Was there really a Trojan war?

I know there is a city called Troy in Turkey, but did the events of Homer's Iliad ever happen? How would we ever know?

Was there really a Trojan war?systemworks

Schlieman did find Troy in Turkey, but he wasn't very good as an archeologist--he dug right through the layer that would have been the time of the Trojan war. They are excavating the site now, and they have found what look like burned-out walls. They also have found what looks like the remains of a harbor that is exactly as Homer described it--it just got silted in over the years. Finally, a documentary was done a few years back in which they were given permission to use military hardware to simulate how the battle would best be fought on the terrain by the Greeks, and surprisingly, it matched Homer's description. They're finding more and more evidence that the ancient Greek ''myths'' have some basis in fact. For example, Plato's ''Atlantis'' may have been the Minoan civilization, which was destroyed when a massive eruption took place on Santorini in 1500 BC. It would have created a tidal wave large enough to knock even the earthquake-proof walls the Minoans off their very foundations. It left an ash cloud 1/2 mile across, and spewed lava as far away as the Nile delta. The remains of the civilization that have been found were far advanced, compared to anything the Greeks of the time had, and could easily be seen the way Plato described it (myths like they invented airplanes and the like came much later).