Rethinking Troy: how years of careful peace, not epic war, shaped this bronze age city

Imagine a city that thrived for thousands of years, its streets alive with workshops, markets and the laughter of children, yet that is remembered for a single night of fire. That city is Troy.

Long before Homer’s epics immortalised its fall, Troy was a place of everyday life. Potters shaped jars and bowls destined to travel far beyond the settlement itself, moving through wide horizons of exchange and connection.

Bronze tools rang in busy workshops. Traders called across the...