The problem of the real site of the Homeric Ilium slept during the Middle Ages, and attracted no attention after the Renaissance. The few travellers, who visited the Troad since the sixteenth century, either recognized the Homeric Ilium in the ruins of Alexandria-Troas, or limited their researches to a very superficial inspection of the Plain of Troy or only of its coast.

In 1785 and 1786 the Troad was visited by Lechevalier, who was aided in his researches by the architect Cazas, and patronized by Count Choiseul-Grouffier, then French ambassador at Constantinople. At that time the science of archæology was only in its first dawn. Egyptology did not yet exist; the cities of Assyria were not yet discovered; pre-historic antiquities were still unknown; excavations for scientific purposes were a thing unheard of; the study of Sanscrit had not yet begun; the science of comparative philology had not yet been created; nay, philology was limited to a stammering play on Latin words, from which all languages were thought to be derived, except by those who held the fond fancy that Hebrew was the primitive speech of the whole human race; and no one had an idea of the descent of our race from the highlands above India, which indeed was still almost a terra incognita.