Reading Troy: Text, Site and Museum

2021-7
Selçuk, Ayşe Mina
The ancient city of Troy has been known universally as the site of Homer’s Iliad, witness of the legendary Trojan War, and the home of mythological characters immortalized in the epic prose. Troy can also be regarded as one of the cradles of the history of architecture where nine distinct settlements were unearthed in the same mound. Highlighting the real and conceptual city further, the new museum of Troy which has renovated displays and animations of the holdings in the collection as a product of both ancient and modern history opened its doors with the declaration of the “Year of Troy” in 2018. This study is intended to investigate multiple readings of Troy triggered by the story in the Iliad starting from the remarkable discovery of the site and first excavations. Representations of Troy are examined by using selected case build-ups. In doing so, the idea is to find common grounds for the organization of the literary text, archaeological site, and design of displays in the new museum. This thesis aims to show how different mindsets and approaches over the ancient settlement overlap, complement and sometimes even contradict each other. The aim here is to bring together different perspectives to the Trojan narrative by creating aggregate imaginary and factual perceptions over Troy by readings in different frames and creating analogies. In addition to the different perspectives, similar to the new museum assembling the antique and the modern under its roof, the concept of the thesis is to gather the various frames under the same metaphoric roof from the past to the present.

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Citation Formats
A. M. Selçuk, “Reading Troy: Text, Site and Museum,” M.A. - Master of Arts, Middle East Technical University, 2021.