Reviewing the argument for a city in the plain of Troy

Because my most recent treatment of the central argument of this blog is over 3 years old, it is probably about time to present it again in a fresh format.  In addition, my treatments of the photographic evidence are getting old, and it would be nice to present some of that again as well.  

What ultimately made this blog happen was my question, why doesn't the Kalafatli Asmak just continue down the plain alongside the Karamendere, the way it does when it is west of Kalafat?  Why does it pass a prominence and then turn east toward another prominence, rather than continuing NW alongside the Karamendere?  

Having asked that on the basis of an old map on my computer, I googled the area and saw the answer, which is visible to all eyes in the photo at the top of this blog. 

In the photo above there are two waterways.  On the left is the Karamendere, on the right is the Kalafatli Asmak.  As you can clearly see, the Asmak turns 90 degrees when it encounters a rise in the plain. It then flows around that rise to the northeast before heading north again. Meanwhile, the Karamendere begins angling toward the western side of the plain beginning in the same area around Kalafat.  It would like to flow in the center of the plain there, but cannot due to the same raised earth that turns the Asmak.  

To the west of the Karamendere one can see some abandoned river channels breaking up the farm fields, but one sees none of that on the east side of the river, and that is surely because the land on the east side of the river is elevated.  

The area between the canal on the east side of the plain and the river on the west side is a raised earth anomaly.  It is a mound that turns two waterways. That mound, I believe, contains the main part of the ancient city of Troy.  

Before we discuss the mound, let's examine more pics.  

The photo above looks north across Hisarlik toward the village of Kumkale and beyond it, the Dardanelle Strait.  Between the two hills is a road rising on an unnatural slope running uphill to the left. You can see the valley on the right coming downhill, and it should continue downhill and out to sea.  Instead it rises. 

So, the land in the valley north of Hisarlik begins rising as it passes Hisarlik, and you can also see that in the photo at the top of this blog.  

Now let's look due west from Hisarlik.

Instead of falling downhill into a valley, the land west of Hisarlik rises up. If you walk from the citadel due west down to the foot of Hisarlik and keep going, you have to climb an unnatural hill.  

This screen cap: https://videohive.net/item/troy-city-overall-view/38111624

In the foreground of the photo above we see the ruins of the citadel at Hisarlik.  Beyond the foot of Hisarlik, continuing west, the land rises to the trees along the canal.  Beyond the canal, the land continues to rise, and the lone tree in the distance is raised above the trees along the canal.  

This screen cap: https://videohive.net/item/ruins-of-the-ancient-city-of-troy/37437553

In the above photo, we see Hisarlik in the foreground. Beyond that we see an unnatural rise in the land cut by a canal whose banks quickly rise as they pass the citadel area.  Beyond the canal the land continues to rise until it reaches the level where an isolated tree sits.  Beyond that tree is a very unlikely marsh in the middle of a flood plain.  

When you walk west from Hisarlik you don't walk down into a valley.  You climb an unnatural hill to the unnaturally high banks of a canal, beyond which you continue climbing until you finally start downhill toward the river in the far distance. 

Going west from Hisarlik, one walks uphill from section 1 to section 6, where it might be pretty level, until you approach section 7, where you go downhill into a marsh. You then go uphill again out of the marsh in section 8, and downhill again in sections 9 and 10. You should just go downhill from Hissarlik into a valley that is headed out to sea. But you do not. If you walk west from Hissarlik, you climb an unnatural mound to an unnatural marsh, and then climb out of the marsh and go down the other side of the mound to the river.

In the photo above, the Tree in front of the Marsh is elevated above the trees that line the canal between segments 3 and 4. That change in elevation is surely unnatural and is probably caused by a buried city.

The photos demonstrate the proposition that there is an unnatural mound in the plain in front of Hisarlik. I have argued that the best explanation for the mound is a buried city.  But that is not the only support I have offered for the thesis that the mound in the plain is probably a buried city. There are other factors to consider.

To begin with, there are sizable mounds upstream from Hisarlik that also need to be explained. There are two mounds and a berm near Kalafat, and there are two mounds below Pinarbasi. These five mounds, all of which lie along the path of the Karamendere river, need explanation as well, and I suggest that they represent support structures for the city buried in front of Hisarlik. Given that the city lies in a flood plain, and that flood plains are subject to flooding, it seems reasonable to suspect that the support structures along the river have something to do with water and/or flood control. 

In addition to the mounds and declivities that indicate extensive human intervention in the plain, there are history and legends to consider. These tell of a great city in a plain, not just a little town on a hill. Plato describes a city of Troy that was flooded. 

There is also a stratigraphy study that found artifacts in drill cores from the plain. I have not yet found out which cores had artifacts and which did not. Only a few cores went into the large mound, but what little was found helps my case by suggesting that there are more artifacts to be found there.

To sum up then: The observation that there is a large, unnatural mound in the plain of Troy is supported by satellite, drone and ground based images. The thesis that the large mound in front of Hisarlik probably contains the remains of a city is supported by history and legend, by physical artifacts found deep in in the plain, and by two inferences to the best explanation. One of these infers from the large mound to its cause, a city. The other infers from the existence of other mounds and human interventions in the plain to their cause, support for a city.