Pictures of the tell at Troy

 

New angles on flood control in the plain of Troy

"Where the winter stream of the Bunarbashi-Su joins the Mendere, there are some immense blocks of irregular shape; they may have formed part of the wall of a small fortress" (Dr Peter Forschhammer, Topography of the Plain of Troy, p 39).  

Forschhammer tells us that he saw large blocks in the area he calls the winter channel of the Burnarbashi Su, which is a place in front of Pinarbasi where the western most rivulet in the plain can discharge eastward into the bed of the main river in the center of the plain.  

It turns out there is a low, wide, unnatural looking prominence in that area. It may have been a part of a flood control system.  I have circled it in the upper right of the picture below. In these diagrams we are looking east.  Yellow lines mark unnatural, raised earthworks. 

The plain experiences annual floods as well as ephemeral or flash floods.  Forschhammer, who spent a month in the plain in the 1840s, describes the flash floods, which occur frequently.  

“When the rain, beginning in Mount Ida, extends to the plain, the wide and deep bed of the Menderé is completely filled; in a half or a quarter of an hour it rushes over its banks on both sides; on the left side it fills the swamps below Bunarbashi, while the Kirk Jos sends off a stream in the direction of its ancient bed to join the Menderé farther down. On the right it covers the high part of the plain over to the Kalifat Asmak, and transforms that stream into an impetuous river . If the rain continues a few hours, it often happens that the inundation prevails over the whole plain from the Hellespont to the springs at Bunarbashi. It happens also that about the season of the heaviest rains, the strong south-west winds blow, checking the current of the Hellespont, and raising the level of its waters, while these again impede the discharge of the rivers, and increase the inundation in the lower part of the plain.” 

(DP Forschhammer, cited by Charles Maclaren, in The Plain of Troy Described,1863 p. 62f )   

By Hellespont he means the Dardanelle Straights into which the entire plain empties.  By the Kirk Jos he means the Pinarbasi Su, which is the western-most rivulet in the plain.  It begins at a field of springs in front of Pinarbasi which are called Kirk Jos, or Forty Eyes.  The 40 is a holy or lucky number, not their actual number.  

Forschammer is talking about the same connection between the Pinarbasi Su and the Mendere in both passages.  In the picture below, the bent red arrow in the top right heads into what Forschhammer calls both the "winter channel" of the Pinarbasi Su, where he saw large blocks, and the "ancient bed" of the Kirk Jos, toward which the springs send a stream during heavier rains.   

Finally, again from the east, the following picture shows a more complete look at the situation of the city during heavy rains and flash flooding. The blue circles are places where the water pools and deepens and slows down. Imagine each circle growing larger as the flood gets worse.  

The city in the plain had water coming at it from all sides in any extended rain storm, and was  built to handle flooding.  The plain was also modified to manage flooding. 

 

Dimensions of the tell at Troy

 

A mile is 5280 feet. This part of the tell at the spot of the line is 88 feet short of that. 

Diagram of a possible flood control plan in the plain of Troy

In the following diagram, yellow lines outline unnatural piles, the red arrows represent the direction flood waters are diverted.  Pooling water is represented by blue circles. Pilings channel the water, pools deepen as the storm continues. The general idea of flood control is to break up, slow down and/or channel the water toward its least harmful destination. The least harmful channel in the plain of Troy is the channel on the west side of the city. 

The system seems to be built to protect the city in the plain from floods by slowing and channeling water.  It has occurred to me that the south west side of the tell might contain a sea wall, or flood wall.  So, perhaps something like this.  

“When the rain, beginning in Mount Ida, extends to the plain, the wide and deep bed of the Menderé is completely filled; in a half or a quarter of an hour it rushes over its banks on both sides; on the left side it fills the swamps below Bunarbashi, while the Kirk Jos sends off a stream in the direction of its ancient bed to join the Menderé farther down. On the right it covers the high part of the plain over to the Kalifat Asmak, and transforms that stream into an impetuous river . If the rain continues a few hours, it often happens that the inundation prevails over the whole plain from the Hellespont to the springs at Bunarbashi. It happens also that about the season of the heaviest rains, the strong south-west winds blow, checking the current of the Hellespont, and raising the level of its waters, while these again impede the discharge of the rivers, and increase the inundation in the lower part of the plain.” 

(Peter Forschhammer, cited by Charles Maclaren, 1863 p. 62f )   

Forschhammer is talking about rain beginning in Ida.  But rain starts in the clouds.  He is thinking of two different phenomena.  One of them is a flash flood coming down the Scamander/Karamendere in the middle of the plain, which is caused by rains that never fell in the plain of Troy.  The water from such rains can reach the plain via the river, which originates on Ida.  

His second thought is a flash flood caused by rains in the plain (and elsewhere).  When the rain is hard and extended enough, the whole plain begins to move. Imagine ankle deep water from side to side in the plain. Then imagine knee deep water from side to side.  Now waist deep.  You get the picture.  

The city in the plain survived hundreds of floods.  It may have been destroyed in the end by a big flood, but it survived an annual flood and several flash floods every year of its existence.  

More anomalies in the plain of Troy

There is a large declivity to the west of Kalafat and to the south of that declivity there is a mound, which is probably the spoils from the excavated area.  Across the river from this mound is a large declivity.  To the north of this declivity is what appears to be the spoils pile from that excavation.  To the south of the same declivity is a long, unnatural berm.  The picture below outlines the spoils piles and the berm in yellow. 

 

Why did it take so long to find the greater city of Troy?

I like the question stated in the title of this entry. But I cannot answer it. 

Why did it take until now to find the huge buried city of Troy?  The citadel's location was fixed in 1822 by Maclaren. Calvert began excavating there some years before he met Schliemann.  Schliemann excavated and publicized the site starting in 1871.  It has been 150 years since Schliemann's arrival at Hissarlik, and 199 years since Maclaren's dissertation. 

My only working thought on this is that there must have been very little, if any, effort expended on finding the lower city after Schliemann. Anyone who actually searched for it would have found it right where it was expected. That is why I believe that little was done to find it. A little effort would have changed history.  So, there must have been even less effort expended than would have been required.  

Curiously, there was a study of the stratigraphy of the plain of Troy.  The following graphic from Luwian Studies suggests that at least four holes were drilled in front of Hissarlik.   Those drill holes are represented in the top left insert, and again at the bottom left. 

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/)

So, there has been some unintentional exploration of the tell at Troy.  How many holes went into the tell I do not know at this time.  I plan to look into it.  

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/)

The Northern slope of Hissarlik?  I guess they were drilling in the Dumbreck valley as well as the Scamander valley.    

In 1819, when Philip Barker Webb arrived on Hisarlık, he watched the last remnants of the former city wall of Troy being carried away and said: “Future travelers will not even see the meager remains of it [the famous city] that a favorable fortune allowed us to meet.” Nevertheless, the city of Troy still exists and the ruins left after the destruction (of Troy VIIa) are potentially exceedingly well-preserved. If one draws a cross-section through the royal citadel on Hisarlık and extends it into the plain, it turns out that the remains of the lower town lie 5 to 7 meters below the surface of the modern floodplain. Stratified deposits full of artifacts, even entire building remains, have been identified in drill cores stretching several hundred meters apart. (https://luwianstudies.org/descriptions-of-ancient-troy/) 

The Luwian Studies site is not wrong about Troy or about its location or about the value of those drill cores from the stratigraphy study. The study not only discovered a few things about the age of the plain, it also discovered lots of artifacts.  Essentially, it did find the larger city. 

Now that we can see the tell at Troy, the findings of that study could be systematically compared with the tell to map out some of what is underneath the mud.   

 

Kalifat: The Biggest Question on the Spratt Maps

 

Below is map a that attributes itself to H. Schliemann. It uses the terms "Troyland," "Hissarlik," "Ilium," and "(Troy)," in addition to "Theatre," to mark the citadel hill.  It also calls the water body on the east side of the plain "Ancient Scamander" and the body in the center of the plain "Modern Scamander".  

I don't know where the map above comes from.  I found it by searching for images of the plain of Troy.  

Here is another map whose source I do not know. 

An attribution in the lower right mentions Leipzig.  The map uses 'Troia' and 'Ilion' to label the site at Hissarlik. It places the village of Kalifat significantly west of Troy, in the plain, which is a mistake. The Schliemann inspired map above does the same.  Kalifat is not in the plain. It is above the plain, on the foot of the prominence south of Troy. 

Kalifat is bounded on its western and southern edges by a road that runs along the length of the prominence above the floor of the valley.  So, it is not in the plain.  Furthermore, if you draw a straight line north and south from the easternmost point of the creek/canal in front of Hissarlik, you will see that almost all of the village of Kalifat lies to the east of that line.  A similar line along the westernmost edge of the citadel will show you that most of Kalifat lies to the west of that line.  

In both of the above maps, however, Kalifat is placed in the center of the plain. The Leipzig map places it at a point where some part of the Scamander parts with what appears to be a branch of itself.  Below is another map that also misplaces Kalifat into the plain.

Above is a photo of page 149 of Eberhard Zangger's The Flood From Heaven (1992) showing an 1849 map of the plain by Henry Acland . It includes three arrows added by Zangger pointing at an old river bed. Acland placed Kalifat in the middle of the plain, just above the center arrow.  

A few years before Acland's map, at least one map appeared from Thomas A. B. Spratt.   It is not clear to me how many distinct Spratt maps there are. I will show you four of them, there may be more.  Peter Forschhammer commented in English on one of Spratt's maps in 1850 in a lecture titled Topography of the Plain of Troy, which can be downloaded as a pdf that includes 4 versions of a Spratt map. 

This map identifies Ilium Novum with Hissarlik, while identifying the bluff at the southern end of the plain as Troja vel Ilium Vetus (vel = or, vetus = original).  It also places Kalifat in the plain, west of a circle of canals that is represented, as we shall see, in all of the Spratt maps. 

This is another photo of a page from Zangger's 1992.  I do not know the page number. It shows a Spratt map from 1877 that is distinct from the one above.  That date is several years after Schliemann declared that he had found Troy, yet Hissarlik is still labeled Ilium Novum.  Kalifat is again near the center of the plain, and west of a circle of canals.  

Above is a third Spratt map, this one is not very large and its text is hard to read.  The Luwian Studies Website offers an enlarged view of the area around Hissarlik, shown below.  

This map clearly shows that the ground is low on all sides of the mound in front of Hissarlik. That mound contains the main part of the city of Troy.  Again Kalifat is placed much too far west of Hissarlik, in the center of the plain, west of a circle of canals.  Kalifat seems to be surrounded by low ground, and perhaps by water. 

Above is our 4th Spratt map.  It places Kalifat in the plain, and shows a circle of canals to the east of it.  This one has "Ilium Novum?" written on the hill at Hissarlik.  It is often said that Schliemann found Troy on the basis of a Spratt map with a question mark over Hissarlik. In some versions of this tale, the question mark follows the word Troy, in others it follows Ilium Novum. I am uncertain where this story originates, but I believe it is false. Schliemann did not follow a map to Hissarlik, he followed Frank Calvert to Hissarlik.  Schliemann's maps were old and took him to Pinarbasi, at the south end of the plain.  Having struck out there, he was ready to move on.  He met Calvert by chance while in the process of actually leaving the Troy area, and Calvert refocused Schliemann's energies and resources on Hissarlik. 

Spratt's maps make clear that the current course of the Scamander/Kamandere follows what on our 4th map above is labeled the "Winter Channel," and seems to pass through the "Deep Beds" marked near Kalifat, before it runs past the buried city into the areas marked "Swampy Hollows" and out to sea. The modern, canalized river is running in that old course.  

The Spratt maps are a valuable resource. They tell us a few things about the condition of the plain 150 years ago, and preserve things that decades of agri-business have now erased from the landscape, including old river beds and unexplained declivities and sand heaps. This one notes that the eastern channel rounding the buried city is nine feet deep as it enters the Dumbrek valley north of Hissarlik.  It also identifies a "Deep Bed" at the mouth of the Lisgar Marsh, due west of Hissarlik.  

Here is a curiosity from Forschhammer's lecture: "Where the winter stream of the Bunarbashi-Su joins the Mendere, there are some immense blocks of irregular shape; they may have formed part of the wall of a small fortress" (p 39).   He is referring to our first map above, and a spillway between the creek on the western edge of the plain and the main river.  Below is a a close up of that area.  

The winter channel of the Bunarbashi Su runs between the T and the R in TROY above, from west to east, connecting the western to the central river in the plain. Forschhammer is saying there were immense blocks there in his time.  If not a fortress, perhaps those were part of a water control structure.  

My questions about all of the Spratt maps:

1 Why is Kalifat so badly placed?

2. What did Spratt see that he represented as a circle of canals? regardless of where he places that feature, just what was he seeing? 

In all but the third of the Spratt maps above, a channel of water seems to spring up from Kalifat in the plain, and head north east, toward Hissarlik. In the third of the maps, however, we see that the so called Winter Channel of the Scamander is feeding water around a circular area with a village in it. What on earth was Spratt looking at?  

One possibility is that there was a village in the plain that was bulldozed or otherwise eliminated, and a new village was built on the foot of the prominence, as we see it today.  

I cannot eliminate that possibility, but I doubt it.  That old village would have been directly in what Spratt calls the winter channel.  Possibly in the declivity that represents the old city's reservoir.  I very much doubt a village would be there due to flood risk.  

I suspect Spratt saw something else, and placed Kalifat badly as well.