Excavations at Troy, 1937

Carl Blegen is one of the giants of archeology whose work in excavating Troy after Schliemann's rather destructive first attempts is still in use by those studying this key site of both Near Eastern and Greek antiquity. Troy itself is a difficult site due to its layered nature, since succeeding generations of its inhabitants built on top of the older buildings whenever the city was destroyed by age, fire, or earthquake; these layers are indicated by roman numerals, Troy I being the lowest level. Since Troy itself is the cite of the Homeric epic The Iliad, every moment in its excavation is of interest to archaeologists, philologists, and historians alike. This is the fourth of Blegen's reports published in the American Journal of Archeology and describes the excavation of the Trojan acropolis, the site of much of the action in the Iliad. It includes photographs of the site, buildings, and material finds.