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The foundation of Western literature can be traced back to Ancient Greek epic. The Homeric works known as ''The Iliad'' and ''The Odyssey'' are among the most well known works of literature in the western canon. They tell the story of the Trojan War, a ten year siege of a city called Troy by the Greeks. The Illiad tell the story of how a beautiful wife of King Meneleus, called Helen, was kidnapped by the Trojan prince Paris. To bring Helen back and punish the Trojans for Paris’s crime, Meneleus led a massive invasion of Troy by Achean troops. For ten years the Greeks laid siege to the city of Troy until finally it fell and was ransacked and destroyed.

Three thousand years later the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann uncovered a site, known as Hisarlik, which many experts believe is the fabled city of Troy. The city was clearly destroyed sometime in the late Bronze Age. However, the question of whether or not that destruction was the work of a Greek army is unanswered. Archaeologists have long studied the site and still disagree on the likelihood that such an event took place. Sources are limited and experts are still divided over whether the story in the Illiad represents an actual war.

Archaeologists know that VIh was destroyed in a violent fashion sometime during the 13th century, but the nature of its destruction is not known. The site was not particularly impressive, with a small citadel and only a few broken foundations that remain today. As such there is very little evidence of a large settlement and archaeologists speculate that this site could have been destroyed by a natural disaster, an invasion or some other destructive event. <ref>Bryce, 187-188.</ref> Other levels of the site are known to have been destroyed by human violence, including VIIa, but most have ruled these levels out as likely candidates for the city of Troy from the Iliad.<ref>Finley, 1.</ref>

==Theories about the historical likelihood of a Trojan War==

Due to the lack of useful evidence at Hisarlik, archaeologists continue to disagree on whether or not the Trojan War really took place. Carl Blegen, an archaeologist who excavated at Hisarlik in the 1930s, has said that “it can no longer be doubted” that the Greeks laid siege to the site known as Hisarlik and ultimately destroyed it.<ref>Blegen, Carl William. ''Troy and the Trojans''. New York: Praeger, 1963, p. 20.</ref> However, that opinion was based on the belief that level VIIa was the fabled Troy, and modern experts disagree.