Troy is the perfect example of a place where myth does not float in the void: it clings to a landscape, ruins and layers of interpretation.
In the story, Troy is first the city of the long war, of siege, alliances and the final ruse. Its fall precedes The Odyssey, but explains almost everything: Odysseus returns because Troy has fallen, and he returns burdened by what that victory cost.
In the real world, the site of Hisarlik allows the myth to be discussed differently. It does not prove every detail of the poem, but it gives material thickness to Trojan memory: layers of occupation, excavations, debates and landscapes near the Dardanelles.
Troy must therefore be read on two planes. It is a narrative machine, with the horse and the nocturnal fall; it is also an archaeological place that forces us to distinguish poetry, history and the imagination of later centuries.