Dardanelles (/dɑːrdəˈnɛlz/; Turkish: Çanakkale Boğazı, lit. 'Strait of Çanakkale', Greek: Δαρδανέλλια, romanized: Dardanéllia), also known from Classical Antiquity as the Hellespont (/ˈhɛlɪspɒnt/; Classical Greek: Ἑλλήσποντος, romanized: Hellēspontos, lit. 'Sea of Helle'), is a narrow, natural strait and internationally significant waterway in northwestern Turkey that forms part of the continental boundary between Europe and Asia, and separates Asian Turkey from European Turkey. One of the world's narrowest straits used for international navigation, the Dardanelles connects the Sea of Marmara with the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas, while also allowing passage to the Black Sea by extension via the Bosphorus.

Troy was the setting of the Trojan War described in the Greek Epic Cycle, in particular in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer. Metrical evidence from the Iliad and the Odyssey suggests that the name Ἴλιον (Ilion) formerly began with a digamma: Ϝίλιον (Wilion);[note 3] this is also supported by the Hittite name for what is thought to be the same city, Wilusa.

Asclepeions (Ancient Greek: Ἀσκληπιεῖον Asklepieion; Ἀσκλαπιεῖον in Doric dialect; Latin aesculapīum) were healing temples located in ancient Greece (and in the wider Hellenistic and Roman world), dedicated to Asclepius, the first doctor-demigod in Greek mythology. Asclepius was said to have been such a skilled doctor that he could even raise people from the dead. So stemming from the myth of his great healing powers, pilgrims would flock to temples built in his honor in order to seek spiritual and physical healing.