A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers will travel to the land of ancient heroes such as Achilles and Odysseus when a new project to continue excavation efforts on the historic city of Troy, located in modern-day Turkey, begins.
UW-Madison Classics professor William Aylward will lead a team of archaeologists and other scientists and UW-Madison students to the site beginning in July 2013.
Only about 10 percent of the site has already been excavated, according to Aylward, but he said the city is significant because it shaped the beginning of western civilization.
“Returning to Troy and investigating Troy is an opportunity for us to, yet again, investigate who we are and where we came from,” Aylward said.
The site was previously excavated by a collaboration between the University of Cincinnati and the University of Tübingen in Germany. Aylward attended and worked at the site for 15 years previously.
Aylward said opportunities for students, faculty and researchers will “increase dramatically” now that UW-Madison is leading the efforts.
Aylward began his work at Troy as a student in 1996, but the project he collaborated on ended in 2012, giving him the opportunity to start the new effort headed by UW-Madison, which allows him to continue to bring students to the area.
“When I took a job here as a professor in the Classics department, I resolved to make it my mission to bring students to Troy so that they could share the experience that I had when I first went there to be engaged in this really magical, special place,” Aylward said.
