A gift from the film set of "Troy," a giant Trojan Horse replica looms over the port of Çanakkale on the shores of its namesake strait in western Türkiye.
First related by Homer, then retold for the silver screen in 2004, with Brad Pitt as Achilles, the legend of the ancient city travels to Rome's Colosseum this week, where a major new exhibition opens on Friday.
Keen to showcase the city's Anatolian roots, Türkiye has loaned out more than 220 artifacts that will be on show at the exhibition, "Troy and Rome," which runs until mid-October.
"When you read Homer, you don't get a very clear idea of the Trojans' identity. But at the time of the Trojan War, they were certainly among the Anatolian peoples," said Reyhan Körpe, deputy head of the Troy excavations and an ancient history expert at Çanakkale University.
Located on Türkiye's Aegean coastline, the remains of Troy are a UNESCO-listed World Heritage Site comprising 185 hectares (457 acres) of stones and crumbling ramparts dotted with poppies and scampering squirrels.
