Due to the unearthing of an ancient city wall, everyone’s morale was lifted. At the same time, more personnel were brought into the excavation effort.
In addition to mobilizing people internally from the Golden Dawn, they also sought out a series of reliable and excavation-savvy professionals through various connections.
For instance, Liang En managed to bring over two teams from China, comprising more than twenty professional archaeologists, while Nelson recruited over a dozen similarly skilled archaeologists from the UK.
Even President Charles, who was not in the best health and had long since stopped participating in fieldwork, made a special trip to Turkey to visit and observe the site.
By this time, the excavation had been ongoing for a month, leading to the gradual clearing of the entire city’s ruins with the help of more hands.
The most significant discovery from this clearing came from the deep exploratory pits. After sampling and analysis, it was determined that this site was not a single relic but a composite of numerous layers of ruins.
Exploration revealed that the entire site reached a depth of 30 meters, containing relics from nine different periods, dating from 3000 BCE to 400 CE.
The most obvious among these were naturally the surface ruins from the Roman Empire period around 400 CE, including the Athena Temple, the council hall, the market, and the theater, which were visible as soon as they arrived.
However, this didn’t mean the other layers lacked important findings. Especially with the aid of modern technologies like ground-penetrating radar, they discovered many things that had never been found before.
Although these findings were fragmented, they still provided Liang En and the other archaeologists with a wealth of information, the most important of which was a preliminary understanding of the entire site.
According to the examination results, the lowest layer of the site, labeled as Layer 1, was a small stone castle with a diameter of just over 90 meters, dating from around 3300 to 2500 BCE. This was the beginning of the entire city.
Though a diameter of 90 meters might sound small, in that era, it was considered a large city. Thousands of years ago, neither the East nor the West had city walls enclosing entire cities.
At that time, people often chose a high ground to establish a large castle, integrating the armory, barracks, palace, granary, and other core departments as the city’s heart, with ordinary residential areas, lacking much defense, surrounding it.
In other words, the fortified part of cities in that era was more akin to the palatial cities of the future. Thus, a 90-meter diameter was indeed considered a large city.
Layer 2 dates from around 2500 to 2200 BCE, during which the city began to thrive, with a sturdy castle and residential areas connected by paved roads.
Multiple excavation points from this layer revealed a large amount of ash, though the cause of the city’s destruction remains unclear. Nelson, for instance, believed the castle might have been destroyed in war.
However, Liang En disagreed with this view, suggesting that since the city was located in a volcanic earthquake zone, the traces might have been left by volcanic fires.
Regardless, a thriving city disappeared into history. The subsequent Layers 3, 4, and 5, dating from around 2200 to 1800 BCE, showed a city with a wider area, though its scale and development level were lower.
At least from the results Liang En and his team detected, while the buildings were as widely distributed as before, the construction quality visibly deteriorated compared to earlier times.
For example, this could be seen in the stone foundations; the stonework from this period was noticeably cruder than before, clearly reflecting the city’s decline.
However, prosperity and decline are cyclical. The city constructed in Layer 6, dating from around 1800 to 1275 BCE, was the most prosperous and largest in this region.
For instance, the massive city walls they uncovered proved this point. Since the architecture from this period was the largest and most elaborate, the remnants left behind were also the most abundant.
These remnants consumed a significant amount of Liang En and his team’s time and energy. This effort, however, led to their deepest understanding of this layer among all the ruins.
The reason for this issue was the sheer prosperity of the relics from this period, leading everyone to initially believe they had found Homer’s Troy. It was only after they had dug extensively that they realized, through the unearthed artifacts, they had made a mistake.
However, by that time, they had already invested too much time and energy. Given the high excavation value of this site, after a brief discussion, they decided to go ahead and study this layer of ruins.
Through excavation, they found that the castle was situated in a strategic position on the western side of the high ground, gradually rising along three concentric terraces, with the highest point at an elevation of about 40 meters and the lowest at around 30 meters.
The castle covered an area of 100 meters by 180 meters, with a deep well in the eastern fortress ensuring the water supply within the city.
The sophisticated city walls had undergone two reconstructions, with the final appearance, featuring towers, being the product of successive rulers’ construction after 1400 BCE.
The castle’s defenses were strongest on the landward side, with the highest walls, the most solid gate, and towers, as this direction provided access to the inland regions and the western Anatolian states.
In the Bronze Age, visitors seeking entry into the city had to pass through a passage built between the houses outside the castle to reach the southern gate and then ascend a paved road leading to the king’s palace.
Next to the gate, traces of burning were found, initially believed to be the result of war or fire. However, the large number of charred animal bones and intricate carvings proved it was an altar.
In that era, deities were likely at the core of civilization. Locals would offer sacrifices to the gods before going on long journeys or into battle. Likewise, strangers had to make offerings before entering the city.
The discovery of the altar significantly increased the likelihood that this was Homer’s Troy, as the epic repeatedly referred to Troy as “Holy Ilios,” and these religious sites confirmed that belief.
In addition to the southern gate, the city had two other gates to the east and west, each with a similar altar outside, and for military reasons, there were side gates next to each main gate.
Near the southern gate, which was the focus of the excavation, they found more intriguing artifacts: a large fortress facing east, toward the land.
This suggests that in that era, the city’s enemies primarily came from the land to the east, rather than from the western sea, which aligns with known history:
At that time, the Mycenaeans in Greece had not yet risen. Their naval forces could harass shipping lanes but were incapable of large-scale transoceanic expeditions.
In contrast, the Hittite Empire in the inland region was at its peak, and as a classical militaristic state, its neighbors would naturally be highly wary of it.
This explains why the city’s defensive focus was on the east. Given that their primary threat came from the east, their defenses naturally faced that direction.
Thank you for reading this far! You can access more chapters from HERE by joining my Patreon community. You'll gain exclusive early access to the COMPLETE NOVEL.
As a member of my Patreon community, here is what you'll get:
- Early access to the COMPLETE NOVEL.
- You also get access to all the novels I'm translating, you can find them here HERE.
- You Get Ad-free Chapters.
- Plus, you can Cancel your membership at any time.
