Historical story

Turkey Trojan Heroes

The German archaeologist and adventurer Heinrich Schliemann discovered the Homeric city of Troy in the Ottoman Empire. The treasures he found during his first excavation campaign (1870-1874) he illegally took home. New research reveals that the Ottomans were deeply outraged by this art theft. But also that they began to appropriate the intellectual heritage of Greek antiquity.

During the period when Schliemann (1822-1890) dug his shovel into Ottoman soil, the enormous empire was in dire straits. Nationalist separatist movements stirred and imperialist Europeans lurked outside the borders eagerly for the weakened Turkish area.

Ottomans bite back

Modernization was desperately needed in the Ottoman Empire at the end of the nineteenth century. To this end, reform movements looked at European history and the ideals of the Enlightenment with a slanted eye. They went back to classical antiquity, of which they had been geographically part, and sought links to their contemporary civilisation. The Islamic subjects, and especially the elite, became interested in pre-Islamic classical literature.

Günay Uslu, cultural scientist at the University of Amsterdam, discovered through a detailed study of Ottoman sources from the nineteenth century that this interest was much greater than can be found in literature. Western sources have been mainly used for historical research into archaeological excavations, which means that the Ottoman involvement has remained rather underexposed. Yet the Ottomans, with strict legislation regarding the excavations, their own archaeologists and even a large museum at the end of the nineteenth century, showed that Europe did not have the exclusive right to the legendary Troy.

Robbing archaeologists

Europe would have owed its cultural identity to its Greek and Roman ancestors, but a large part of the classical empires was really on Ottoman territory. The fact that European archaeologists ran off with the legacy of antiquity in the nineteenth century disturbed the Ottomans immensely. They amended the legislation several times, such as in 1884:a ban on the export of original archaeological finds, restriction of the issue of excavation permits and restrictions on foreign visitors to the archaeological sites.

This law, and its strict supervision, had a deterrent effect on European archaeologists. That the Ottomans were serious about the cultural heritage of classical antiquity is also apparent from the increasing participation of Turkish archaeologists in excavations at the end of the nineteenth century and in exhibiting it in their own Imperial Museum.

The Ottoman inspection service kept a close eye on Schliemann during new excavations in Troy because of his previous looting. The Germans saw this mainly as bullying:classical antiquity belonged to Europe. The Ottomans, on the other hand, only wanted to preserve their heritage and add the mythical stories surrounding Troy to their own historiography. The excavation of Troy had caused enthusiasm not only in Europe. Troy was no longer an epic city, but real and even tangible to the Ottomans. This led to several translations of the Iliad into Ottoman.

The legendary story of Troy only really became part of Turkish history after the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915. Just as the Trojan heroes had to defend the coast against enemies from the west, the Ottoman army now faced an aggressive Western enemy again. The Ottomans won the battle and commander Mustafa Kemal (1881-1938) was the great hero. He would become the first president of the Turkish Republic in 1923 under the name Atatürk.

Gunay Uslu, Homer, Troy and the Turks. Heritage &Identity in the Late Ottoman Empire 1870-1915 (UvA PhD defense 13 November 2015)

In Europe we see classical antiquity mainly as the cradle of our own civilization, despite the fact that a large part of history took place in present-day Turkey. Günay Uslu explored the Ottoman perspective on Homer and Troy and their involvement in the archeology of Troy.

Read more about Troy and Homer on Kennislink