Introduction — Troia and the Natural Sciences

Abstract

From its earliest beginnings archaeology has been preoccupied with Troia. The first excavation was conducted there in 1871. After a lapse of 50 years, excavation was resumed in 1988. The year 2001 represented the 14th excavation season of the current Troia Project; the 130th year after Schliemann began also marks the 30th excavation at Troia. That same year — 2001— also saw the inauguration in Stuttgart of“Troia — Dream and Reality”, an exhibition on a grand scale that moved on to Braunschweig and Bonn. It represents, among other things, a sort of interim report made to a broader public on what has been done to date. The exhibition has extended into 2002 and has been seen by about 850,000 visitors. The palpable interest shown by the public in the ancient world is also due to the circumstance that a myth is linked with Troia. Since almost all myths need a setting with which they are associated — in the present instance it has been, since antiquity, the old hill settlement which is now called the Mound of Hisarlik — archaeology is profiting from this, whether it will or not.