Troad

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Troas or The Troad is the historical name of the Biga peninsula (Biga yarımadası) in the northwestern part of Anatolia,Turkey. This region now is part of the Çanakkale province of Turkey. Bounded by the Çanakkale Boğazı to the northwest, by the Aegean Sea (Ege Denizi) to the west and separated from the rest of Anatolia by the massif that forms the Mount Ida. It is drained by two rivers, the Scamander (Karamenderes) and the Simois, which join at the area containing the ruins of Troy.
Grenikos, Kebren, Simoeis, Rhesos, Rhodios, Heptaporos and Aisepos were seven rivers of the Troad and the names of the river gods that inhabited each river.

The region later known as the Troad was called Wilusa by the Hittites. This identification was first put forth by Emil Forrer, but largely disputed by most Hittite experts until 1983 when Houwink ten Cate showed that two fragments were from the same original cuneiform tablet and in his discussion of the restored letter showed that Wilusa was correctly placed in northwestern Anatolia. According to Trevor Bryce, Hittite texts indicate a number of Ahhiyawan raids on Wilusa during the 13th century BC, which may have resulted with the overthrow of king Walmu.

Bryce also reports that archeological surveys conducted by John Bintliff in the 1970s show that a powerful kingdom that held sway over northwestern Anatolia was based at Troy.

The kings of Pergamon (Bergama) later ceded the territory of the Troad to the Roman Republic. Under the Empire, the territory of the Troad became part of the province of Asia; under the later Byzantine Empire, it was included in the Thema of the Aegean Islands. Following its conquest by the Ottoman Empire, the Troad formed part of the sanjak of Bigha.

Contents 1 Luke 2 Paul 3 See also 4 Bibliography

[edit] Luke

New Testament writings refer to this as Troas, and it is thought to be the home of St. Luke, writer of the Book Of Luke and The Book of Acts. Evidence of this is that Luke writes in the third person about the travels of Paul, until Paul and his companions get to Troas, where the writer switches to the first person plural. Compare Acts 16:8 with Acts 16:10. This "we" section of Acts continues until Paul is arrested in Acts 16:19 and the writer goes back to writing in the third person. Then in Acts 20:5, Paul's group again arrives in Troas, and the writer again switches to the first person plural, the second "we" section of Acts. Luke never states that he lived in Troas, but this is evidence that he did.

[edit] Paul

Paul himself also refers to Troas, when he asks his fellow worker Timothy out of Ephesus, to get his coat there. Cf. 2 Timothy 4: 13 This was a journey of about 500km.

[edit] See also

• Alexandria Troas
• List of traditional Greek place names

[edit] Bibliography

• Trevor R. Bryce. Chapter 14, "The Trojan War: Myth or Reality" in The Kingdom of the Hittites. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. ISBN 0-19-924010-8