Heinrich Schliemann is famous for finding the walls of troy. But he is not the first to excavate at hisarlık. Troy was first excavated by Frank ClavertSeven years before Schliemann began digging at Hisarlık. Frank Calvert purchased some part of Hisarlık Tepe (Troy) and began excavations in 1865. In fact even before Calvert, a soldier engineer called John Burten, who happened to be in Çanakkale during Crimean War, carried out excavations in the region, but as he did not know what he was doing he is usually rightly ignored in the research history of Troy.. in 1868 Heinrich Schliemann came to Çanakkaleand met Frank Calvert. He was informed by Calvert that that Hisarlık was probably Homer's Troy. Schliemann got permission from Ottoman authorities to excavate Hisarlık and began digging his in 1871 and continued until 1890. After his death, with Sophia Schliemann's support the excavations were resumed under the direction Wilhelm Dörpfeld in 1893-1894. Then the period of war and economic crisis prevented further excavations. After the war, Carl W. Blegen of Cincinnati University carried out systematic excavations for eight seasons between 1932-1938.. In 1988 excavations were resumed by Manfred Korfman of Tubingen University who worked in the region until his death in 2005. Korfmann's work ignited an enormous interest in Troy and Homer. As a result UNESCO declared the site as World Cultural Heritage in 1998.
