Philip Barker Webb: Voyage dans la Troade ancienne et modern.Paris 1844 First edition,in large 8vo,contemporary leather slightly rubbed over boards,text with some scattered spotting and foxing, characteristic of the paper used that time, complete 5 plats including a map and a panorama,split at fold.Overall in very good condition Webb was primarily a world-class botanist, in 1844, he applied his scientific rigor to the landscape of the Troad and of western Asia Minor. His work was later praised by explorers like Heinrich Schliemann for moving the search for Troy away from pure imagination and toward physical fact. Webb’s primary goal was to compare the descriptions of the landscape in Homer’s Iliad with the actual geography, river courses,the Scamander and Simois, and archaeological mounds of the 1840s.He was one of the first to argue that the coastline and riverbeds of the Trojan plain had shifted significantly since antiquity, explaining why the site of Troy might not perfectly match Homer’s ancient shoreline. While the debate over the location of Troy was still fierce, Webb’s detailed mapping of the Troad provided critical data that eventually pointed toward the hill of Hissarlik,the actual site of Troy, rather than the then-popular site of Bunarbashi.A very rare scientific travel account on the Levant