The discovery of lost civilisations such as the Hittites, and the translation of their records dating back thousands of years, has provided new insights into when and why a Trojan War might really have happened. Now we can bring new insights from dendrochronology using timbers found deep within an ancient tomb, and even ancient DNA studies, to build a picture of decline and fall in which the sack of Troy was just once episode in an epoch-defining series of events
