Troy VI
About 1900 BC, new people moved into Troy. We don't know what happened to the Troy V people, but these new Troy VI people totally rebuilt the city. We know these were new people because they used very different kinds of pottery from the Troy V people, including the same Gray Minyan Ware that the Greeks brought to Greece about the same time. Also, like the Greek invaders of Greece, the new Troy VI people have horses. Probably the Troy VI people were Indo-Europeans who came from the area between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea in modern Georgia.
The new Troy was much bigger than the old one, and better built. The Troy VI people built new stone walls, which were very high and very strong, and enclosed a bigger space. It looks like they already knew a lot about stone walls before they arrived. Inside the walls, roads led from one terrace to another (like Minas Tirith in the Return of the King) up to some sort of palace building, called the Pillar House. But the Pillar House took up so much room that most of the several thousand people of Troy VI now had to live outside the walls again, the way they did in Troy II.
By 1400 BC, the Troy VI people traded a lot with the Mycenaean Greeks to their west, and also with the Hittites to their east. Archaeologists have found lots of Mycenaean pottery at Troy. It's possible that the Troy VI people were trading horses to the Mycenaeans in exchange - Homer calls Troy the "city of good horses". Or it might have been cloth (archaeologists have found lots of spindle whorls at Troy).
But about 1250 BC, a huge earthquake destroyed Troy VI.
Back to Troy V
On to Troy VII
Main West Asia page
