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DonGlock26
10-19-2012, 07:43 AM
Archaeologists plan new dig at TroyArmed with shovels, trowels and new biotechnology tools, archaeologists plan to march into Troy next year for excavations at the famed ancient city.
"Our goal is to add a new layer of information to what we already know about Troy," said William Aylward, a classics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who will lead the expedition. "The archaeological record is rich. If we take a closer look with new scientific tools for study of ancient biological and cultural environments, there is much to be found for telling the story of this world heritage site."


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/10/19/archaeologists-plan-new-dig-at-troy/?intcmp=features#ixzz29kQzl15q






This is very exciting news. The article shows a Greek amphitheater, which must have been built long after the Trojan War.

Mister D
10-19-2012, 07:51 AM
Very interesting. The site has been known for almost 150 years. Considering that and the fact that it's so famous I'm surprised so little has been excavated.

Peter1469
10-19-2012, 07:30 PM
Very cool!

Captain Obvious
10-19-2012, 10:08 PM
Can't wait to see what they find, it could be pretty awesome.

Trinnity
10-19-2012, 10:13 PM
Neato....I love stuff like this.

corrocamino
12-04-2012, 07:33 AM
The Troy of Homer is (say the experts -- I'm not one) a romanticized and mythologized retrospective on an actual episode in the Bronze Age collapse. Schliemann was a treasure-hunter and fame-seeker who succeeded in both aims while absconding with said treasure and destroying willy-nilly much of the recoverable archaeological record on his way down to the goodies. Troy was destroyed a number of times.

Post-collapse Greek colonization (Ionians, Aeolians, Dorians) of Aegean Anatolia began during the Dark (Iron) Age and enjoyed a grand florescence, albeit itself punctuated by wars with sundry adversaries and destructions/rebuildings, continued into the post-Alexander Hellenistic era and the subsequent Roman infusion/conquest. I am still aglow with my experiences on a two-week small-group tour of western Turkey, which included a considerable number of Greco-Roman sites in Pamphylia, Pisidia, Lycia, Caria, and Lydia (to use the ancient provincial designations).

I've recently corresponded by e-mail with an archaeolgist working at the Neolithic sites at Catalhoyuk and Gobekli Tepe, who says that work in Turkey by foreign archaeologists -- especially that by the Germans in the Troad -- is under political fire correlated with an upsurge in Turkish nationalism. [N.B.-- No, I don't travel in the circles of archaeologists, I just don't mind spamming authorities with questions about things that interest me. Some respond cordially but laconically. Some don't respond at all. And a few are very generous with their enlightenments and time.]

My wife and I found Turkey to be a most congenial, comfortable, and wondrous country for tourism.

Peter1469
12-04-2012, 08:02 AM
I have been to Istanbul. Would love to see more of Turkey.

corrocamino
12-04-2012, 08:36 AM
I have been to Istanbul. Would love to see more of Turkey.

I hope to go back there! You can't do justice to the colonial Greek, Eastern Roman (Byzantine), Ottoman, and modern city on any group tour! We've been reading the murder mysteries by Jason Goodwin, set in Ottoman (Tanzimat-era) Istanbul, most enjoyable if you have some prior acquaintance with the city and its history.

In Istanbul we stayed at the Aziyade Hotel, in old-city Sultanahmet, within walking distance of the "big" sites, and affording wonderful al fresco breakfasts on the top-floor restaurant balcony, with gentle sea breezes and grand views of the Sea of Marmara. I also delighted in the delicious HAMBURGERS/FRIES served at table in the bar, washed down with "Efes", the western-style Turkish beer (there's a 400% tax on alcohol in Turkey, but beer is nevertheless quite affordable, in contast to that on offer at American baseball games).

corrocamino
12-04-2012, 08:39 AM
P.S.-- For anyone planning a visit to Turkey, the slick magazine Cornucopia makes for good background reading in very interesting articles on all kinds of subjects.

Peter1469
12-04-2012, 08:44 AM
I hope to go back there! You can't do justice to the colonial Greek, Eastern Roman (Byzantine), Ottoman, and modern city on any group tour! We've been reading the murder mysteries by Jason Goodwin, set in Ottoman (Tanzimat-era) Istanbul, most enjoyable if you have some prior acquaintance with the city and its history.

In Istanbul we stayed at the Aziyade Hotel, in old-city Sultanahmet, within walking distance of the "big" sites, and affording wonderful al fresco breakfasts on the top-floor restaurant balcony, with gentle sea breezes and grand views of the Sea of Marmara. I also delighted in the delicious HAMBURGERS/FRIES served at table in the bar, washed down with "Efes", the western-style Turkish beer (there's a 400% tax on alcohol in Turkey, but beer is nevertheless quite affordable, in contast to that on offer at American baseball games).

We rented an apartment around the corner form the Blue Mosque. The other side of the Hippodrome from your hotel. I may go back this spring to restock from the Spice Market.

corrocamino
12-04-2012, 08:46 AM
We rented an apartment around the corner form the Blue Mosque. The other side of the Hippodrome from your hotel. I may go back this spring to restock from the Spice Market.

Have fun! And send us a picture e-postcard or two! :>)

Peter1469
12-04-2012, 08:48 AM
Have fun! And send us a picture e-postcard or two! :>)

corrocamino
12-04-2012, 03:30 PM
I would like to recommend here a book I'm now reading (~halfway through):

"Ancient Turkey: A Traveller's History of Anatolia", by Seton Lloyd (Univ. of Calif.; OOP, but available)

The author, a noted archaeologist, provides a comprehensive, informative, and very enjoyable temporal and geographic tour of Turkey, up to the dedication of Constantinople by Emperor Constantine. The style is very nice, illustrations are plentiful, and the adduced facts are in perfect quantity and of appropriate significance to compose "the big picture"satisfyingly in a single volume. Did you know that the Urartians were first to cultivate the vine? It's fun reading!

Peter1469
12-04-2012, 03:40 PM
Thanks for the book recommendation. I emailed the publisher and asked them to publish an e-version.