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In 1871, Heinrich Schliemann (1822–1890) announced that he had found Homer’s Troy—a city that many people had thought existed only in fantasy. The German-born Schliemann, pursuing what he claimed was a childhood dream, had decided to search for Troy by using descriptions in the Iliad as markers (the location of springs mentioned by Homer, for example). He set his sights on a mound called Hisarlik, in northwestern Anatolia; he cut a huge trench (shown here) through the mound and found an ancient city, which he identified as Homer’s Troy. In fact, this city was Troy II (2600–2480/20 B.C.)—about 1,000 years older than the great Bronze Age city of Troy VI that may be associated with Homer’s epics.