Wilhelm Dorpfeld had been working in Troy for the previous two years on Schliemann's team (late 1880's) gaining knowledge and experience with the site. Following Schliemann's death in 1890, Dorpfeld took over the expedition under patronage from Schliemann's wife Sophie and the Kaiser. His subsequent excavation from 1893-94 is considered a milestone in the field of archaeology.

Believing their to be another city just outside of Troy, Dorpfeld moved operations to what he would discover to be the city walls of Troy VI (see image), far outside Schliemann's city. Three hundred yards of battlement firmly established Troy VI's perimeter. By examining the wall, gates, and enclosed city streets, Dorpfeld concluded that this new city perfectly matched the description of Homer's Troy in the Iliad. Further investigation revealed that the walls had fallen, their had been a great fire, and that the city's demise was characterized by violence, all of which justified his theory. The scientific world was emphatically accepting of all of Dorpfeld's evidence.

"A fortress was found to have stood on the very spot where Homeric tradition placed it, a fortress which had been sacked and almost leveled by enemies…from it follows the historical reality of the Trojan War…we shall therefore not hesitate, starting from the fact that the Trojan War was a real war fought out in the place, and at least generally in the manner, described in Homer, to draw the further conclusion that some at least of the heroes that Homer names as having played a prominent part in that war were real persons named by Homer's names, who did actually fight in that war."…contemporary of Dorpfeld-Walter Leaf (Homer and History) 

Members of the scientific world much like Walter Leaf seem characteristically too accepting of the assertions made by Dorpfeld. These assertions could not have been formulated with any reasonable amount of certainty by the archaeological evidence . Until a new theory would be proposed by Carl Blegen in 1938, pointing the Homeric finger at Troy VII, Dorpfeld's evidence would remain foremost in the intellectual world.

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