As frequent readers of my blog are already aware, on 10 August 2021, the website Greek Reporter republished an article that it originally published in 2014 claiming that archaeologists have found the remains of the Trojan horse. The story was quickly copied in both The Jerusalem Post and the International Business Times. The next day, however, I published a post on this blog titled “No, Archaeologists Have Not Found the Trojan Horse,” in which I pointed out evidence that the article published by Greek Reporter is a hoax written by someone with only very superficial knowledge of Aegean archaeology.
One of the pieces of evidence that I pointed out is the fact that the article cites a supposed professor at Boston University named Christine Morris as the leader of the team that has supposedly excavated the Trojan horse—but there is only one archaeologist who studies the Aegean Bronze Age named Christine Morris, she teaches at Trinity College Dublin, not Boston University, and, as far as I could tell, she has never excavated at Troy. Nonetheless, some people left comments on my post insisting that maybe Dr. Morris used to teach at Boston University at some point and maybe she really did discover the Trojan horse seven years ago.
I thought these objections were implausible, but, in the interest of being thorough, I emailed the real Dr. Morris using the email that is listed on her faculty webpage for Trinity College Dublin. She has very kindly taken the time out of her presumably very busy schedule to reply to my email. She has confirmed that she has never been affiliated with Boston University in any way, that she has never excavated at Troy or worked there in any capacity, that she has never claimed to have found the Trojan horse, and that the story that has been published by Greek Reporter and all these other news outlets is completely fabricated.
My email and Dr. Morris’s reply
Some commenters on my blog post remained stubbornly unconvinced by my argument that the Greek Reporter article is a hoax. For instance, here is an excerpt from a comment that a man named Constantinos Ragazas, who regularly comments on my blog, made on 12 August, the day after I published the post itself:
“. . . seven years is a long time. And academics are known to move around. Have you considered this possibility?”
“I am also not convinced the Trojan Horse has been found. But your article is equally unconvincing it wasn’t!”
In the interest of thoroughness, I wrote an email to Dr. Morris in which I briefly explained to her why I was writing. At the end of my email, I asked her three direct and specific questions:
“Have you really claimed that you have discovered the remains of the Trojan horse?”
“Have you ever excavated at Troy?”
“Have you ever been affiliated in any way with Boston University?”
This morning, Dr. Morris very kindly emailed me back. She confirmed that she has never excavated at Troy, that she has no affiliation with Boston University, and that the Greek Reporter article is complete nonsense. She has given me permission to quote her response. Here are her own exact words:
“Hi Spencer,”
“Thank you for your email. I saw your piece on twitter (I do the TCD Classics twitter and other social media though I do not run a personal twitter account) and thought it was super and really carefully researched!”
“Yes, the story is – of course – complete nonsense! The Greek Reporter previously published the same story in 2014 (when it garnered much less attention) and it seems to have been copied from a satirical news site called World News Daily Report that same year. This time around I have been inundated with requests to comment from media and have consistently replied to say I have no connection with any projects at Troy.”
“For your purposes I can confirm: Christine is an Aegean archaeologist who works mainly on Crete. She has never excavated or worked at Troy in any capacity, nor made any statements claiming to have found remains of the Trojan House. She has taught at Trinity College Dublin in the Classics Department (@TCDClassics) for over 25 years and has never had any affiliation with Boston University. The Greek Reporter story has no validity; it repeats an older (2014) story which originates from a satirical news site, the World News Daily Report.”
“all best wishes
Christine”
Once again, I would like to thank Dr. Morris sincerely for her kindness and willingness to respond so promptly to my questions, especially since I am sure she is a very busy person and this was clearly not a pressing issue.
Has anyone commented on the large scale wooden artifacts found at Troy? My understanding is that the are few to nonexistent.
This seems like the people who claim to have found the remains of Noah’s Ark. Here is Noah on the hips of Mount Ararat, which has been under water for a year or so, according to the tale. When they land, there are no building materials available, certainly no wood. No wood to make sheds, animal pens, roofs on houses (even if made of mud). If there was only some wood, Noah and his sons were very able to do carpentry and could make many necessary things to survive on a world with no vegetation at all (all having been drowned, if any logs were still in existence, they would be waterlogged and useless). If there was only some useful wood, maybe even gopher wood. ‘Hey, gang, I’ve got an idea! We could dismantle to ark and make many wonderful things from that wood. And the leftovers could be burned to hold off the chill at night.
These people are looking for things that exist only in their imaginations and I wish them good luck.
I might have asked if she were aware of any other Christine Morris in her field.
Btw in your post on ritual offering you mention the association of sacrifice with eating meat but you dont include the possibility that human victims of the Incan and Aztecs the easiest resource for meat, I read this idea in Marvin Harris books from the ’70s, he liked to challenge common assumptions too
I was at the site this morning and the close by museum. For fun I asked the security guard and the gift shop clerks if they had heard of the “discovery.” They hadn’t. And while current excavations are ongoing, none of them concern a giant wooden horse.
However, there is a badly damaged to scale marble sculpture (just the torso remains) of a horse in the museum. This, is as close to a Trojan horse as will most-likely ever be excavated.
I found the archive.org for the world news daily report that Dr. Morris is referring to.
https://web.archive.org/web/20141118185602/http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/turkey-archaeologists-discover-remains-of-trojan-horse/