Sierra Tarr Alan Griffiths Archaeology Research Project

Archaeology Final Presentation

The archaeological site I chose to research is Troy, Turkey. The reason I chose this site is because in high school, we studied Greek Mythology and the eo le of Troy when we read The !dyssey. I thought it would be interesting to learn "ore about the archaeology of the lace. The eo le of Troy li#ed so long ago, I$d like to learn fro" artifacts a bit "ore about their lifestyle and how they did things. The archaeologist that first e%ca#ated the site was na"e &einrich Schlie"ann. In '()*, he began his first work on the lace. +unesco.org, -ike the things that we dug u in class, artifacts and things found at Troy were e%ca#ated by digging. .hen he dug two long trenches at the site, he found "ostly s"all things like ottery and coins and such. +See /igure ', 0ut there was also the u er ortion of a wall that was

found, which led Schlie"ann to think that "uch of the city "ust be buried. &e destroyed newer arts of the city in order to reach the oldest art e"bedded in bedrock, (Figure 1)

because he belie#ed the "ost ancient arts were the "ost i" ortant. +history.co", 0ut Schlie"ann used a techni1ue that wasn$t #ery careful or considerate. 2ot si"ilar to the careful "ethods we use today, he lowed right through se#eral layers of soil and the city within. &e

undoubtedly destroyed "uch of the city in his recklessness. +archaeologye% ert.co.uk, .e were "uch "ore careful in our digging3 we used a trowel to scra e the surface shallowly. This was done so as to not disturb the "ock artifacts buried underneath the soil. 0ut Schlie"ann belie#ed his decision was worth the loss because of what he found. The "ost e%citing and #aluable thing Schlie"ann found was $4ing Pria"$s Treasure$, which is the gold of Troy. This disco#ery shows how wealthy the city +or at least the king, was. !f the city of Troy, Schlie"ann also disco#ered 56 sections of defensi#e walls of the fortress rotecting the town, ele#en gates, a stone ra" that was a#ed, and the botto" of fi#e defensi#e bastions. 7nco#ering all of this took nearly a century, but e#erything was recorded +on a er, at least,. Schlie"ann ke t "eticulous and #olu"inous records of all his findings and "uch "ore. +usu.edu, .e also recorded e#erything we found on a er. 0ut one thing we did that Schlie"ann didn$t, was take hotogra hs of our artifacts in their original lace. That is i" ortant to do so that you can deci her things fro" its location and the soil and stratigra hy around it. There are hotos of the things Schlie"ann found, but they are not in their original ositions. 8lues like the gates and bastions tell us that Troy was a #ery well9 rotected city. /ro" all the defensi#e artifacts found, we can conclude that they "ust ha#e had ene"ies and been at war a lot. 7 on further research, we read about the great war of Troy which destroyed the". +history.co", :#en though the city of Troy is no "ore, we can still "ake inferences and inter retations about the things we find at the site, just as we do nowadays. In our studies, we had a theory that the soil was darkly colored and grainy because of the fired coal and lant ash that was thrown into gardens fro" burning sto#es. ;ust fro" the soil we can tell a lot about what the site used to be like, who li#ed there, and a little bit about what their lifestyle was like. .e tested our theory and the results were ositi#e, so we know that we were

right. The sa"e thing goes for the 8ity of Troy. .e use certain clues to for" hy otheses about the eo le there. /or e%a" le, I inter ret their culture as being wealthy because of all the gold that was found in the stratu". Also, fro" all the Greek ottery and cera"ics that were found in the soil, I conclude that they had a good relationshi with the Greeks at one oint, and were trading artners with the". I say <at one oint= because they were at war with Greece around '5** 08. I found this infor"ation on a website +stanford.edu, that cited se#eral reliable sources, including te%tbooks fro" !%ford and &ar#ard 7ni#ersities. So I concluded correctly. I followed the sa"e ste s we did in our studies. I had a 1uestion, I created a hy othesis, I tested it, analy>ed the data, and acce ted the hy othesis. In the layer of stratigra hy that dated back to '5** 0.8., there were none of the Greek artifacts found. The wo"en of Troy wore lots of jewelry, and ieces of it were found in all the layers of the (Figure 2) soil, so we can see that it was always o ular. Troy$s history is di#ided into basically nine different eriods called Troy I, II, II, all the way to Troy I?. (See Figure 2) /or each ti"e eriod, there is a different layer of stratu". In chronological order, here are so"e e%a" les of artifacts found in each layer ranging fro" the dee est layers to the "ost shallow le#el@

'. co

er and bron>e ottery

5. A sce ter 6. Ao"e9sha ed o#ens B. 2ew ottery for holding food C. /lat9botto"ed, edged ans D. /ortresses ). A fibula +a in for holding clothes together, si"ilar in a earance to a safety in, (. &el"ets and hats "ade of boar$s tusks E. /ancy dra ed clothing and baked clay The ti"e9line of Troy and its nine eriods ranges roughly +but not e%actly, fro" 6*** 0.8.F A.A. C**. +cerhas.uc.edu, The beginning and ending dates of each eriod are "erely esti"ates, rounded to the hundredth year. 0ut if you were to date a soil sa" le fro" each layer, you would find that it falls within the said ti"e eriod. As you can see, archaeology today does a few things differently than it did back then, but o#erall it has the sa"e ste s and uses the sa"e "ethods and conce ts. .e "ay use different tools than Schlie"ann did, but things like e1ui "ent will always be changing as ti"e goes on and technology ad#ances. 0ut the "ost i" ortant thing is to record all of our findings so we can "ake connections and learn about the ast. Archaeology will always be i" ortant, because there will always be fresh history and new eo le to learn about for future generations. And just as we "odel our ways after the eo le of the ast, the eo le of the future will continue to use our ideas and create their own new ones.

Bilbiography:

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