Troy

:This article is about the city of Troy / Ilion as described in the works of Homer, and the location of an ancient city associated with it. For other uses see Troy (disambiguation) and Ilion (disambiguation).

Tourism

Today there is a Turkish town called Truva in the vicinity of the archaeological site, but this town has grown up recently to service the tourist trade. The archaeological site is officially called Troy by the Turkish government and appears as such on many maps.

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A large number of tourists visit the site each year, mostly coming from Istanbul by bus or by ferry via Çanakkale. The visitor sees a highly commercialised site, with a large wooden horse built as a playground for children, then shops and a museum. The archaeological site itself is, as a recent writer said, "a ruin of a ruin," because the site has been frequently excavated, and because Schliemann's archaeological methods were very destructive: in his conviction that the city of Priam would be found in the earliest layers, he demolished many interesting structures from later eras, including all of the house walls from Troy II. For many years also the site was unguarded and was thoroughly looted.

Related Topics:
Istanbul - Çanakkale

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