6 more Anomalies in the Plain of Troy

I have listed the Top 10 anomalies in the plain, by which I meant the most obvious and important ones.  On this page I will list some of the less obvious anomalies in the plain.  

1 The canal cut into the bedrock at Besik Bay 

I mentioned this in my entry on Pliny the Elder.  Today there is a canal leading from the springs at Pinarbasi all the way to the Hellespont.  But it was not always like that.  At Besik Bay, there is a cut into the bedrock that for a long time diverted some or all of the spring water running in the Pinarbasi Su out of the plain and down a slope toward Besik Bay.  In the 1840s enough spring water was being diverted to run mills in Besik Bay, as shown on old maps from the time.  

I have seen no confident statements about the age of the cut there.  It might be ancient, medieval or modern.  

According to Zangger, recent excavators concluded that the beach at Besik Bay was made up of alluvium from the Scamander/Karamendere, not from the Pinarbasi Su.  This suggests that ancient people diverted the Scamander into Besik Bay because it has built up a significant beach.  

In the above image there are two canals marked in blue on the left.  The short one at Kesik Tepe is the Kesik Cut and the long one to the south of that is the canal at Besik Bay. It starts just behind the baseball field shaped marsh in front of Yenikoy.  

2 Dents west of Kalafat 

I have not discussed these yet.  There are a couple of oddities west of Kalafat that deserve to be mentioned.  I thought for a while that the river did it.  But I just don't see how a river does that.  Nor how flood waters and deposition create those shapes.  I have no deep theory about them, but I will point out that they lie between the marsh and the declivity on the west side of Kalafat.  If the marsh drained toward the center of the plain, it could drain down one of those anomalies toward the reservoir above the city.  So perhaps they functioned as a conduit for water.  

In the photo below I have marked the dents and two nearby mounds in yellow. Two other oddities are marked in orange.  West of the dents are some oddly segmented farm fields.  In the marsh west of that is a structure discussed in earlier posts.  This shot is intended merely to provide a little context for the dents.  They sit among other anomalies.  If the marsh drained toward the center of the plain, it could have drained through those segmented fields and created the large dished out area of the dents.

3 The rise in front of Lisgar Marsh 

I have not discussed this one previously. That area seems unnatural to me. It seems to be an elongated mound that curves down in front.  I don't know if there is anything under there, but one of the Spratt maps indicates that there was at one time a notably deep channel there. 

The map below clearly labels an Artificial Cut through the coastline, then to the right of the cut, Lisgar Marsh and Bushes, and then to the right of that, a Deep Bed 

In the photo below, there are two satellite pictures joined at the left. One of them is much lighter colored than the other one.  That is the way Google is right now on this location.  An arrow points to the approximate location of the Deep Bed on Spratt's map. I have partly encircled the anomaly that bothers me.  The area to the east of the Deep Bed seems raised, like an elongated mound.  

Is that mound natural?  I have no idea.  Perhaps some Lidar or other tests could be run to discover the extent of human interventions in this part of the plain.  

4 The rises below Pinarbasi 

I talked about one of these in an earlier post.   Pinarbasi is a village SSW of Kalifat and Troy. There are springs there.  

My feelings have gone back and forth on the first of these.  Is it natural or not?  I am still thinking not. 

Whatever it is, it is not farmed.  Why aren't the farmers making money off of that land?  The second rise is more complex and lies just east of the first one.  

Below are the two rises together in the plain. 

Both rises seem unnatural to me.  I cannot think of anything that might have been far from the city up in the plain like this except villages or water works.  Villages would have been destroyed by flooding.  So, I am thinking there might be water control structures underground here.  As explained below, I believe the two mounds might represent two parts of a former dam.  

5 Judan Lake 

I discussed this in an earlier post. My sense is that if there was a lake in the plain, it was probably man made.  It might have been created by diverting a stream into the plain, and damning it there to create a reservoir for the city.  The lake is circled on the map from Thomas Spratt below.  

Below is a picture of the area.  There actually seems to be a spillway there.  Perhaps there was a dam or weir here that formed the lake.  

The arrow below points to a possible source for the lake water.   Take a look on Google satellite view.  

6 The shapes at the top of the valley 

I discussed this in an earlier post.  I have no good ideas on this other than to say they are very odd, and perhaps they were part of a project to divert the stream into the valley to form Judan Lake.  They might also serve to keep the Scamander/Mendere from inundating the top of the eastern part of the plain,  

Below is an interpretation of what we have seen above.  Two yellow circles represent the citadel and the greater city of Troy.  I am thinking that the two rises below Pinarbasi might be the remnants of a dam, indicated with a light blue line.  The yellow arrow points to the place where the reservoir formed by the Scamander can flow into the Pinarbasi Su, and then out of the plain to Besik Bay.  Above Lake Judan is a stream diverted to fill the lake.  This is Kemere Creek, which meets the Scamander/Mendere just after it enters the plain.  A blue dashed line indicates its course today.  

Something like this would at least explain the alluvium from the Scamander found in Besik Bay.  There are no other anomalies in the plain that would explain how the Trojans diverted the Scamander.  The hills in front of Pinarbasi are the only possible signs of it.  

It occurs to me that a dam in front of Pinarbasi would obviate the need for flood control works lower down in the plain, such as the great berm and its surrounding mounds. There are several ways to go here.  First off, it is not necessarily the case that the dam would preclude the need for the other flood control works.  Secondly, the age of things must be taken into account.  Perhaps the great berm and its associated structures date back to Troy II, and the dam only goes back as far as Troy V.  Perhaps the dam was needed after the lower structures proved tragically inadequate.  Perhaps the dam is the older construction and the berm was built after it failed.  Who knows?  None of us.  We need science to take an interest in this.  

What seems certain is that the plain knew two major water problems, that of having too little water in late summer, and that of having too much water in winter and spring.  The reservoirs help both problems.  They control and capture excess water when it is present, and then provide extra water when the streams are low in summer.  

2024 UPDATE: I have placed Judan Lake in the wrong position on the satellite photos. 

I have also explained the lake: it was a swamp created by a fallen bridge that blocked the outflow of three springs. After Frank Calvert removed the bridge, the lake drained away.  

I believe that the area I marked looks a lot like a spillway.  But that is not where Judan Lake used to sit.  It was further up the plain, near Akshi Koi. 

Top Ten Anomalies in the Plain of Troy

It has been a year since I spotted the mound in front of Hisarlik.  Since then I have identified several other anomalies.  There are both raised earth anomalies and lowered earth anomalies (declivities)  in the plain. 

The most important raised earth anomalies are: 

1 The mile-wide mound in front of Hisarlik.  

2 The 3000 foot berm southwest of Kalifat.

3, 4 The two mounds across the river from one another west of Kalifat

5 The unexplained structure in the marsh southwest of Kalifat 

As for the lowered earth anomalies (all of which are discussed here), starting with the most obvious:

6 The 500 meter long, 20 meter deep cut through the Aegean coastal cliffs

7 The declivity west of Kalifat

8 The marsh WNW of Hisarlik

9 The declivity between the two mounds southwest of Kalifat 

10 The marsh southwest of Kalifat that has a structure in it

Why this blog is not archaeology

I would say that my blog is definitely not an archaeology blog.  An archaeologist would speak and write in ways I do not. An archaeologist is someone who can pick up a bit of bone or a pot shard and tell you things about it. I can't do that.  I would say that I am not an amateur archaeologist at all. That phrase implies a person who engages in archaeology with some regularity, and I do not do that.  I don't read much about archaeology.  I  occasionally look at archaeology videos.  I certainly do not make remarks about bits of bone or pottery.  I don't discuss strata.  I am not sure I could define "dig".  

I would deny the proposition that we are all scientists some of the time.  Many are drawn to a philosophy of science with that implication.  I would say any philosophy of science with that implication has been discredited by reductio ad absurdam, which enforces the principle that propositions with absurd implications are absurd. 

This blog was accused on Daily Kos of engaging in pseudo-archaeology.  The rest of this entry is a rebuttal of that irresponsible charge. 

This blog exists because on 12/4 of last year I spotted some irregularities in the plain of Troy. Spotting those irregularities in a picture online cannot be archeology.  And if it is, it certainly is not pseudo-archeology.  

I am aware of the term Space Archaeology and used it in the article at Daily Kos.  However, I would deny that I was engaging in archaeology in any sense of the word on the night of 12/4/20.  

Suppose a child looking out a window sees an animal unexpectedly and calls out what is seen, saying "there's a squirrel". Is the child doing biology? Zoology? Ecology?  No. Why not?  Well, I would say that the child is not engaged in the scientific method in any meaningful sense. Mere observation is not science even if observation is some sort of step in some uses of, say, the hypothetico-dedctive method.  Suppose you tell me that your shoe weighs exactly 1 kilogram.  Have you taught me some physics?  

Now when a 59 year old goes to google satellite view to look at the area around Kalifat after having looked at an old map of the area, and unexpectedly finds mounds and declivities, and calls out the mounds and declivities, this too is not science.  It is more complicated than identifying a squirrel, but not by all that much.  It requires no specialized knowledge.  

Understanding that the mounds and declivities might be important requires some knowledge (not much) about tells and the history of finding tells.  But spotting them does not.  

Since spotting the tell and its supporting structures I have speculated on this blog about what it all might mean.  I suggested that the mounds south of the city might be flood control works. I speculated about a city in the plain and the possibility that it was destroyed by floods instead of Greeks.  I don't think those are precisely archeological speculations.  

I have two arguments for the thesis that there is probably a city buried in the plain of Troy. They are based on two different premises.  One is that humans do not build anything as big as the mound in front of Hisarlik (a mile wide) except cities.  That premise is factual and the fact it names is not from the provenance of archeology.  It is just a general fact about human history.  The second premise is that the mounds SW of Kalifat could be flood control works. Flood control works argue for something being protected from floods, and that something would be a city.  This second premise is also outside the provenance of archeology. It belongs to hydrology or geography or city planning or history as much as it belongs to archeology.  

It requires no specialized knowledge to understand that a flood plain has lots of floods and that a city in a flood plain will be subject to flooding.  It also requires no specialized knowledge to understand that flood control is about safety, namely, the safety of humans.  Flooding and flood plains are not the provenance of archeology, but of hydrology or geography.     

So, I don't think I have made a fully scientific observation, nor an archaeological argument on this blog.  At least not when it comes to the plain of Troy.  

I did make two entries about two possible settlement mounds in the Troad after spotting them.  I also have an entry about the structure in the marsh SW of Troy.  I think those are all covered by the child-sees-squirrel argument above, although I am only saying they might be settlement mounds, not that they are nor even that they probably are.  

I have also written about Atlantis and the Trojan War, the history of the search for Troy, the placement of Kalifat on old maps, and medieval and ancient sources on the city of Troy. That stuff belongs to history, literature, cartography and geography. 

Archaeology is not hydrology.  Archaeology is not history.  Archaeology is not geography.  It might use any of these at any time, but it is independent of them.  It is also independent of literature, of course, though again, it might call on literature now and then.  

Now suppose some theorist wants to deny the starting point of these reflections.  Doing so would require our theorist to maintain the thesis that a child looking out a window and calling out a squirrel is in fact doing biology. He or she will soon discover what an absurd point of view this is.  For suppose that after exclaiming about the squirrel, the child then exclaims "there's a house!"  What science are they now engaged in?  Archaeology?  Ecology?  Real Estate Studies?  And "there's a car!" means the child has taken up cultural studies or mechanical engineering or economics or all of the above or what?  By this reasoning, the 59 year-old looking at a picture on google satellite view is doing archeology as long as he calls out an unnatural looking mound in the ground, but not if he calls out a tree.  I think that is an absurd epistemology, but my point has yet to be made.  If that is all it takes to do archaeology, then, that is what it takes to do actual archaeology, not pseudo-archaeology.  After all, those who insist on this ridiculous epistemology will agree that the child pointing out a squirrel is not doing pseudo-biology.  He or she is doing the real thing.   

So, this blog is not archaeology given a sane epistemological outlook.  But even on the basis of the absurdly generous epistemology which grants that everyone is doing science daily, and all of us are rational agents, etc., I say, even on that morally corrupted epistemology, this blog would have to be based on actual archaeology, not pseudo-archaeology.  If there is a worthwhile argument ending in the conclusion that this blog has engaged in pseudo-archaeology, its premises do not include granting full scientific status to trifling observations.  

So, what about the thesis that there is a city buried in the plain of Troy?  If that is not a thesis in archaeology, then what is it a thesis in? 

Well, first, let's admit that the thesis that there was a greater city in the plain at Troy is historical.  Eberhard Zangger has been arguing for that thesis for a couple of decades.  His premises are mostly historical and textual.  None of his premises include the visual evidence my case is based on.  

The main thing that makes 'there is a city buried in the plain of Troy' sound archaeological is the word 'buried'.  But the difference between buried and not-buried is learned in childhood and is not specialized knowledge.  So, adding that word to the historical thesis does not make archaeology.  

The historical thesis that there was a city in the plain according to legend, and my thesis that there is a city buried in the plain also differ in their tenses.  One is past tense, one is present tense.  Could being stated in the present tense turn an historical thesis into an archaeological one?   Note well that if the historical thesis is true, then you would expect my thesis to be true.  That is, if there was a city in the plain, then one would expect that there is (what remains of) one there still.  So, the 'was' to 'is' transition is justifiable historically, but that just means my thesis is defendable on historical grounds, and does not need archaeological support to get off the ground.  It would be better defended with some support aside from legends.  Zangger appeals to a stratigraphy study done in the 1970s which found artifacts in the plain.  I appeal to all of Zangger's premises and to the photographic evidence on this blog. It is not just that there was a city in the plain, there still is one there to be excavated.  

The thesis that the mound in front of Hisarlik probably contains a buried city is a very strong one, but it is not really a thesis in archaeology any more than it is a thesis in history or geography.  

My critic resorts to categorical deductions: "Anyone who points and says there is a city buried there is making an archaeological claim.  You have done and said that, therefore, you really are making an archaeological claim."  I assume there is a city there on the basis of observation and inference, yes. It is up to archeologists and other scientists to determine precisely what is in the large mound.  If you will read what I said above, you will see that you seem to be wrong with your categorical remark about spotting tells.  It's not really science.  If it is, then you need to give a reason why it is.  So, I merely deny the first premise of this criticism, and confidently doubt that anyone can ever give a cogent reason for it. 

Archaeology, What Is This?

 

My second Youtube video is up.  Check it out.  Share it with friends. 

Notes on Eberhard Zangger on Ancient Troy

I first learned about the thinking of Dr. Eberhard Zangger some years ago through YouTube.  It started with a video about the bronze age collapse which theorized about the possibility of a wide ranging war.  The video made an impression on me.  Below is an updated version of that film.  

Eventually I discovered the Luwian Studies website.  I encourage everyone to read the website. It consists of a few dozen very short, informative treatments of specific topics, such as the Luwians, Egypt at the end of the bronze age, the sea people, ancient Troy, and iron age migrations of peoples. I have read his well known paper on the sea peoples.  Also a less well known paper linking Troy to Atlantis.  Also his book The Flood From Heaven, which is a detailed treatment of the connection between the story of Troy and the story of Atlantis.   

I want to outline and underline how right Dr. Zangger and the Luwian Studies website have been about the ancient city of Troy.  Below are a few of Zangger's remarks from 2017.  

Let’s just recap on the most important arguments I’ve put forward over the past thirty years. Firstly, I’m saying that not only the citadel knoll of Troy contains Bronze Age remains, but also the area five hundred meters west of it. Secondly, I’m saying that even if the Trojan War was invented by a poet, there needs to be an opponent equal to the Greeks on the eastern side of the Aegean. Thirdly, there are hundreds of settlements in western Asia Minor that have not yet been archaeologically explored.  https://luwianstudies.org/interview-eberhard-zangger-spiegel-article-wizen-balloon/  

I think his third point is perfectly clear and indisputable.  The second point is mostly clear and there will be much debate on it.  The first point demonstrates Zangger's confidence about the existence of a greater city in the plain at Troy.  He is right about it, and the matter is now all but indisputable. There really was a great city in the plain, and everyone can see on Google Satellite View precisely where it used to sit.  

Below are remarks from the Luwian Studies website. Zangger is the president of the Foundation for Luwian Studies. 

During the Trojan War, the Greeks are likely to have destroyed levees and hydraulic installations. Since the war was fought in the dry summer months, their actions had no immediate effect. But when the winter came, with Troy already defeated and destroyed, the topographically low-lying ruins were buried under mud carried by the rivers. Thus, the remains of Troy are likely to be buried a few hundred meters west of Hisarlık, and remain hidden. Excavator Manfred Korfmann has said (in a personal conversation) that drill holes in the floodplain revealed pottery deep down below the present surface. The geoarchaeologist who investigated these deposits for almost forty years concluded, “some levels contain a great deal of archaeological material … Pieces of bricks, stones and mortar indicate the remains of a construction. … From an archaeological point of view, the area along the foot of the northern slope of Troia is an important one … In the light of these findings we consider that it would be very useful to make an archaeological excavation about 7 meters deep.” (https://luwianstudies.org/the-history-of-troy/) 

During almost 150 years of research history in Troy, however, all excavations have been restricted to the hill of Hisarlık, which due to its elevation was never affected by mudflows. In other words, the actual lower city of Troy may indeed still lie hidden in the plain underneath a layer of gravel and alluvial silt. Approximately 300 drill holes that were made by Ilhan Kayan to investigate the plain’s stratigraphy produced thick layers with artifact-rich deposits. Accordingly, the buried lower city of Troy may already have been found in the floodplain.  (https://luwianstudies.org/the-lower-town-of-troy/) 

These passages further demonstrate the confidence of Dr Zangger's group about the existence of a city in the plain at Troy.  

Dr Zangger discusses the city of Troy in the video below, starting at 40:30 

At 42:38 he says, 'the actual city of Troy was not on the knoll, that is just the royal citadel, the actual city was in the flood plain.  It has been found there by drill cores five or six meters below the present surface'.   When he says this he is showing a slide containing the graphic from Luwian Studies that is also found in one of my earlier posts.  Behind Zangger throughout this lecture you can see that same graphic on the wall behind him, along with the picture of Troy that I critiqued in another of my earlier posts, and which appears again at the bottom of this page.  I have appealed or reacted to things from the Luwian Studies web site in several other places as well.  

This blog has benefited greatly from his work, and I will happily repeat what I said in the first of those earlier posts.  Dr Zangger and the Luwian Studies foundation are right about the location of the greater city of Troy.  

Two sources on the city in the plain

 

Here is a paragraph from the Luwian studies website: 

Texts from antiquity to the late Middle Ages indicate that the actual city of Troy extended into the plain beneath the citadel of Ilion (Diodorus 4.75.3; William Gell 1804, 121). The living quarters of the population, craftsmen’s workshops, garrisons and port districts are likely to have been located down there. Various sources describe how the remains of the city, after its destruction by the Greeks, literally disappeared under water and mud (Strabo 1.3.17; Dio Chrysostom 11.76; Quintus of Smyrna 14.646–652; Homer, Iliad 12.16–33; see also Plato, Timaeus 25d). During almost 150 years of research history in Troy, however, all excavations have been restricted to the hill of Hisarlık, which due to its elevation was never affected by mudflows. In other words, the actual lower city of Troy may indeed still lie hidden in the plain underneath a layer of gravel and alluvial silt. Approximately 300 drill holes that were made by Ilhan Kayan to investigate the plain’s stratigraphy produced thick layers with artifact-rich deposits. Accordingly, the buried lower city of Troy may already have been found in the floodplain. Archaeologists looking for the remains of the actual city of Troy may only need to dig a mere 5- to 6-meter trench 300 meters west of Hisarlık – and they are likely to make a breakthrough discovery surpassing that of Heinrich Schliemann.

https://luwianstudies.org/the-lower-town-of-troy/

This passage mentions two sources on the city in the plain, Diodorus Siculus and William Gell.  Below is a screen shot of the relevant lines from Diodorus.

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/diodorus_siculus/4d*.html  

The relevant sentence is that "Ilus founded in a plain a city which was the most renowned among the cities in the Troad, giving it after himself the name Ilium".  

Luwian Studies also cites William Gell.  Here is a helping of that: 

The account of the territory of Troy being thus completed, it will perhaps be necessary to make a few observations on the inhabitants, at the time of the invasion of the Greeks. The learned Mr. Bryant informs us in the third volume of his Mythology, p. 439, that the Trojans came originally from Egypt; for they were of one family with the Titanians and the Meropians. Ilus is distinguished as a Merop Atlantian, and he was of the race of the Trojan kings, consequently they were all Merop Atlantians. Herodotus also observes, that the Atlantians of Phrygia were skilled in the sciences, and Diodorus says, that they were allied to the gods and heroes, a circumstance which may account for the difference of language which existed between the gods and men, of which Homer takes notice. ...  The Atlantians appear to have been settled in Phrygia before the time of Dardanus and Batieia, and she seems to have been called Myrinne, as Scamander was Xanthus, in their language. The son of Batieia, Ericthonius, was a rich and powerful monarch, and is said to have discovered the mines of precious metals, with which the country abounded, and of which the traces are yet visible in the vicinity of Skepsis. In the reign of Ericthonius, the city of the Trojans was either in another situation, or covered only the upper part of the hill, as the city of Cecrops did the rock of the Acropolis at Athens; but when Tros, his son, ascended the throne, the people were so multiplied that they began to overspread the declivity, and the additional town was called Troy, in honour of that prince. The original fortress, or citadel, was probably stiled Dardania, the town of Tros succeeded, and at length in the time of Ilus his son, the habitations occupied the whole of the hill. Ilus gave his own name Ilion to the city, or at least to that part of it which had been added in his reign; and the kingdom was at that time become so potent, that the monarch found means to expel Tantalus and his son Pelops from Asia. (see pp 120-21,  The Topography of Troy, and Its Vicinity - Google Books)

Gell is citing from Bryant, but I do not know Bryant's sources.  This passage describes a city that was added on to by Tros, "and the additional town was called Troy", but it does not say that this city was in the plain.  It goes on then to discuss Ilus expanding the city and calling the new area Ilion.  Again, it does not say that Ilion was in the plain.  

I included the earlier part of this passage because it mentions Atlantians.  

Between these two sources on the origins of Troy, we have only one explicit reference to a city in the plain.  

A few propositions and attitudes about Ancient Troy

Some philosophers think a lot about propositions.  They also think about propsitional attitudes (i.e., attitudes toward propositions, such as trust, distrust, belief, disbelief, etc.)  So, in the follwing exercise, I will list some propositions and my attitudes toward them (attitudes in italic).

Two propositions I am willing to defend on the basis of visual evidence: 

There is a large mound in front of Hisarlik in the plain of Troy.  

There are three more, much smaller mounds west and southwest of Kalafat, along with two declivities. 

  

One proposition I believe on the basis of inference from visual and other evidence and would gladly defend: 

There is probably a large city buried in the plain in front of Hisarlik. 

One proposition I believe on the basis of inference from visual evidence but probably would not defend: 

The smaller mounds around Kalafat are probably flood control works.  

One proposition that has been known and ignored for way too long: 

There is a cut through the coastline across from Hisarlik. 

One compund proposition that I believe is sad but true: 

The cut through the coastline and the plain of Troy have mostly been ignored by archeology.