Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 15 August 1980:
Vol. 209. no. 4458, pp. 776 - 782
DOI: 10.1126/science.209.4458.776
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Geomorphic Reconstructions in the Environs of Ancient Troy

John C. Kraft 1, Ilhan Kayan 2, and Ogbreveuz Erol 3

1 Professor and chairperson of the Department of Geology at the University of Delaware, Newark 19711
2 Associate professor at the Physical Geography Department in the University of Ankara, Ankara, Turkey
3 Professor at the Physical Geography Department in the University of Ankara, Ankara, Turkey

Sea level rise, deltaic progradation, and floodplain aggradation have changed the landscape in the vicinity of ancient Troy during the past 10,000 years. With the waning of the last major world glaciation and resultant sea level rise and fluctuation, a marine embayment protruded nearly 10 kilometers south of the site of Troy at Hisarlik in the Troad of northwest Turkey. As the sea approached its present level approximately 6000 years ago, fluvial and marine deposition caused a northerly migration of the delta and floodplain of the Scamander and Simois Rivers past the site of Troy toward the present-day coast about 6 kilometers north of the site. In view of these major changes in morphology, interpretations of ancient geographies related to historical or historical-mythological settings must be changed. A number of paleogeographic maps have been reconstructed with the use of subsurface data that records the continuing landscape change since the first occupancy of the site at Troy 5000 years ago. These show that ancient Troy was located on an embayment of the sea. If the Trojan War occurred, then the axis of the battlefield and associated events must be relocated to the south and west of Troy.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Stratigraphy of late-Holocene deposits of the ancient harbour of Marseilles, southern France.
C. Morhange, C. Morhange, F. Blanc, S. Schmitt-Mercury, M. Bourcier, P. Carbonel, C. Oberlin, A. Prone, D. Vivent, and A. Hesnard (2003)
The Holocene 13, 593-604
   Abstract »    PDF »
Harbor areas at ancient Troy: Sedimentology and geomorphology complement Homer's Iliad.
J. C. Kraft, G. Rapp, I. Kayan, and J. V. Luce (2003)
Geology 31, 163-166
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)