Homer`s tale of the abduction of Helen to Troy and the ten-year war to bring her back to Greece has fascinated mankind for centuries since he related it in The Iliad and The Odyssey. More recently, it has given rise to countless scholarly articles and books, extensive archaeological excavations, epic movies, television documentaries, stage plays, art and sculpture, even souvenirs and collectibles. However, while the ancients themselves thought that the Trojan War took place and was a pivotal event in world history, scholars during the Middle Ages and into the modern era derided it as a piece of fiction.

This book investigates two major questions: did the Trojan War take place and, if so, where? It ultimately demonstrates that a war or wars in the vicinity of Troy probably did take place in some way, shape, or form during the Late Bronze Age, thereby forming the nucleus of the story that was handed down orally for centuries until put into essentially final form by Homer. However, Cline suggests that although a Trojan War (or wars) probably did take place, it was not fought because of Helen`s abduction; there were far more compelling economic and political motives for conflict more than 3,000 years ago.

Aside from Homer, the book examines various classical literary sources: the Epic Cycle, a saga found at the Hittite capital of Hattusas, treatments of the story by the playwrights of classical Greece, and alternative versions or continuations of the saga such as Virgil`s Aeneid, which add detail but frequently contradict the original story. Cline also surveys archaeological attempts to document the Trojan War through excavations at Hissarlik, Turkey, especially the work of Heinrich Schliemann and his successors Wilhelm Dörpfeld, Carl Blegen, and Manfred Korfmann.

Table of Contents:
List of illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. The Trojan War
1 The story according to the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Epic Cycle
2 The war in historical context: Mycenaeans, Hittites, Trojans, and Sea Peoples
Part II. Investigating the Literary Evidence
3 Homeric questions: Did Homer exist and is the Iliad accurate?
4 The Hittite texts: Assuwa, Ahhiyawa, and Alaksandu of Wilusa
Part III. Investigating the archaeological evidence
5 Early excavators: Heinrich Schliemann and Wilhelm Dörpfeld
6 Returning to Hisarlik: Carl Blegen and Manfred Korfmann
Epilogue
Glossary: Characters and Places
References
Further reading
Index

Author Information:
Chair, Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations; professor of classics, Anthropology, and History; director, Capitol Archaeological Institute, The George Washington University. Author, Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2009), winner of the 2011 Biblical Aracheology Society Publication Award for the Best Popular Book on Archaeology; editor, The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean (forthcoming) et al.