Starting My Treasure Hunting In England

Because an ancient city wall was dug out, everyone's morale was boosted, and at the same time, more manpower was invested in the excavation work.

In addition to recruiting people from within the Golden Dawn, they also found a series of reliable professionals who were good at excavation through a series of connections.

For example, Liang En found two teams of more than 20 professional archaeologists from China through connections, while Nelson also found a dozen similarly professional archaeological team members from the UK.

Even President Charles, who was not in good health and no longer carried out field excavation work, made a special trip to Turkey, rushed to the site and visited the site.

At this time, everyone's excavation work has been going on for a month, so the ruins of the entire city are being cleared bit by bit with the help of more and more people.

The biggest discovery during this cleanup came from the very deep caves. After sampling and analysis, they were able to determine that this ruin was not a single ruin, but a large number of ruins superimposed.

Through exploration, it can be determined that the entire ruins are 30 meters deep and contain ancient city ruins belonging to nine periods, from 3000 BC to 400 AD.

The most obvious ones are naturally the Temple of Athena from the Roman Empire in 400 AD, as well as the ruins of the meeting hall, market and theater, etc. Because these are ground-level buildings, everyone can see them when they come.

But this does not mean that no important relics have been found in other strata. Especially with the help of a series of modern technologies such as ground-penetrating radar, they have discovered many things that have never been discovered before.

Although these discoveries were fragmentary, they still allowed Liang En and the other archaeologists to successfully obtain a lot of information, the most important of which was a preliminary and general understanding of the entire ruins.

According to the inspection results, the lowest level of this ruins, which is what everyone labels the first level, is a small stone castle with a diameter of only more than 90 meters from about 3300 to 2500 BC, which is also the beginning of the entire city.

Even though the diameter of 90m sounds very small, it was already considered a big city at that time. After all, thousands of years ago, there were basically no city walls that could wrap around the entire city in either the East or the West.

In that era, people often chose a highland to build a large castle that integrated armories, military camps, palaces, granaries and other core departments as the core of the city, surrounded by ordinary residential areas without much defense.

In other words, the fortified part of the city at that time was closer to the future Miyagi Castle, so it was indeed a very large city with a diameter of 90 meters.

Level 2: Around 2500 BC to 2200 BC, the city began to prosper, with strong castles built, residents living in the city and paved roads.

A large amount of ashes were excavated at multiple survey points on this layer, but the cause of the destruction was unknown. For example, Nelson felt that the castle was probably destroyed in the smoke of war.

However, Liang En does not agree with this view, because considering that this city is in a volcanic and seismic zone, it may also be traces of volcanic fires.

But in any case, a prosperous city disappeared into history. After that, the 3rd, 4th, and 5th layers were around 2200 BC to 1800 BC. The city was larger, but its development scale and level were not high.

At least judging from the results detected by Liang En and others, although the distribution range of the buildings here is no worse than before, there is a visible difference in the quality of the buildings compared with before.

For example, this can be seen from the foundation stones. The stone processing during this period was obviously much rougher than before, which clearly reflected the decline of the city.

However, there is always a cycle of rise and fall. The city built on the sixth level, between 1800 and 1275 BC, is the most prosperous and largest urban ruins in the region.

For example, the huge city wall structure they excavated proves this point. Because the buildings during this period were the largest and most exquisite, there were more relics left behind.

These ruins cost Liang En and the others a lot of time and energy, and in return they had the deepest understanding of the city at this stage among the many layers of ruins.

This problem arose because the relics of this period were so prosperous, so everyone initially thought it was Homer's Troy. As a result, when everyone was almost done digging, they discovered through the excavated cultural relics that they had dug in the wrong place.

However, everyone had invested too much time and energy at that time, and this ruins did have high excavation value, so after a brief discussion, we decided to make mistakes and check the ruins on this layer first.

Through excavation, they discovered that the castle is located in a strategic position on the west side of the highland, gradually rising along three concentric terraces. Its highest point is about 40m above sea level, and its lowest point is about 30m.

The entire castle covers an area of ​​100m×180m. A deep well located in the east fortress can ensure the water supply in the city.

The exquisite city wall was rebuilt twice, and the final appearance with towers was the product of continuous construction by three or four generations of rulers after 1400 BC.

The defense facilities of the entire castle are the strongest on the landward side. This side has the highest walls, the strongest gates and towers, because both the inland areas and the countries in western Anatolia can choose roads leading to the city-state.

Visitors from the Bronze Age who wanted to enter the city had to walk through the passage between the houses outside the castle to the south gate, and then walk up the paved streets to the king's palace.

As for the edge of the city gate, some traces of burning were found. At first, everyone thought they were left by war or fire, but a large number of burnt animal bones and exquisite carvings proved that it was an altar.

It is possible that gods were the core of a civilization in that era. Locals had to offer sacrifices to the gods before going on a long journey or participating in battle; similarly, strangers had to offer sacrifices to the gods before entering the city-state.

The discovery of the altar has greatly increased the possibility that this is Homer's Troy, because it is repeatedly mentioned in the epic that the Greeks called Troy "Holy Ilios", and these religious occasions just prove this.

In addition to the south gate, the city has two other gates, east and west, and there is a similar altar outside each gate. At the same time, for military considerations, there are side gates beside each gate.

As for the focus of the excavation near the south gate, they found more interesting things: a large fortress facing east, that is, towards the land.

It can be seen that at that time, the city’s enemies mainly came from the land direction in the east, rather than the sea direction in the west. This is consistent with the known history:

The Mycenaeans in Greece had not yet risen at that time. Their maritime power could harass shipping lanes, but they were unable to conduct large-scale cross-country expeditions.

On the contrary, the Hittite Empire located in the interior was in its heyday, and as a classical militaristic country, its neighbors were bound to be wary of it.

This is why the defense focus of this city's ruins is placed in the east. After all, their main threat comes from the east, so the defense will naturally face the east.