Commemoration and Pilgrimage in the Ancient World: Troy and the Stratigraphy of Cultural Memory

Abstract

This article takes up the subject of shared memory and its interaction with landscape, with specific reference to Troy, to Homer's Iliad, and to the tradition of ‘pilgrimage’ to Troy and its environs that evolved in the ancient world in response to the Trojan War story. Over the course of centuries this particular location on the Hellespont, a Bronze Age site, exercised a particular fascination, thanks to memories – no doubt gravely distorted – of a great siege by combined Greek forces eager to avenge, as legend tells it, the abduction of Helen. A few centuries later, the site became a destination for ‘pilgrims’ who were eager to see for themselves the landscape of Troy and the Troad and to experience for themselves, physically and emotionally, certain actions that were attributed to the heroes of the so-called Trojan War.