Trojans ruled in Bronze Age, until the horse came along

"When did the Trojans rule?" asked Grant Brekenridge, 11, a sixth-grader at Highland Middle School in Libertyville.

The story goes like this. About 3,000 years ago the City of Sparta in Greece and the City of Troy were at war. Spartan soldiers had tried for years to break into Troy and recapture their ruler's wife, the most beautiful woman in the world, now known as Helen of Troy.

After years of battle between soldiers from the two cities, Spartan soldiers crafted a gigantic wooden horse, hid soldiers inside and left it outside the walled City of Troy. How interesting, the Trojans thought. They were convinced by a "deserter" of the Greek army that the horse would fortify Troy, so they took it within their walls, debated its worth, and went to sleep.

Then the Spartan soldiers burst out of a secret door in the horse, surprised their Trojan foes in their sleep and took over the city.

Movies and books, comic books and video games have retold the epic war story. Homer's book "The Iliad," the oldest version of the story, goes back 2,700 years. To date, no one has discovered a Trojan version of the story.

Excavations at a site in modern-day Turkey were begun in the late 1800s. "No texts or inscriptions that record the city's Bronze Age name have yet been found on the site," said Cameron Hawkins, assistant professor of ancient history at the University of Chicago.

And without artifacts that show writing from Trojan authors or artists, there's no way to be sure that the remains are from the legendary City of Troy.

"There is still some disagreement about whether or not we've correctly identified the site of ancient Troy," Hawkins said.

The place that is believed to be ancient Troy sits on top of a hill called Hisarlik overlooking the Aegean Sea. Archaeological digs that began in the 1870s have identified many thriving cities that have occupied that one hilltop location going back 3,500 years. "There are nine distinct layers, each built upon the remains of older buildings. The layer that corresponds to the Trojan War, if in fact there was a historical Trojan War, is Troy VI, conventionally dated to the period from 1700 B.C. to about 1280 B.C.," Hawkins said.

Swords, jewelry and pieces of pottery from those excavations are on display in several museums.

The site of the excavations, declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations, is open to the public. Overlooking the broken stone walls that might have protected the fabled city is a newly created giant wooden horse like the one that led to the fall of Troy.

Check these out

The Cook Memorial Library in Libertyville suggests these titles on the Ancient City of Troy:

• "In Search of Troy - One Man's Quest for Homer's Fabled City," by Giovanni Caselli

• "Troy - Unearthing Ancient Worlds," by Ann Kerns

• "In Search for Lost Cities," by Nicola Barber

• "The Wooden Horse of Troy," by John Malam