The Madness of Troy
The colossal walls of Troy (layer VI)
The site of Troy is a maze. Towering outer walls suck us in. We are quickly disoriented. Which way forward? Which layer of history are we walking through? Hittite? Homeric? Hellenic? Classical? Roman? The tight walls lead us around a stone time warp that no one has figured out how to unravel. Where in all this mess hides the spirit of the mythical Trojan War?
We look and we try to piece it all together. Can we do a better job than the archaeologists that muddled things up?
Time is a vertical loop. The stones walls press down, deeper into the battered earth. The winds sweep across the plains and the grasses grow over.
Heinrich Schliemann is blamed for making this mess. But he both destroyed and created Troy. His dogged dream has made the rest of us follow, coming here with our own dreams and imaginations.
Many say that visiting the site of Troy isn’t worth it. Civilizations mashed into one clumpy batter.
Fortification walls torn to shreds
No temples or statues to dazzle
Utterly disappointing and … boring
But the cynics are wrong!
There’s no better tell than Troy to see
The madness of the archaeologist
Constructing a new ‘truth’ from destructed layers
Followed by another man’s obsession…and another…and....who really holds the prize?
Who, if anyone, has ‘discovered’ Troy?
Digging
Digging
Digging
Digging
Incessant heat. Tedious labor. Slashing winds.
The writhing and hissing of poisonous snakes
copulating in pits of past civilizations.
Interpreting each fragment. Each location.
Labeling. Precisely. Wrong!
Digging
Digging
Digging
Singed and abandoned layers
Bearing no words or deciphering key
Lodged deep … those seductive jewels and double axes …
in the voiceless layers of our own human psyche.
