PROFESSOR Manfred Korfmann, the director of excavations at Troy, lived a life as colourful and multifaceted as the site that he excavated, and the media often referred to him as the “father of Troy”.

He was born in Cologne in 1942, and his memories of life in postwar Germany would prove influential throughout his career. He completed his doctorate at the University of Frankfurt in 1970, having spent a year at the American University in Beirut. After stints teaching at Frankfurt, Berlin and Istanbul he was appointed professor of prehistory and early history at the University of Tübingen in 1982, in which post he remained until his death.

He did his first archaeological fieldwork in Swaziland, Mozambique and South Africa. The excavations in Turkey for which he will be remembered began in 1972 and continue to the present.

His first project was at the site of Demircihuyuk, near Eskisehir, where he excavated the remains of an early Bronze Age village. Northwestern Turkey would remain the focus of his work. After Demircihuyuk he turned to the site of Besiktepe, near the western entrance to the Hellespont. Evidence that he uncovered there led him to propose that Aegean ships bound for the Black Sea would have harboured near Troy while waiting for favourable currents and weather, so fueling Troy’s economy during the Bronze Age.

The proof for such a theory could be obtained only from renewed excavations at Troy, which at that time had stood unexplored for 50 years. In 1987 he secured permission from the Turkish Ministry of Culture to inaugurate a new project there, and subsequently directed 18 seasons of excavation that transformed Troy from a quiet site with crumbling walls and few visitors to a vibrant centre of research with carefully conserved buildings and multilingual signs that clarified its complex stratigraphy.

Korfmann’s vision was quite different from that of the earlier archaeologists at Troy, in that he was determined to focus on all phases of habitation at the site, from the early Bronze Age to the Ottoman period, treating the remains of each with the same respect so that a complete diachronic reconstruction could be made.

The other component of his vision involved a comprehensive publication of all of his discoveries. To that end he founded an annual excavation journal, Studia Troica, that featured interdisciplinary studies dealing with all aspects of the Troad; its 15th volume was in press at the time of his death.

As a child Korfmann was deeply affected by what the war had done to Germany, to international collaboration and to the world. Perhaps in part because of this, he designed the Troy excavation as an international community, insisting that no one ethnic group outnumber the others.

He brought together scientists from more than 30 countries, including those from the Middle East and the Black Sea. He reckoned his work in the residential area of Troy (the “Lower City”) among his most important accomplishments. Here he uncovered a large rock-cut ditch of late Bronze Age date that seemed to have functioned as a line of defence; another slightly later ditch was unearthed in front of it, and closer to the citadel he discovered the bedrock cuttings of a palisade wall of early Bronze Age construction, also apparently intended to protect the Lower City.

At any other archaeological site such discoveries would not have generated wide public interest, but this was Troy, and discussion quickly turned to the Trojan war and the evidence for its historicity.

Korfmann was quick to point out that there was evidence for many wars at Troy over a period of 5,000 years, and rather than trying to match legends to archaeological features, historians should focus on the political and economic conditions that caused such wars to be fought at this particular site.

This debate also encompassed Korfmann’s theories of maritime Bronze Age traffic between the Aegean and the Black Sea, as well as Troy’s link to that traffic. Recognising that a broader geographical sphere of research was necessary, he turned his attention toward the eastern Black Sea coast. Even though he was still directing fieldwork at Troy, he inaugurated excavations at two sites in Georgia, Didigora and Udabno, where archaeological work continues.

Conservation was as important to him as excavation, and he worked to ensure that the area around Troy would be declared a historical national park, so preserving many archaeological sites from the rampant new construction in the region. He also played a leading role in Unesco’s decision to declare Troy a World Heritage Site.

Korfmann was notably devoted to Turkey and this was reciprocated with several awards. He received an honorary doctorate from Çanakkale University and was officially recognised by the Turkish Foreign Ministry and General Directorate of Antiquities for his outstanding achievements in archaeology. In 2003 he became a Turkish citizen, choosing the name Osman — which his workmen had always called him because of its similarity to Manfred.

He was named as a member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences shortly before his death, and one day before he died, he was made an honorary citizen of Çanakkale.

Georgia had also recognised his accomplishments at Didigora and Udabno with its Medal of Merit, as well as electing him into the Georgia Academy of Sciences.

He was also a foreign member of the Archaeological Institute of America, the Austrian Archaeological Institute and the Croatian Archaeological Society.

He is survived by his wife and two children.

Professor Manfred Korfmann, archaeologist, was born on April 26, 1942. He died on August 11, 2005, aged 63.