From the BBC, Geologists investigate Trojan battlefield.
Posted on February 7, 2003 11:42 AM. Filed under: history & archaeology.The whereabouts of Troy had long puzzled scholars. In ancient Greek times, Troy was said to be very close to the sea.
Then in the 1870s, the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered what were believed to be the remains of an ancient city well inland from the coast of what is now Turkey.
Homer's tale relates to a time when a large inlet of the Aegean Sea reached towards Troy.
Scientists now believe that, over the centuries, this inlet became silted up with the deposits from rivers, pushing the coastline back to its present-day position.
Classics expert Dr John Luce said: "At Schliemann's excavation, he took the site of the camp mentioned by Homer to be on the beach which one sees today, but in the course of 3,000 years the great rivers of [Scamander and Simois] have brought down enormous quantities of silt which have advanced the coastline by miles."
Since 1977, Dr Luce has been involved with an international group of researchers who have taken part in a systematic drilling programme in an attempt to document the landscape changes.
Dr John Kraft, from the University of Delaware in the US, carried out the geological investigations, together with Turkish colleagues, drilling out samples of sediment from well below the surface.
"We drilled for 70 metres below the flood-plain surface and we found 70 metres of marine material," he explained.
Further drilling south on the plain revealed what the researchers believe to have been a major marine area, leading them to conclude that the sea had been pushed back to its present location by a build up of silt deposits in the delta.
"It was right in front of Troy that we were drilling a hole and seashells came out," Dr Kraft enthused. [continue]