Troy (or Ilium), located on the west coast of modern Turkey, was a city-kingdom with, at the time of the events described in the Iliad (an epic poem attributed to Homer), Priam as its king. Homer was a blind Greek poet who lived around the 8th century BC. He is very famous because he wrote two of the most famous poems of all time. These poems were called the Iliad and the Odyssey. Homer never mentioned himself in any of his writings, although scholars suspect he was a farmer or artisan because he makes many references to this class of people. Homer's writings were highly respected in ancient Greece and his influence was such that he inspired Shakespeare. The Iliad was the first of these poems and deals with the tenth and final year of the Trojan War. The war began when the Trojan king's son Paris kidnapped the Sparta king's wife Helen. The Iliad is divided into 24 books which are believed to be the oldest piece of ancient Greek literature. It is mainly based on the hero Achilles, who is the best soldier in the Greek army, held under the control of Agamemnon. Another very famous character from the Iliad and the Odyssey is Odysseus, king of Ithaca. He, with the help of Athena, hatches a plan to leave a giant wooden horse filled with 100 soldiers as a "gift". This plan worked because when the horse was taken inside, the soldiers came out and won the battle. The Odyssey is the sequel to the poem The Iliad. In this poem, Odysseus is the main character and recounts his journey back to Ithaca after the Trojan War. Although this trip would usually be quite short, the Gods had decided to make it ten years before he arrived home. This poem shows all the perilous adventures he experienced...... middle of paper ......his killed Atreus and Thyestes seized the throne of Mycenae and finally, Aegisthus killed Agamemnon. Heinrich Schliemann was a famous archaeologist in the 19th century. As a child, his father told him the stories of the Iliad and Odysseus, and at the age of eight, Schliemann vowed to find the city of Troy. He eventually succeeded and unearthed the presumed city of Troy as well as Mycenae. He was not very skillful, careful or scrupulous in his work and many other archaeologists complained that he destroyed many things that should have been preserved. He claimed it and saw Agamemnon's face because he dug up a set of tombs. There was one whose body was covered in gold and his face was covered with a golden mask. Schliemann removed the mask and the face remained intact for three seconds. From there he believed he saw the face of Agamemnon.