Pollini, John. "Friends, Trojans, Alumni, Lend Me Your Ears!" USC Trojan Family (Spring 1994): 30-31. (reprinted with permission from the author)
Byline:For over 40 years, USC has proudly displayed a fragment of a column said to be from the Temple of Apollo in the ancient city of Troy. But is our "Trojan Column" all that it claims to be? Professional archaeologst (and amateur sleuth) John Pollini shows that looks, and plaques, can be deceiving.
Article:
In 1987, when I first came to USC for a job interview, I read in a AAA Tourbook- admittedly, not the best source- that a "boulder" from the ancient city of Troy stood in the center of campus. As a professor of classical art and archaeology, I was delighted to learn that USC had some remnant of sacred Troy, the city from which my ancestors had traced their descent through Trojan Aeneas, son of Anchises and the goddess Venus. But during my short visit, I was unable to find this "boulder" on proud display in the center of campus, or anywhere else, for that matter. When I asked colleagues about it, they did not have a clue what I was talking about.
Later on, after I had joined the faculty of USC, I renewed my quest for the mystery "boulder", and was told that it was in front of Mark Taper Hall of Humanities. I was quite surprised by this out-of-way location. I had expected such a historical treasure to be prominently displayed, perhaps right next to the statue of Tommy Trojan. I realize times have changed, but in ancient times an object of great antiquity with a sacred aura was generally located at the center of civic life. Such was the case, for example, with the lapis niger ("black stone"), which was brought to Rome from Asia Minor and placed in the Roman Forum, where it can still be seen.
When I finally did lay eyes upon the "Trojan boulder," I saw that it was only a fragment - a granite-like column shaft about 2 feet 10 inches in height and about 16 inches in diameter. And I noticed something odd: this fragment had clearly been part of a monolithic column; that is, a column fashioned from a single block of stone. I knew that in typical ancient Greek construction, by contrast, columns were generally made up of a number of drum-like sections fastened together. On each of the three slanting sides of the cement base of the column is a small bronze plaque inscribed with bits of inspirational modern poetry relating the column to ancient Troy. The large dedicatory plaque reads as follows: This section of a column from the legendary Troy, quarried and polished without the aid of iron tools at an unknown date before 1200 B.C., stood in the courtyard of a public building, believed to have been a temple of Trojan Apollo. It was presented to The University of Southern California by the Republic of Turkey, and dedicated on October 29, 1952.
That's strange I said to myself. I knew of no polished granite-like monolithic columns used as Troy during the entire period before or, for that matter, after 1200 B.C., approximate time fixed by tradition for Homer's Troy. Equally strange was the claim that the column once "stood in the courtyard believed to have been a temple of Troy Apollo." What temple of Apollo at Troy? Since the discovery of Troy in the 19th century, no one has ever claimed to have found the site of any temple of Apollo. My archeological curiosity was piqued, and I was determined to get to the bottom of this little mystery.
I discovered that the stone used for our "Trojan Column" is a quartz monzonite, a hard, granite-like stone known in antiquity as marmor troadense ("marble of the Troad") because it is found in the Troad, the large geographical area around Troy in the northwest part of Turkey. Modern researchers have discovered the site of the ancient quarries of marmor troadense on the northwestern slopes of a mountain south of ancient Troy. In late Roman times these quarries were run by the state, with most of the hard physical labor being done by convicts.
But all of the evidence indicates that marmor troadense was not quarried before classical period (ca. 480-400 B.C.). It was not until the Hellenistic period that marmor troadense columns were used in the nearby coastal city of Alexandria Troas, founded in 310 B.C. by Antigonos, one of the generals of Alexander the Great. By the Roman period, columns of marmor troadense were shipped all over the Roman Empire. These columns have been founded, for example, in Arles, France (ancient Gaul); Palmyra (modern Tadmor), Syria; and Alexandria, Egypt. Oddly enough, there is very little evidence for columns of marmor troadense being used at Troy itself, and this only in very late Roman times, probably in the Constantinian period at the beginning of the fourth century A.D.
Yet another inconsistency: the relatively small diameter of USC's "Trojan Column" indicates that it would not have been used in a monumental temple, but rather in a colonnade or the elaborate gateway of a sanctuary. Unfortunately, little is known about these columns. One of the difficulties often encountered by archaeologists is not having the original context for discovered objects. Over the centuries a great number of artifacts have been carted off, especially by those who used ancient sites as "quarries" from which to obtain materials and/or cut stone for buildings.
From where (and when), then, did this "Trojan Column" come? Without any context or decorative parts to help us, it is extremely difficult to say. In classical world of Greece and Rome, such polished monolithic granite and granite-like columns tend to date fairly late, either in the late Hellenistic period (ca. 200-300 B.C.) or, more likely, in Roman imperial period (ca. 30 B.C.- A.D. 400). The Greco-Roman cities of the Roman province of Asia (largely western Turkey) reached the height of prosperity in the second century A.D., when marmor troadense was widely exported throughout the Roman Empire.
If it did not come from ancient Troy, how can the Trojan connection, mentioned in the dedicatory plaque, be explained? To answer that, I looked into how the column came to USC in the first place. The university's archives indicate that it was members of the Acacia Fraternity (no longer at USC) who "first thought of getting a relic [for the university] from the ruins of ancient Troy." Working with the Turkish Information Office in New York and the American Embassy in Istanbul, the fraternity was able to get a column fragment shipped to the United States.
At the dedication ceremony, Dr. Gursoy, a professor from the University of Ankara then studying public administration at USC, presented it to USC on behalf of the Turkish ambassador and the Republic of Turkey. I noticed, though, that the only mention of the column's origin in Dr. Gursoy's speech was the comment that this "piece of stone" was "part of the soil of [his] ancient country."
In other words there was no official pronouncement that the column fragmentt was actually from ancient Troy. It could of come from some other location in Turkey, most likely the Troad where temples of Apollo were likely to be found. When the fraternity brothers of Acacia made their request for a "relic from the ruins of ancient Troy," it would have been difficult for the Turkish government to let any antiquity from troy out of the country, since it is one of the most important sites in all Turkey. Perhaps they thought a "relic" from a less famous location would suffice, especially if it were from the Troad, which was said to be under the control of Priam, king of Troy at the time of his Homeric Trojan War. Without specific details about the exact oirgin of the column, the men of the Acacia Fraternity had every reason to think they had gotten a piece of ancient Troy.
In short, it was probably an honest misunderstanding between a Turkish Government eager to please and a fraternity eager to be pleased. In any case, everyone seemed happy with the gifts, and another Trojan myth had been added to the pantheon.