An excellent insight into the strata of the mound of Hisarlik is given by the eastern profile visible southward from where you now stand. You are now situated atop the citadel fortifications of Troy II, the foundations of which reach to bedrock. Before you lies the "Middle Trench" of Schliemann, opened in 1872. Further work by W. Dorpfeld (1893) and M. Korfmann (1990-96) has resulted in exposing a clear profile with a complete sequence of the strata from Troy II through Troy IX, representing a time span from the mid-third millennium BCE through Roman imperial times.
