For centuries, the Trojan War has stood at the crossroads of history and legend. Immortalised in Homer's Iliad, the story tells of Greek warriors, Trojan princes, divine intervention and a decade-long conflict fought over Helen of Troy. While ancient Greeks generally regarded the war as a real event from their distant past, modern scholars have long questioned how much of the tale was based on historical reality.
The debate changed dramatically in the nineteenth century when excavations began at Hisarlik, a mound in north-western Turkey. Reportedly, led by German businessman and archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, the digs revealed that the hill concealed the remains of several ancient settlements built one above another over thousands of years. Archaeologists eventually confirmed that Hisarlik was the site of ancient Troy, proving that the city described in Greek tradition had existed in the real world.
