The legendary city of the Iliad - nine successive settlements spanning 4,500
years. Wine appears throughout Homer's account of the Trojan War. The site is complex but
evocative, and the new museum contextualizes the layers of occupation. UNESCO World
Heritage site.
What to do there
3 things to do
The depas amphikypellon: Homer described it, Schliemann found it, new science just proved everyone in 2500 BC drank from one
The depas amphikypellon (two-handled cylindrical goblet) appears in Homer's Iliad as a prestigious drinking cup. When Heinrich Schliemann excavated Troy in the 1870s, he found dozens of these cups and believed he had found Priam's treasure. The assumption was: these cups were for ELITE wine rituals - kings, heroes, the ruling class only. Then in 2025, NEW RESEARCH published from analysis of Troy findings rewrote this entirely. Wine drinking in Troy around 2500 BC was NOT restricted to upper classes. EVERYONE drank wine. And they drank a LOT of it. The cup from Homer's epic was, in fact, the ancient equivalent of an everyday glass. In the Troy Museum (separate building, €27 ticket, summer hours 08:30-20:00, Canakkale province), find the depas amphikypellon display - the two-handled cylindrical goblets that Schliemann called 'the cups of Priam.' Read the description card carefully and ask: 'Are there any displays about the 2025 wine consumption research?'
Backup:If the museum is closed, the site itself has information boards about the Bronze Age layers and large stone pithos storage vessels that held the wine everyone was drinking.
Nine cities stacked on top of each other - the wine story runs through all of them
Troy was occupied continuously for 4,500 years - nine successive cities built on top of each other. EVERY single one of those cities made wine. Wine consumption at Troy goes back to at least 2500 BC (Early Bronze Age, Troy II). By the time of the Trojan War (believed to be Troy VI or VIIa, around 1300-1200 BC), wine was already a 1,200-year-old institution here. Homer's wine references in the Iliad - Priam drinking, the gods drinking, warriors sharing cups before battle - are not myth. They are accurate descriptions of a wine culture that archaeology has now proven was genuinely democratic: not just for kings. Find the stratigraphic section display near the entrance to Troy archaeological site showing the nine layers (Troy I through Troy IX). Count down from the visible surface to Troy II (where the 2500 BC wine evidence is). Count back up to Troy VI/VIIa (the Trojan War level). You are looking at 1,200 years of continuous wine history compressed into about 8 meters of earth.
Backup:The wooden Trojan Horse reconstruction in the site car park is free to climb inside and reminds you that wine was in every telling of Troy's story for 3,000 years.
The greatest amateur archaeologist in history found Troy - and got it wrong by 1,000 years
Schliemann was so obsessed with finding Homer's Troy (Troy VI, around 1300 BC) that he BLASTED through it with explosives. The treasure he found and called 'Priam's Gold' was actually from Troy II (2500 BC) - 1,200 years EARLIER than Priam's time. He destroyed the archaeological evidence of the actual Trojan War to find the wrong level. The cups he found (depas amphikypellon) that he thought were Priam's ceremonial vessels were actually Bronze Age everyday drinking cups. And the 2025 research proves: they were used by everyone, not just elites. Stand at the edge of the Schliemann trench (the massive ditch cut through the center of the Troy mound in 1871-1873). This is the most expensive archaeological mistake in history - the man who proved Troy was real also destroyed the most important layer of it. Ask the site guides: 'What did Schliemann destroy when he dug this trench?'
Backup:The information boards near the trench explain Schliemann's methodology and the different excavation campaigns - the layers are now dated with precision.
