The Entire History of Troy // Ancient History Documentary

[Music] yeah we've been on the road for hours already when we get there mosques and housing estates racing by on one side [Music] anatolian shores on the other i hear livestock swaying of trees waves lapping in the far distance the same seas that bore the first farmers to europe some ten thousand years ago greek phoenician and roman travelers following in their wake and most recently the ill-fated british expeditionary force to gallipoli just over a hundred years ago in the great war it's a surreal experience almost dreamlike and finally i see the city [Music] five or six hours earlier in pitch darkness i'd stumbled out of my istanbul hotel room the family of egyptian elephants upstairs finally having finished creaking around on 300 year old floorboards [Music] for a fleeting moment a total all-encompassing silence descends on the cobbled stones of the old city then like clockwork bread beer and fruit begin making their way along the winding streets [Music] inevitable deliveries to the various markets and restaurants bringing the city to life once more and finally my tour bus arrives [Music] it takes a long time to leave sprawling istanbul one of the true metropolises of the world [Music] but when finally we do heading south at top speed we move through a landscape that's changed little in all the millennia since antiquity [Music] before i know it without much of an idea of the exact route we're taking we reach a ferry terminal [Music] standing out on deck on a large passenger boat accompanied only by a turkish driver and a friendly elderly lady with no words of english between them i'm left alone with my thoughts [Music] transported back in time to the classical world this is the dardanelles strait one of the world's most famous waterways we're headed from europe to asia on the trail of so many explorers and travelers before us the shoreline was different back then but this place was famous all over the known world [Music] alexander the great caesar constantine [Music] they all came here alexander danced naked on the hill we're told seeking to emulate his hero achilles the mighty murmured on warrior of ages past [Music] for as far as the greeks and romans were concerned this windy plane was said to have been the location of the greatest of all conflicts of the ancient world famous in the works of homer and later in virgil and beed alike of course we're headed to the troad and the mighty city of troy if there was a troy it's out there somewhere on the hisselic plain all the ancient writers agree and now most of the modern ones too [Music] my name's p kelly i'm a writer and a filmmaker [Music] i've made it my mission to delve into the mysteries of the ancient world and make videos about what i find to take you along for the ride in the late summer of 2019 i took a trip to that great city of antiquity to see for myself [Music] it was one of the most memorable days i've ever had and this is what i found let's go [Music] in 1841 a terrible storm smashed into the coasts of northern europe as poseidon's fury howled into the night one by one any ships unfortunate enough to be caught up in the maelstrom were plucked out of the seas to die on sharp rocks one of those vessels a merchant boat bound for south america had but a handful of survivors clutching to debris on the battered shore just 19 years old at the time and one of those few snatched from the clutches of a watery grave was a young german businessman it wasn't his first brush with near death and it wouldn't be his last he had a brief career already under his belt but according to the tales he told later in his life on that day he gave himself to a higher purpose [Music] seeking above all else to get back to his childhood joy the ancient past if he survived one day he'd gather the means to dedicate himself to his true passion archaeology [Music] the life of heinrich schliemann is one of the great romantic tales of the 19th century [Music] that gilded age of opportunity on the precipice of the old world and the new [Music] particularly if you read his own accounts of his travels which he wrote copiously all throughout his life in german greek french english and russian depending on where he was based at the time he spoke almost every single language you can think of in fact in all of which he was completely fluent and self-taught [Music] the trouble is it's often quite difficult to work out when he is telling the truth and when he's spinning a yarn [Music] because no one would argue otherwise heinrich schliemann was a great storyteller [Music] we know he began his life in a relatively poor family in northern germany [Music] from there he eventually rose to become a merchant in russia taking part in the crimean war as a supplier but not before arriving in america to make his fortune in the california gold rush [Music] finally well into his forties failed marriage and children left behind in st petersburg he began a second life enrolling in university writing a book and dedicating himself to his self-proclaimed real passion homer that great writer so beloved by classically educated europeans who'd supposedly lived in the dark age following the collapse of the bronze age greek world [Music] though that knowledge was to come later at the time next to nothing was known of the real history underlying the ancient myths [Music] for the most part that's what they remained myths and legends as fleeting as any [Music] embarking on a grand tour which would never truly end schliemann spent the rest of his life dedicated to the pursuit of history and the fledgling field of archaeology the trouble was that he had no real training in the field and though he would inspire entire generations to follow in his footsteps his excavations actually destroyed entire sections of the site his great trench of 1870 digging down through layer upon layer of irreplaceable cityscape still cuts an ugly swathe through the mound today obliterating centuries of integral occupation layers a reminder of how not to undertake an excavation [Music] and yet call me controversial but schliemann gets a bad rep in my opinion [Music] for the most part prehistory simply didn't exist at this time [Music] only a handful of years after charles darwin's groundbreaking theory of evolution encouraged a new generation of thinkers to investigate the deep past with trowel alone [Music] the biblical dogma of the world being exactly 6000 years old was still immensely popular and schliemann was one of the new breed who sought to challenge these entrenched views [Music] until the 19th century the location of that famous city of troy was lost many in the fledgling field of archaeology questioned whether the place had even existed at all and besides on the troad there were many locations put forward as the site of homer's walls where achilles fought hector outside the gates where priam called in his banners from as far away as syria and according to the tale africa there's no guarantee that the place ever would have been found without the eccentric german powered by little more than enthusiasm and self-conviction [Music] whether his city was troy or not it's only become clearer and clearer over the decades since that the place was an immensely important centre of the bronze age [Music] one of the greatest in the region for sure and as we shall see much older than schliemann could ever have conceived continuously occupied for thousands of years by schliemann's day unlike me arriving on horseback a family of expat diplomats living under the ottomans owned some of the land here a place called hissalic [Music] since the 17th century the calverts had hypothesized about the ancient ruins clearly sitting on the hilltop it wasn't until the mid-19th century that the field of archaeology had advanced enough the political situation become suitably calm and the desire there to fully investigate the place and the man to do it well as we've seen he wasn't really an archaeologist at all but he was persuasive nonetheless becoming one of the giants of the archaeological world often called the windy hill hissalick is but one of thousands of mounds dotting the anatolian planes [Music] each of them a settlement once [Music] home to hundreds of people thousands some tens of thousands all lost to the ages [Music] for anatolia is a land of immense antiquity outer periphery of the very first city builders on earth [Music] immaculate views stretching out in all directions i join a small tour group of travellers from who knows where there isn't time to find out and our knowledgeable guide begins regaling the complicated stratigraphy of the site at least 10 cities once stood here we're told building one on top of the other from the very earliest bronze age until roman times [Music] i can't help but be distracted by the massive wooden horse looming over the visitor's center [Music] the exact one used in the 2004 hollywood blockbuster you know what's there waiting beyond that beach immortality take it it's yours my unease is quickly broken though when we first see the great sloping walls of the outer perimeter [Music] it's an immensely impressive sight this looks like troy all right of course when schliemann first arrived all of this was completely buried under layers of earth hidden exactly where it had been buried for some 3000 years how he must have felt when he realized what lay underneath [Music] but as we shall see the city was so much older than he could ever have known [Music] one day in 1873 so claimed heinrich schliemann after three years of investigations at hitalic one of the great discoveries of early archaeology took place known today as the treasure of priam a splendid collection of golden artifacts was pulled out of the ground schliemann of course assumed the finds to be evidence of the late bronze age homeric city of the 12th century bc in reality they date to more than a thousand years earlier they speak of an even more mysterious time long before any concept of a greece or greek even existed they are from the first troy great leaps forward in archaeology have been made in recent years leaps which now tell us troy's history began as far back as 3000 bc when a small settlement began to coalesce on these strategically important waters [Music] fishermen farmers and herders the archaeology tells us [Music] this was troy one a growing community with far-reaching trade contacts [Music] a people who looked to the sea [Music] and before long troy too began to coalesce a great megaron palatial structure was built in the middle of the town a structure schliemann assumed to be from his homeric city [Music] but in reality is even more mysterious the largest structure in this part of the world built during a time when most people lived in the simplest of dwellings [Music] eventually immensely far-flung links were forged bringing in majestic trade goods from the other side of the world [Music] lapis lazuli amber copper tin for these people had at least some links not only with the cities of mesopotamia but with the aegean and the european mainland it was truly a world in between a firmly established hierarchy soon held sway rigid power structures holding on to the center of the settlement this was a time of haves and have-nots the bronze age had begun [Music] the early bronze age is a fascinating era all over the middle east and parts of europe for the very first time strong powerful proto-kingdoms began to form seeing widespread trade and the spread of ideas in this first true world system goods and possibly people too traveled all the way from egypt to india the arabian gulf to central asia if only we could hear the words of these lost societies entire cities of 10 or 20 000 people having disappeared to nothing [Music] standing on a crossroads at the gateway to the black sea troy straddled the disparate worlds of the aegean anatolia and even the southern mediterranean and egypt to the south it was a great position to dictate affairs and it's perhaps no surprise that during the third millennium bc this place was unsurpassed in grandia in the region for hundreds of years a glittering metropolis in a land of towns and villages it's very likely that those trade links and access to goods from far away was what led to the city's growth and the power of its elites [Music] in later centuries troy would become famous for its horses [Music] but to begin with these were fisher folk looking to the sea for their livelihood to the cyclades and beyond this was a time before horses even really became established in the wider world [Music] the modern varieties we know today still being domesticated out on the wide expanse of central asia [Music] the maritime culture of early bronze age troy was immense [Music] its material wealth far surpassing that of nearby settlements and the interior of asia minor given the sheer amount of wealth stowed here of course walls were built [Music] for this was not a peaceful time [Music] this is the era of the so-called priam's treasure not the homeric city of later days [Music] i stride towards the center of the great city i find that some of the most impressive visual remains date from this first apex of trojan engineering the citadel at the very center of the mound which schliemann initially thought to be the homeric one i have only a few hours in the place before i have to jump back on the coach and make the seven or eight hour voyage back to istanbul i don't regret it for a second though it's all worth it just for a glimpse the colossal gates and ramps are incredible to behold i imagine a procession of gilded warriors heading out to war merchants from the far side of the great green sea coming to barter their wares travelers from far away what stories they would tell what sights they'd seen [Music] but then sometime around 2200 bc it all came to an end [Music] archaeology tells us of a massive destruction layer the place was burned down like all the great population centers of anatolia at the time and many further afield though very few bodies have been found suggesting that the populace managed to escape the conflagration [Music] so what was this natural disaster invasion well it's not entirely clear it's a debated point amongst archaeologists but a new power was certainly taking over in anatolia at the time [Music] where similar destruction levels are often seen as well as in greece the newcomers in anatolia would eventually evolve into the hittites amongst others [Music] for this was an era of indo-european expansion when troy again arose and arise it would very quickly in archaeological terms its culture didn't differ too much from that that came before though the elites and soon the common people likely spoke a new language louisiana they would be famous for their horses for a thousand years to come [Music] a common ancestor then for the trojans and the greeks well it's not that clear-cut a tinge of indo-european though for sure [Music] but what of those greeks those bronze age invaders so inexplicably tied up with the history of the city it is to them across the stepping stones of the aegean waves we must turn to next [Music] following the massive publicity brought about by schliemann's discovery it wasn't long before he found himself excavating in the homeland of homer's protagonists greece it was time to tell the other side of the story the great citadel at mycenae had long been known to be a place of immense antiquity [Music] its massive ruined masonry was visited by the geographer porscenius in the second century a.d and in classical greece hundreds of years before even that the place was already old it was even called cyclopean visitors surmising the place to be so colossal it could only have been built by monsters and giants the stone-moving technology of those ancients having become lost in the centuries after their fall along with the writing system they once possessed and their immense palace culture [Music] for when schliemann began excavating it was quickly revealed that maisini had indeed been an immensely wealthy place just one of a multitude of competing states scattered all across the greek mainland and beyond it wasn't long before another marvellous discovery was made match for anything at troy in a series of shaft tombs adjacent to the central citadel a collection of golden funerary masks emerged along with other majestic grave goods gold literally covered the bodies of those interred here having a flare for a great story of course in classic schliemann style he named the most fabulous to be the mask of agamemnon the greek ruler who'd called his banners together to lead the expedition to war and in myth said to be buried here [Music] the name stuck but of course it wasn't true the man who wore this death mask lived hundreds of years before the trojan war is thought to have been fought in around the 12th century bc [Music] however he did fight on the back of a chariot he was a mycenean lord the tale gets even weirder for like troy this city too met its end sometime in the 12th century bc both cultures seeming to be ever intertwined [Music] a sharing of the fates [Music] yet by the end of the 19th century there were still very few conclusions and many more questions far more than when schliemann began in one of the great tragedies of his tale at the end of his life heinrich schliemann under intense academic scrutiny had even begun to doubt his own work questioning whether his city was troy at all the dates seemed all off and the city he'd excavated had been far too small he died suspecting that he'd been wrong all along [Music] but in some respects those that really mattered he had been right he'd just been digging in the wrong place by the early 20th century the americans moved in archaeologist carl blagan in particular beginning to revolutionize our understanding of homer's troy the city schliemann excavated had been the homeric one after all though it extended around a much wider area blagan's groundbreaking work utilizing the very pinnacle of archaeological methodology demonstrated a clear level of continuity all through the bronze age with just two gaps where a much reduced population eeked out a living in the smashed walls and ruined masonry of their forefathers one after the early bronze age the other the late [Music] the city has been excavated ever since americans giving way to germans who finally moved over for a new generation of turkish scholars who keep the place going to this day [Music] and no wonder the greek's obsession with troy during the middle bronze age around the 18th or 17th centuries bc before those mycenean cities even arose this place had been a great power once again like its predecessor with diplomatic allegiances and trade links stretching all across the known world uneasily its citizens must have watched the growing power of the warlike greeks on the mainland as they gradually expanded ever outward their might extending to the islands of the sea even taking over minoan crete powerhouse civilization of the early to middle bronze age and perhaps one of the wellsprings of greek culture in the first place ultimately the mycenean world advanced into its late bronze age apogee all the while trading extensively with troy [Music] like paris's voyage to sparta the beginning of the story of the trojan war many must have been the visitors of each culture to the other during that time all over the known world kings and lords traded with each other and interacted mycenaean warriors can be seen in imperial egypt and trade goods from far off afghanistan and scandinavia show up in the archaeological record [Music] this was an immensely elaborate world system but just as before what goes up must come down of course troy massively benefited from this trade system and seems to have done a great deal of its commerce with the greeks huge amounts of greek trade goods have been found in the city and trojan ware on the mainland the details of a real trojan war still remain shrouded in obscurity but some sort of a conflict did happen around this time we know that from the thick layers of ash permeating the archaeological record and from the literary sources both contemporary and later but as we shall see the identity of the combatants remains unclear [Music] troy had been a massive center of culture religion and commerce [Music] one of the greatest in this part of the world by far a tempting target then for free roaming princes looking for plunder and power [Music] then in 1907 completely out of the blue a total surprise discovery revolutionized our understanding of the late bronze age [Music] near the town of bogserkoy in the highlands of central anatolia a remarkable find was made a massive cuneiform archive of a previously unknown civilization [Music] that could tell the story from an entirely different point of view previously known only from the bible and forgotten in the centuries after its fall the hittite empire turned out to be a vast sprawling empire of city building anatolians whose influence very likely spread to the louisiana cities of troy and its surrounding area [Music] as excavations began at the newly found metropolis of hatusas it soon became clear that a simple story of trojans and greeks may not have been the reality at all perhaps the story of the great coalition called up by priam could be a memory of this time when the power of hittite kings extended from the mediterranean to the euphrates and it gets even weirder in the archives there is even mention of strikingly similar names to those in the iliad pier marado could be priam and alexander is the classical name for paris the dates around the 14th or 13th centuries bc add up these developments have changed everything schliemann had been right in a sense there really had been a late bronze age troy there may have been some kind of a trojan war [Music] in later years the place was deemed so important that it was rebuilt on many times a greek settlement growing up here followed by a roman [Music] the roman and greek ruins alone if in england would be national heritage sites here in turkey of course ancient cities are everywhere many aren't even deemed important and have forgotten and overgrown they have a glut of ancient cities you pass them on the motorways solitary towers on hilltops amphitheaters hidden in valleys history is everywhere you look here [Music] and then just as quickly as it began my time at troy is nearly up [Music] i feel a tinge of guilt as i begrudgingly locate our tour guide once again he looks slightly hurt as he asks whether his talk was good enough but he quickly realizes it's not that at all i'm sure i see a hint of a smile at the realization as i run full pelt into the gift shop to buy every book that they have i'm like him like schliemann before us i couldn't just walk around troy listening to someone talk [Music] he even allows me a few minutes to charge full pelt towards the museum to see the greco-roman carvings outside alas it's over all too quickly for me just as i imagine it was for caesar and alexander and all those others who've traveled here over the years [Music] before i know it it's back to the city nightlife and crowds fast cars and traffic lights as always i leave filled with questions so many more than i had that morning i hope to return one day [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Pete Kelly

Views: 219,219

Keywords: history, travel, visiting history, ancient monuments, stone circles, visiting ancient history, ancient Britain, in search of ancient Britain, history time, archaeology, mythology

Id: snNH6_162pQ

Length: 46min 8sec (2768 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 31 2022