that no one would come to the rescue of the hated Assyrians. In the aftermath, the Babylonians would destroy almost everything, yet preserve something marvelous: the thousands of clay tablets in the royal library.
Nineveh’s towering thirty-foot crenellated walls were punctuated by city gates of thick bronze-sheathed wood now resounding with the heavy blows of battering rams. Under cover of huge shields where the defenders’ arrows failed to reach, the Babylonians’ fierce assault was deadly. The imposing gates of Nineveh were breached at last and the remaining defending soldie
rs were overwhelmed by wave after wave of Babylonians and their allies, all desperately ready to throw off the Assyrian yoke. Even in faraway Israel, the voice of Nahum the prophet would be heard in song, “Nineveh is fallen, the city of blood where ever is heard the sound of chains.” Nobody outside Assyria wept.
The years of pent-up vengeance and resentment against Nineveh gave its destroyers added incentive as flames devoured the great roof beams of cedar. Some of the sun-dried mud bricks and myriad other clay objects were fired as if the entire city were a giant kiln. Whatever was left of the great city built of mud brick turned to dust over the ensuing years. Several thousand years later as the Ottoman empire extended over the land between the Tigris and Euphrates, Europeans no longer traveled there often, and the Assyrians became no more than a dim name in history. Later, Nineveh would be so thoroughly forgotten that the only memory of it was found in the Bible. Skeptics like Voltaire in the French Enlightenment of the eighteenth century found this biblical citation of Assyria to be a dubious proof of existence and called Nineveh a myth much like the rest of sacred scripture.
But not everybody thought of Nineveh in those terms. England was filled with churchmen who took the English Bible seriously. The vicars of the Church of England who accompanied the growing British empire into foreign lands were passionate about connecting history and the Bible to their travels in the exotic ruins of the Holy Land and the ancient Near East. Although it was not yet called archaeology as we would later know it, antiquities and ruins were the educated hobby of British churchmen and many of their parishioners. A people brought up on history and the Bible would devour journals, diaries and travelogues that would satisfy an appetite for connecting names and places from Sunday school.