He continued his research in Turkey, excavating from 1982 to 1987 at Besik Bay, a few kilometres from the famous site of Hisarlik (the supposed location of Homer's Troy).
In 1988 the Turkish government gave him an exclusive excavation license for Troy itself (which for academic purposes is internationally known as Troia, at his suggestion).
While many ancient historians doubt the significance of the lower part of the settlement, Korfmann presented his argument that the bronze-age city at Hisarlik was quite large, and had played a key role in trade around the Dardanelles.
[1] About 800,000 visitors visited this exhibition, but the way it presented the excavation findings, initially without proper labeling of reconstructions which were purely speculative, turned the scientific debate into a bitter controversy.
The diggings in the plains south of the hill and magneto-metric investigations told that Troy was 15 times larger than previously expected.