In Homeric legend, the city of King Priam, which was besieged for ten years by the Greeks in their endeavour to recover Helen, wife of Menelaus, who had been abducted. It was believed to be a figment of Greek legend until a stronghold called by the Turks Hissarlik, in Asiatic Turkey near the Dardanelles, was identified as the site of Troy by the German archaeologist H. Schliemann, who in 1870 began excavations of the mound which proved to be composed of 46 strata, dating from the early Bronze Age to the Roman era. The stratum known as Troy VII, believed to be that of the Homeric city, was sacked c.1210 bc. Again destroyed c.1100 bc, the site was resettled by the Greeks c.700 bc and finally abandoned in the Roman period.