Troy Photo Gallery

Fortification walls, excavations, museum exhibits and city models.

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Ancient Troy

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Ancient Troy - Canakkale, Turkey

Ancient Troy - an archaeological site in Canakkale province in northwest Turkey. The ruins are on Hisarlik Hill near the village of Tevfikiye, about 30 km from Canakkale. The site is famous from Homer's poems and has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1998.

It is a multi-layered settlement where archaeologists identify levels from the Early Bronze Age to Roman times - from Troy I to Troy IX, when the city of New Ilion existed here. The unique stratigraphy makes it possible to trace how fortifications, layout and city life changed in the Aegean and Anatolian regions over nearly three millennia.

The first large-scale excavations began in the 1870s under Heinrich Schliemann; 20th-century researchers continued the work, and today international teams study the site. Thanks to this, key areas of the ancient city have been uncovered and systematized, and Troy has become one of Turkey's main archaeological locations.

Visiting Troy is appealing because legend and archaeology meet on the same hill: the visible layers help understand how the image of Troy was formed in the ancient tradition. Nearby is the Troy Museum, which links finds to the history of the city and the Troad region.

Ancient Troy - route through the excavations and museum

Allows you to see the layers of history from the Bronze Age to the Roman era.

Fortification walls, ramps and the Troy Museum on one route

On the excavation site you will see the ruins of fortification walls and gates, paved ramps, foundations of megaron-type dwellings, traces of a sanctuary on the site of the Temple of Athena, as well as Roman-period structures - a theater, an odeon and sections of street buildings. Routes are equipped with walkways and viewing platforms, and information boards in Turkish and English indicate which layer the objects belong to. At the entrance there is a modern wooden figure of the Trojan Horse for photographs.

In the nearby Troy Museum you can see finds from the Troad - pottery, tools, jewelry, figurines, inscriptions and coins; models and visualizations show how the city changed from the Bronze Age to Roman New Ilion. The building opened in 2018 and was designed to complement the visit to the excavations and to make the stratigraphy easier to understand. Tickets for the museum and the excavations are sold separately or as a combined option, and an audio guide is available.

The area is open and windy, and hot in summer, so comfortable shoes, water and sun protection are useful. Allow at least 1.5-2 hours to visit the excavations and the museum to see the main sites and view the exhibition at a relaxed pace.

From Canakkale to Troy is about 30 km - the easiest way is by car or taxi; there are also excursion buses and minibuses to Tevfikiye, from where it is a few minutes' walk to the entrance. On the way you can plan a walk along the Canakkale waterfront, where another Trojan Horse - a prop from the 2004 film - is installed.

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