Treasure hunt begins in England

Chapter 984 City Analysis

Due to a series of discoveries, Liang En and the others can basically confirm that this ruin is indeed the legendary Troy, and during the excavation of the most prosperous sixth-level ruins, they also discovered a feature of urban construction.

This feature is that because Troy is located at the junction of the two civilizations, it can be seen from the architectural remains that it is not only different from the castles in the Aegean world, but also different from the craftsmanship of the Hittites.

For example, the tightly intertwined limestone blocks on the ruins of the city wall, as well as the unique upward-sloping wall structure, seem to reflect the native architectural style of Northwestern Anatolia.

This style continued for many centuries in Hisarlik, before it was found in the ancient Phrygian city of neighboring Gordion.

From this point, it can basically be seen that Troy is not a single city, but a member of the civilized city-states in the western part of the Anatolian Peninsula.

Thanks to this method of construction, the magnificent city wall on the south side of the Troy site is still well preserved. What is impressive is the protruding tower at the southeast end. Although no mortar is used, its structure is so tight.

There is also a fort about 18 meters wide in the east, and the remaining height today exceeds 9 meters.The fort may have been a watchtower with a view across the plains of Seymois and the eastern entrance into the highlands.

The fort does not exist alone, a 180m long, spectacular wall carved out of large limestone blocks runs through the northern hill of the hill.

That is to say, he was part of a tight defense system, but unfortunately the ancient builders caused serious damage to it and buried it under newer strata.

Thanks to ground-penetrating radar, they discovered the grand structure of the wall: here the wall makes a sharp turn and descends 12 meters in just 7 meters.A stepped base is formed.

The subterranean part of this foundation was about 7m high, enough to support a fortress over 18m in height, unfortunately more specific details could never be clarified as the superstructure was dug away by those building New Troy.

Compared with the strong city wall here, the thickness of the city wall built later in time is only half of that of the previous city wall. The stones used are smaller and rougher, and the foundation of the wall is also shallow, so the degree of sturdiness is obviously far less.

Of course, Liang En and the others didn't just study these defense formulas in the past month or so. For example, they found that all the roads seemed to lead to the western top of the small hill.Then it was deduced that this was the location of the imperial palace.

On the terraces below the palace are the foundations of some 25 houses that are supposed to house the royal valets and relatives, while the king's brothers and sons may have had their own separate residences.

From today's point of view, whether it is the royal relatives or the close officials and relatives, the living is too simple. Whether it is the royal family with only some private residences or the ministers who need everyone to live in collective dormitories, it is completely different from what people imagined before.

But in that era, this was already the top-level residence. After all, most people in that era had only one grass shed or rammed earth hut to live in. Not only did the whole family live in one house, but they even lived with livestock.

After all, for humans at that time, those animals often represented the most precious wealth of the family, even more expensive than some family members, so it became a very normal thing for humans and animals to live together.

Perhaps because some houses are more similar to today's collective dormitories, the largest houses are all two-story large buildings with a length of nearly 27m.

These buildings are similar to the central halls of Tiryns and Mycenae, where the local nobles and warriors met, the only difference being that the buildings on the Troy side were accessed through side doors.

This form of architecture is also found in other parts of the world, mainly to avoid the dust and noise of the road, and to facilitate a certain advantage in war years.

One of these buildings is located near the south city gate. The building known as the "pillared mansion" has become the main object of Liang En's excavation at this stage because there are not many ruins piled up on it.

During the excavation, they found that the foundation of the building was 26m long and 12m wide. From the decorations and traces of fire, it can be seen that the building has a main hall and a kitchen.

Although the building has long been completely collapsed, it can still be seen that the roof is supported by some large stone pillars, one of which has survived to this day.

The upper floor of the building is probably a wooden frame structure, with mud brick walls and plaster, with windows and doors, and may have a dormer roof, which is still seen in northwestern Anatolia today. An ancient architectural style.

The skylights of buildings in many ancient civilizations were a necessity, because the buildings of that era were often made of woven plants plus soil, or directly rammed earth structures. The structural defects made them far less perfect than today's houses.

To give the simplest example, although buildings with this structure are much more advanced than living in caves or living directly in the wild, the fragility and irrationality of the structure are also very prominent, such as the walls are very fragile.

Therefore, in the ruins of the earliest human city of Catarhuy found in Turkey, it can be seen that the buildings built by people of that era did not even have doors at all.

This is a city more than 8000 years ago, with more than 1000 adobe houses and a population of more than 6000.The house has uniform specifications and consists of a living room and several auxiliary rooms, which are connected by some small holes of about 70cm.

There are no doors and windows on the ground floor of the house, only a skylight with an entrance and exit on the second floor. People who want to enter the room must climb up the ladder to the second floor, and then enter the room through the skylight.

In addition to housing structural issues, choosing skylights is also related to lighting.At least before there is no light-transmitting material, the small holes that are barely dug in the walls are not enough for lighting at all.

As for artificial light sources, there was no need to consider them in ancient times.Because that cost is simply unaffordable except for a very small number of top princes and nobles.

In addition to the cognition of the architectural structure, Liang En and the others also found more clues, such as the last stage of Troy, this kind of building is likely to be used as an armory or a barracks.

Because a large number of slingshots were found inside, as well as signs of a large amount of food being consumed, etc., all of which indicated that organized armed forces had been stationed in this place for a long time. Based on the strict city defense at the same time, it can be judged that the situation at that time was very bad.

After all, this place is an extremely rich city, and there are definitely not a few forces that covet it, and it is naturally unlikely that this kind of hostility will be hidden from the Trojans.

It's just that the way the city was destroyed in the end was not because of the invasion of foreign enemies. At least from the clues obtained from the wreckage of those buildings, the city was finally destroyed by a large-scale earthquake.

It can be seen here that whether it is ancient or modern, the first thing that is most likely to destroy a city is war, and the second is various natural disasters.

Even if today's cities are still very vulnerable to earthquakes, floods or typhoons, from this point of view, cities in ancient and modern times are still very similar.

(End of this chapter)