Citadel of Troy belongs to the years before the Common Era — dated here to c. 1700 BCE at Hisarlık, Anatolia. The date is a scholarly centre of gravity, not a foundation-stone timestamp.
Troy VI–VIIa’s sloping walls and towers match a Late Bronze Age harbour kingdom that Homer later oversized into epic.
How it was made
Ashlar masonry, a spring cave, and destruction layers. The “wonder” is the fit between archaeology and a poem.
Why it still counts as a wonder
It never needed a Greek list to be a wonder: the labour, the alignment, or the survival is enough.
Schliemann wrecked as he found. The walls that remain are still enough to explain why a siege story stuck.
On dating
BCE in this series means years before the traditional birth of Christ, counted backward. A monument listed as c. 1700 BCE may have been founded earlier, rebuilt later, or famous only in one phase. Where ancient writers disagree — as they do for Babylon’s gardens — we say so.
This is story 44 of 100 in The Trend Ledger’s illustrated desk on world wonders raised before the Common Era.