BBC History Magazine

MICHAEL WOOD ON…

Historical finds are spurring us on to the truth about the Trojan War

I recently went up to the wet and windy Lancashire coast, with trains disrupted by floods beyond Preston, to talk to the wonderful Lytham St Annes Classical

Association. It’s the biggest branch of the Classical Association in the UK, with almost 600 members, 400 of whom were crammed into a school hall on a cold night. There they shared their enthusiasm for the archaeology of; and the complex but mesmerising detail of the Hittite diplomatic archive, where we actually have correspondence between the Hittites and the Greeks at the time of the Trojan War – including one letter from the king of Achaeans, the real-life Agamemnon!

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