The rediscovery of the ancient city of Troy involved several key figures and spanned many years. While the approximate location of Troy was generally known from ancient Greek and Latin writings, the precise site remained unidentified until the modern era. In 1822 Charles Maclaren proposed that the mound known as Hisarlık was the site of Homeric Troy, but most Classical scholars thought that Troy was either located at Bunarbashi (Pınarbaşı) or that the city was fictional. Frank Calvert, a scholarly amateur archaeologist, conducted exploratory work at Hisarlık beginning in 1860 and persuaded German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann to excavate at the mound. Schliemann’s investigations between 1870 and 1890 exposed the remains of a walled citadel, and the majority of scholars came to accept the identification of Troy with Hisarlık.
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