Did the Trojan War really happen?

For centuries, the Trojan War was considered pure myth — a poetic invention of Homer’s epic imagination. Yet the story refused to die, and generations of scholars wondered whether the ten‑year siege of Troy had a historical kernel beneath its legendary surface.

The sceptical tradition

Ancient doubts and modern scholarship

[Placeholder body paragraph]. Even in antiquity, some writers questioned the war’s historicity. Thucydides treated it as an early, albeit less documented, conflict. By the 19th century, most academics dismissed Troy as a fable — a backdrop for heroic poetry rather than a real place.

The mound of Hisarlik

Then came Heinrich Schliemann, a wealthy German merchant with a passion for Homer. Following the text like a treasure map, he excavated the mound of Hisarlik in modern‑day Turkey and uncovered the remains of a great citadel — a discovery that reignited belief in a real Trojan War.