The Troad, also known as Troas, is the historical name of the Biga peninsula (modern Turkish

Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

: Biga Yarımadası) in the northwestern part of Anatolia

Anatolia

Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...

, Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

. This region now is part of the Çanakkale

Çanakkale Province

Çanakkale Province is a province of Turkey, located in the northwestern part of the country. It takes its name from the town of Çanakkale.Like Istanbul, Çanakkale province has a European and an Asian part. The European part is formed by the Gallipoli peninsula, while the Asian part is largely...

 province

Provinces of Turkey

Turkey is divided into 81 provinces, called il in Turkish .A province is administered by an appointed governor , and was formerly termed a "governorate" ....

 of Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

. Bounded by the Dardanelles

Dardanelles

The Dardanelles , formerly known as the Hellespont, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with its counterpart the Bosphorus. It is located at approximately...

 to the northwest, by the Aegean Sea

Aegean Sea

The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...

 to the west and separated from the rest of Anatolia by the massif

Massif

In geology, a massif is a section of a planet's crust that is demarcated by faults or flexures. In the movement of the crust, a massif tends to retain its internal structure while being displaced as a whole...

 that forms Mount Ida, the Troad is drained by two main river

River

A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...

s, the Scamander

Scamander

In Greek mythology, Scamander was a river god, son of Oceanus and Tethys according to Hesiod. Scamander is also thought of as the river god, son of Zeus. By Idaea, he fathered King Teucer....

 (Karamenderes) and the Simois

Simoeis

Simoeis was a river of the Trojan plain and the name of its god. Like other river-gods, Simoeis was the son of Oceanus and Tethys . Simoeis had two daughters who were married into the Trojan royal family. One daughter, Astyoche, was married to Erichthonius, and the other daughter, Hieromneme was...

, which join at the area containing the ruins

Ruins

Ruins are the remains of human-made architecture: structures that were once complete, as time went by, have fallen into a state of partial or complete disrepair, due to lack of maintenance or deliberate acts of destruction...

 of Troy

Troy

Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...

.
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.

History

The region later known as the Troad was called Wilusa

Wilusa

Wilusa was a city of the late Bronze Age Assuwa confederation of western Anatolia.It is known from six references in 13th century BC Hittite sources, including...

 by the Hittites

Hittites

The Hittites were a Bronze Age people of Anatolia.They established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia c. the 18th century BC. The Hittite empire reached its height c...

. This identification was first put forth by Emil Forrer

Emil Forrer

Emil Orcitirix Gustav Forrer was a Swiss Assyriologist and Hittitologist....

, but largely disputed by most Hittite experts until 1983 when Houwink ten Cate showed that two fragments were from the same original cuneiform

Cuneiform script

Cuneiform script )) is one of the earliest known forms of written expression. Emerging in Sumer around the 30th century BC, with predecessors reaching into the late 4th millennium , cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs...

 tablet and in his discussion of the restored letter showed that Wilusa was correctly placed in northwestern Anatolia. According to Trevor Bryce

Trevor R. Bryce

Trevor Robert Bryce is a Hittitologist specializing in ancient and classical Near-eastern history. He lives in Brisbane in a small unit where he is semi retired. He has two children and five grand kids. His son is a widely acclaimed Doctor who has produced documentaries associated with Aboriginal...

, Hittite texts indicate a number of Ahhiyawan raids on Wilusa during the 13th century BC

13th century BC

The 13th century BC was the period from 1300 to 1201 BC.-Events:*1300 BC: Cemetery H culture comes to an end.*1292 BC: End of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, start of the Nineteenth Dynasty....

, 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 Pergamum (now Bergama

Bergama

Bergama is a populous district, as well as the center city of the same district, in İzmir Province in western Turkey. By excluding İzmir's metropolitan area, it is one of the prominent districts of the province in terms of population and is largely urbanized at the rate of 53,6 per cent...

) later ceded the territory of the Troad to the Roman Republic

Roman Republic

The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...

. Under the Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

, the territory of the Troad became part of the province of Asia; under the later Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

, it was included in the thema

Theme (Byzantine administrative unit)

The themes or themata were the main administrative divisions of the middle Byzantine Empire. They were established in the mid-seventh century in the aftermath of the Muslim conquests of Byzantine territory and replaced the earlier provincial system established by emperors Diocletian and...

of the Aegean Islands. Following its conquest by the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

, the Troad formed part of the sanjak

Sanjak

Sanjaks were administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire. Sanjak, and the variant spellings sandjak, sanjaq, and sinjaq, are English transliterations of the Turkish word sancak, meaning district, banner, or flag...

 of Biga.

In the New Testament

Paul

Paul of Tarsus

Paul the Apostle , also known as Saul of Tarsus, is described in the Christian New Testament as one of the most influential early Christian missionaries, with the writings ascribed to him by the church forming a considerable portion of the New Testament...

 visited Troas. He also refers to Troas when he asks his fellow worker Timothy out of Ephesus

Ephesus

Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...

, to get his coat there. This was a journey of about 500 km. Paul was accompanied by Luke

Luke the Evangelist

Luke the Evangelist was an Early Christian writer whom Church Fathers such as Jerome and Eusebius said was the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles...

.