UC has connection to city of legend behind 'Odyssey'

A University of Cincinnati archaeologist documented the city of Troy while working on excavations at the famous site of the Trojan War in the years leading up to World War II.

Now director Christopher Nolan will introduce this city of legend to new audiences in the movie “The Odyssey,“ which opens today. Based on Homer's epic poem, the movie tells the story of Odysseus' victory over the Trojans at Troy and his quest to return home to Ithaca set against the mythology of ancient Greece.

But historians say the Troy mentioned in Homer's works was a real city in what is now northwest Turkey. And famed UC Classics archaeologist Carl Blegen (1887-1971) helped unearth it during excavations he led between 1932 and 1938. Blegen and his team chronicled their discoveries and daily life at the site through hundreds of photographs in UC's Troy digital archive.

Archaeologist Wilhelm Dorpfeld, who excavated Troy in the 1880s, returned to help UC plan its 1930s excavations. Here he leads a tour for visitors to the site. Video/Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati

The public archive features images of the antiquities and long-forgotten structures that made up the city. But the collection also contains Blegen's meticulous field notes, correspondence and accounting ledgers from the years-long project.

Blegen is credited with identifying the nine distinct periods of settlement in Troy's history when the city was built and rebuilt over the millennia.

Troy was the backdrop for one of Greek mythology’s most dramatic stories: the war between the Greeks and Trojans. The stories feature the heroes Odysseus, Hector, Ajax and Achilles, who was cut down by an arrow to his heel. It spawned legends such as the Trojan Horse, within which the Greeks hid to gain entry to the fortified city.

Blegen and UC archaeologist Marion Rawson captured 19 albums of photos of the excavation and daily life in Turkey. They depict the painstaking work of revealing long-buried artifacts as well as the craftsmen who meticulously reassembled pottery from the broken shards.

They also capture the daily lives of the workers and scholars who spent years at the site. Naturally, there are even a few cat photos.

UC Classics archivist and Junior Research Associate Jeffrey Kramer spoke to WVXU about the wealth of valuable records contained in the Troy Digital Archive.

“The more we excavate — not only at Troy but all these other sites in the entire Aegean — we find more about the people which we then learn, for the most part, were people just like us, with the same desires, the same dreams, the same wishes,” Kramer told WVXU.

Featured image at top: Visitors to Troy get a tour of the ruins in this 1934 photo. Photo/Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati