What the work claims
Schliemann claimed to have found Homer’s Troy — specifically, Priam’s Treasure in the ‘Burnt City’ layer — validating the historicity of the Iliad.
How it was done
Schliemann excavated at Hisarlık using trench excavation. He performed soundings at Pınarbaşı to test its suitability as Troy’s site, but abandoned it after poor results.
What holds up
His discovery of nine buried cities at Hisarlık by 1873 holds. So does his recovery of Bronze Age material — pure copper, molds, tools, cutlery, shields, and vases — at 28–29½ feet depth. Recent research confirms multiple settlements spanning 3,600 years at the site.
What does not
Schliemann’s identification of the ‘Burnt City’ layer as Homeric Troy does not hold. It is now dated 3,000–2,000 BC — too early for the Trojan War as described by Homer.
Why it matters beyond the lab
It matters because Schliemann’s work established archaeology as a tool for myth-testing — but also demonstrated how excavation without stratigraphic discipline can erase the very evidence needed to verify its own claims.
Is it worth your time
Yes — if you want to understand how foundational archaeological claims are built, then undermined, by method and dating. Not for what it proved, but for how it exposed the gap between narrative ambition and stratigraphic evidence.
