Hisarlik

Hisarlik (Turkish: Hisarlık, "Place of Fortresses"), often spelled Hissarlik, is the Turkish name for an ancient city located in what is known historically as Anatolia, near modern-day Gökçalı in Çanakkale, Turkey. The archaeological site lies approximately from the Aegean Sea and about the same distance from the Dardanelles. The site is a partial tell, or artificial hill, elevated in layers over an original site. In this case the original site was already elevated, being the west end of a ridge projecting in an east–west direction from a mountain range. After many decades of scientific and literary study by specialists, the site is generally accepted by most as the location of ancient Troy, the city mentioned in ancient documents of many countries in several ancient languages, especially ancient Greek, where it appears as Ilion in the earliest literary work of Europe, the Iliad. The site is still being excavated under the name of Troja. It also has been promoted as a major tourist attraction visited by many thousands annually. A Turkish village, Tevfikiye, has been created on the east end of Troy Ridge, as it is now universally termed, to service the site and its visitors and students. Located at the edge of a cape projecting into the Aegean between the Dardanelles and the Gulf of Edremit, which was known in antiquity as the Troad, Hisarlik was one of many successful pockets of human civilization which arose and prospered in Anatolia. Paleogeographic studies carried out around Hisarlik by John C. Kraft, head of the Geology Department of the University of Delaware and Professors Ilhan Kayan and Oğuz Erol from Ankara University indicate a favourable environment for settlement existed from around the eighth millennium BC, when receding seas left a fertile, well watered plain which over time became a shallow, but navigable estuary. Above this natural harbour, the hill was large enough to support extensive building, providing natural protection from invasion and a commanding view of the sea.