On my trip to Greece and Turkey last year, we spent a day at the ancient ruins of Troy. Paul mentions Troas in Acts 16 & 20, 2 Corinthians 2 and 2 Timothy 4 although Troas is more of the region and the ancient city of Troy is probably not exactly where Paul visited. Our trip planner admitted that biblical significance was not why we were in Troy, mainly just because of Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey.
In case you were curious, the horse pictured is not the actual Trojan horse, just a replica for chubby tourists to stick their heads out of. There is actually no real evidence of Homer’s epic battle actually happening, but considering it happened some 3000 years ago that is no surprise. There were also something like seven versions of the city of Troy. They just kept building on top of the location. Our guide said there was evidence of a big battle at some point (though he didn’t know what the evidence was).
The city was pretty ingeniously defended though. They had huge 12 foot stone walls that sloped slightly to give people situated on top an easy angle to attack anyone who might try to climb. On top of the 12 foot stone walls, a wall of clay was built with holes in it for archers.
The main entrance ramp
There was a huge main entrance with a big ramp leading up to it, but in the case of invasion it would have been closed and relatively easy to defend. The best idea I thought were the side entrances. These were smaller and probably very heavily trafficked. To deter invaders they built walls on either side like a hallway and then a sharp turn to get to the door. This prevented anyone from being able to easily maneuver a battering ram in there. Even if they did get it in there, they couldn’t make the sharp turn to use the battering ram because of the wall behind them.
The side entrance to the ancient city of Troy
So if you were under the impression that people in ancient times were not as smart, how many of you would have come up with that idea?