Wooden Horse of Troy

Wooden Horse of Troy

The only thing we can say for sure about the Wooden Horse of Troy is that the real one didn’t have windows in it, like the souvenirs you see on sale. That would have been a giveaway. But the windows do convey that it was a means of transportation, a vehicle, except the Trojans seem not to have known this.

Odysseus has a brainwave

What we do know from ancient sources is this. The Greeks, having failed to knock out Troy with a frontal assault, resorted to a back-door stratagem. The goddess Athena implanted in the mind of Odysseus an idea, which he proposed to the other kings, who were by now tired of battling to overthrow Troy for the sake of Helen and suffering huge losses. The plan was that the Greek forces would pretend to give up this no-win situation and sail away. They would also build a large model horse as an offering to the goddess Athena and farewell gift to the Trojans and leave it on the open plain. In the horse would be hidden a crack team of Greek warriors who would open the Troy city gates at night after the Trojans had obligingly taken the horse into their city. For the plan to succeed the Trojans had to pull the horse inside the city (not leave it outside) and the presence of the men inside had to remain undetected. This required a lot of luck and not a little help from the gods.

The horse is built

The craftsman Epeios supervised the construction of the horse, which was built in three days from the lofty pine trees on Mount Ida. It was of massive size (30 m. long by 15 m. wide), adorned with gold, and had moveable knees, tail and glittering eyes. No expense was spared. There was room to comfortably seat 30-50 men inside and the mouth of the horse was left slightly open to give them a supply of fresh oxygen.

Sinon’s story

The Greek army burnt their tents and supplies and sailed away – but not far, just out of sight round the other side of the island of Tenedos a few km offshore. The enormous horse was left on the plain in full sight of the lookouts in Troy. The Trojans were happy to see the back of the Greeks but unsure of the horse. This eventuality had also been considered by Odysseus. A Greek soldier called Sinon was left as a plant. He was found hiding in the bushes and immediately taken prisoner by the Trojans. Trembling with fear, he spun a tale of how he had been chained up and was going to be sacrificed by the Greeks but had escaped. Sinon said that the horse was a gift for the Trojans because the horse was sacred to them and the emblem of Troy. It was also an offering to Athena to appease her for the Greeks stealing her image from the temple so that she would grant the ships a safe trip home. Sinon assured the Trojans the horse was completely harmless and would bring them luck. (Ed. Note: The horse was a minor symbol of Athena but was very important to Poseidon, who was Athena’s uncle. It was he who invented the horse. Athena and Poseidon always supported the Greek side throughout the Trojan War.)

Laocoon and the Serpents

The priest of Poseidon, Laocoon, was suspicious from the start and warned his fellow countrymen, crying out loudly, “Trojans, Don’t trust the horse! I fear the Greeks even bearing gifts!” Poseidon sent two sea serpents to strangle Laocoon and his sons. That was the end of him. King Priam’s daughter Cassandra, a prophetess, also warned the Trojans that it was all a trick, but no one believed her. The Trojans, it seems, were so drunk with victory they were oblivious to the danger.

The “Gift Horse”

The gods were with the Greeks and the “gift horse” was dragged into Troy and great festivities commenced. The Greeks led by Odysseus waited agonizingly inside the horse, taunted by Helen walking round it calling out their names and imitating the voices of their wives. They held their breath with great difficulty. The celebrations progressed and the wine flowed freely. At an opportune moment in the dead of night, when the Trojans were all asleep, the Greeks stealthily descended from the horse, opened the gates, and Sinon lit a torch and gave the signal from the top of the walls. As planned, the Greek forces waiting nearby rushed into the city and laid it to waste amidst great slaughter. The mighty city of Troy had fallen, as prophesized.

Questions about the Wooden Horse

Over time, the tale of the wooden horse was embellished considerably. There is no standard version. The fall of Troy is not even mentioned in the Iliad. Many questions have been raised about the wooden horse, the most obvious being: How did the Trojans ever fall for such a trick? Here are some questions to ponder.

1. If the horse was the symbol of the Trojans, why have the archaeologists not found any images of a horse at Troy?
2. Odysseus himself was inside the horse and perhaps other kings. He would have been a prize captive and bargaining chip if the men were caught.
3. In one version, Sinon told the Trojans that the horse was built so big to actually prevent them taking it inside the city. Was this supreme cunning or what? How did the horse fit through the gate? (Istanbul, the last Byzantine stronghold, was finally conquered through a back door in the walls being left open.)
4. Why didn’t the Trojans leave the horse outside and have their barbeque there? What made them take it inside the city?
5. The wooden horse, and the use of it as a stratagem at Troy, is unique. There were precedents in the form of Mycenaean siege machines and “wooden horse” battering rams developed by the Assyrians in the 12th century BC. Was the horse a representation of such a siege machine that took advantage of a breach in the wall resulting from an earthquake? But the walls were so thick that even today, after umpteen more earthquakes, the walls are still standing.
6. Poseidon was the God of the Seas and Oceans. He was also “the Earthshaker”, God of Earthquakes. And he created the first horse, thus becoming God of Horses too. Coincidence?
7. If the walls had fallen down due to an earthquake, why did the Greeks need a wooden horse to infiltrate the city in the first place?
8. The story of the wooden horse was circulating in the ancient world very soon after the event. It was breaking news. So it can’t have been just made up.
9. Some versions of the legend say that part of the wall was demolished to bring the horse in, because of its size, and then hastily blocked off. Is this credible? How big was it really? How can you dismantle walls 4 m. thick? Is the horse only a symbolic representation of Greeks capturing Troy?

Wooden Horse in Canakkale

The wooden horse used in the Brad Pitt movie of “Troy” was first erected outside the cinema in Potsdamer Platz for the world premiere in Berlin in May 2004. From Berlin, the horse galloped to Japan for a promotional tour to satisfy the longings of Brad Pitt’s many fans in that country. A deal was then signed between Warner Bros and the Turkish Ministry of Tourism. The horse would be lent for 19 years to be displayed on the waterfront of Canakkale, only 30 km from the site of ancient Troy, as long as the Turkish authorities paid for its insurance. It cost the city of Canakkale 34,000 euro to get the wooden horse transported and erected but was worth every penny. It has proved a huge hit with tourists and become a major attraction in town, probably photographed more than the Eiffel Tower.

In August 2004 a team of six German technicians arrived in Canakkale with a lorry containing the 134 different pieces of the horse. Over 10 days they mounted and assembled it, exactly as seen in the movie, looking as if it was made from scraps of wood from the Greek ships, with ropes wrapped around the legs. Here it has stayed ever since, looming over the promenade in Canakkale next to Moorabbin Park (named after a suburb of Melbournewhere there is a large Turkish community). In fact, the “wooden horse” is made of iron struts and fiberglass. It is 11.4 meters high and weighs 11 tons.

During the construction of the Trojan horse, one of the German engineers and the Turkish interpreter for the construction crew fell in love and got married. The happy couple said, “Our love sprang from the Wooden Horse.”, which is a much happier ending than the original story.

Wooden Horse at Troy – War and Peace

For the hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit the ancient city of Troy every year, the enormous wooden horse at the entrance is the first thing they see. This is fitting because it captures the whole story in one image. Visitors may also see Japanese making a “V” sign when posing for photographs. Although the V sign is known in Europe (possibly as early as the Middle Ages) as a “Victory” sign, in Japan it emerged in the 1970s as symbolizing “peace”. In some accounts the original wooden horse is said to be a peace offering from the Greeks to the Trojans.

The 12.5-m. high Wooden Horse that you see at Troy is not the original. This one was built in 1974 by the Turkish Ministry of Tourism from an idea by the then-director of Canakkale Archaeological Museum, Ilhan Aksit. The architect was Izzet Senemoglu and the carpenter was Ahmet Karadeniz. With no original sources to hand, the horse was basically a product of Izzet Senemoglu’s imagination, a war horse with a symbolic ladder suggesting how the Greeks came out. The horse was first opened to visitors in 1975 and was painstakingly renovated in 2007. It is made of cedar wood. The horse is still open to visitors today. (Please be careful on the steps when climbing up or down.)

After the opening in 1975, white doves were released from the horse as a symbol of peace during the annual “International Troy Festival” (Troia Festivali) in Canakkale. This only happened once, but the idea took root and every year the dove is always included somewhere on the poster for the Troy Festival along with the festival’s slogan, “Let Peace be Our culture (Baris Kulturumuz Olsun).

Canakkale has even declared itself the “City of Peace”, a concept possibly borrowed from its sister city in Germany, Osnabruck, which has been known as the Friedensstadt, or “City of Peace” ever since the signing of thePeace Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Canakkale can make its own claim on this score, since the “Dardanelles Treaty of Peace” was signed here in 1809 AD and the “Peace of Dardanos” in 85 BC concluded the war between Mithradates and Rome.

As a footnote, we can add that a “Wooden Horse Children’s Festival” (Tahta At Cocuk Senligi) was held annually in Canakkale for four years from 1977 to 1980, inspired by UNESCO declaring 1979 as the “International Year of the Child”. The festival included children’s plays, compositions, fairy tales, and other activities.

Other Wooden horses

The wooden horse is a potent symbol. Since the 2004 movie “Troy” film was released, the number of wooden horses has multiplied, locally and worldwide. If they were gathered in one place there would be a herd of them. Here we present some photos of other interpretations, including a large colorful horse built to advertise the annual Troy Festival in Canakkale sometime after the festival began in 1963. It was located on the promenade and at the entrance to the Public Garden, then later mysteriously disappeared and is now history.