So I have to write an essay on whether Troy was a real place and whether the war with the Mycenaeans (Homer's Iliad) was real.
I was wondering what the thoughts of Veeky Forums are on the topic.
If you have a source of info, would be appreciated, though not necessary.
Forgot to put into OP but no bullshit from that inaccurate piece of shit movie.
Are you from the 19th Century?
Because the Iliad is much more accurate.
Didn't say it was. Just using it as a reference for which war I mean.
lel
Have you considered Wittgenstein on whether objects of the mind are real?
There's no real debate here. We found ruins of a city located where, and dating to when, Homer describes Troy existing. There are contemporary references in other sources to a state called Wilusa (= Ilios which was originally Wilios) existing in western Anatolia. Troy was burnt to to the ground at around the time Homer describes it as having been sacked.
This guys lifestory is pretty funny
en.wikipedia.org
He wrote a lot of bullshit about himself though.
Oh PS, you should realize that Homer described the combat in the Illiad in the manner of which his contemporaries fought. The way the Trojan war was actually fought is a bit different.
Wasent troy confirmed to be real and not fairy tales by the German in the 19th century?
Literally 2 posts above yours
>whether Troy was a real place
this is fact
>whether the war with the Mycenaeans (Homer's Iliad) was real.
probably a kernel of truth but you're not going to be able to glean much fact from the illiad
>>whether Troy was a real place
>this is fact
Which Troy? And what relation to those silly novels?
Stop posting fan fiction threads for fucks sake.
>Which Troy?
The city of Troy...? The Troy VII(a) layer is most commonly associated by the homeric episodes but it's not impossible it was another layer.
>And what relation to those silly novels?
See above or look up the wiki for Troy VII
>Stop posting fan fiction threads for fucks sake.
Troy was real, open a history book you fucking mongoloid.
OP check this out, hypothesises about a lot of the events described in the Illiad and how they might've actually played out while also examining the realities of bronze age life and warfare in Greece, Anatolia and the Middle East
>We
There's no issue using >we in talking about the academia, it's just a form of speech. Knowledge about history is for and belongs to everyone. Same with the sciences.
Interestingly from the archaeological remains there was a level at Troy (they are all numbered by archaeological levels) that shows evidence of sacking. However the level that would equate to the Mycenaean level (Troy VII) shows evidence of destruction from a natural disaster. If you look at the Akrotiri wall-paintings you can see Mycenaeans doing raiding - you can interpret that as you wish but it is a good thing to look into! (pic related - shows a frieze at Akrotiri)
I've been to Troy. It is a real place. You can even see the foundations of its walls and how it overlooks the coast.
Why not do research on the topic?
Have you ever taken a class on Greek lit or poetry?
You should look up the Hittite records of Mycenaean Greece (diplomatic correspondences, etc).
In it you'll notice that several kings from Greek mythology are mentioned, Troy is mentioned, Paris is mentioned, etc.
There is also a Luwian version of the Iliad that, iirc, predates Homer.
There isn't conclusive evidence of the Trojan War as described in the Iliad, but there is a lot of evidence to suggest it could have happened.
>King of Wilusa (Troy) named Alaksandu (Paris/Alexander):
en.wikipedia.org
>Evidence for Eteocles, from the Theban cycle
en.wikipedia.org
>Hittite vassal at war with a man from Achaea (Ahhiyawa in Hittite) named Attarsiya (Atreus, father of Agamemnon)
en.wikipedia.org
Also, even if it's not a populat subject in Classics and Archaeology in general, the Sea Peoples are more-or-less agreed to have been 50% Mycenaean and their raids coincide closely with the events detailed by the Hittites with regards to wars and skirmishes with the Greeks (within 100-20 years depending what you look at).
Bump with Troy-related pottery.
>This
Troy was a real place, the university of Tubingen has been in charge of excavations since Schliemann's time, they're ongoing.
The site goes back into the early Bronze age - the first stratum is from around 2200 BCE if memory serves. Troy II, from about 2000 was sacked, as was Troy VIIa-b, from around 1200 (the traditional dating for the Trojan war).
A king Piyamaradu who has a son named Alaksandu shows up in the Hittie records from Ugarit. They ruled in a place called Arzawa, which modern scholars think corresponds to the general area of Wilusa (Ilium/Troy). The records indicate that the Alaksandu guy was kind of a rogue, and rebelled against the Hittite empire. The story in Cuneiform doesn't exactly square with the Homeric tale we all know.
We have yet to unearth any information on the linguistic affiliation of the city. It would have had huge geopolitical significance in the bronze age - right at the gate of the bosporus, connecting the mediterranean to the black sea, so we think there were probably a lot of languages spoken there. We've only uncovered one thing with writing on it - it appears to be Luwian, an ancient Indo-European language.
Check out the Hittitologist, Trevor Bryce's The Trojans and Their Neighbors for the cultural context of Bronze Age Anatolia.
>Troy was real
meh, there is literally no evidence exept a piece of paper right?
>wheher Troy was a real place
But that's a proven fact
The magnitude of the story described on paper surpasses the archaeological findings.
How was the actual trojan war fought?
Normal siege + Chariot archery.
That's really the only effective way to use a bronze age chariot.
Most of contemporary homeric scholarship is centered around the deconstruction of terms. It's widely agreed that there was not necessarily a "Homer," rather there was a Homeric tradition which extended through the Greek dark ages into the bronze age.
Just as well there was no "The Trojan War," but there were many wars (we'd think of them more as skirmishes) in north western Anatolia throughout the bronze age.
So what we get in Homer is the confluence of a martial poetic tradition which arose in an area of continual military activity. In other words, if we are centering on the site of historical Troy, the story of the Trojan war as its come down to us probably has elements both from the 2000 BCE sacking of Troy II as well as the 1200 BCE destruction of Troy VIIa-b.
A great example of this is the use of armaments throughout the Iliad. How chariots are employed is entirely inconsistent. As are the spears, swords, helmets and armor, and shields. What's cool is that scholars have gone back and correlated different depictions of armaments and warfare throughout the Iliad with archaeological evidence, which further helps us date the different strata of the poem.
>A great example of this is the use of armaments throughout the Iliad. How chariots are employed is entirely inconsistent. As are the spears, swords, helmets and armor, and shields. What's cool is that scholars have gone back and correlated different depictions of armaments and warfare throughout the Iliad with archaeological evidence, which further helps us date the different strata of the poem.
All explanations I've read attribute the different weapons and traditions as being part authentic, passed down by oral tradition, and part anachronism, applied by later poets.
Just like how many words in the Iliad, or 'Homeric Greek', were wholly unknown to archaic and classical scholars. They survived through oral transmission over centuries and lost their meaning, and in other places in the epic the language was supplanted by the regional dialect (Ionic).
The Greeks attributed the Trojan war to ~1199 BC, modern archaeology has determined that Troy IIa was destroyed ~1185 BC.
The 'Sea Peoples' attacks are ~1300-1175 BC. It's possible the first attacks (Ramses II) were not related to the Trojan War or Mycenaean/Hittite conflict at all, since they're identified as Sardinian. Later sea people attacks probably were though.
Achilles and the other Greeks spent like 10 years pillaging the islands and kingdoms of the North West Aegean before Troy finally fell.
Menelaus invaded Egypt before setting sail for home.
Its obviously stupid to take Greek histories, epics, and myths are accurate, but this trend of discrediting Homer (or his attributed works) is pretty stupid. The evidence that the Trojan War occurred at roughly that time and in roughly that format is pretty staggering and continues to grow.
For sure, the inconsistency in the Iliad is a result of centuries of poetic accretion. Boar's tusk helmets are a perfect example. Scholars in the 18th-19th centuries thought they were entirely poetic inventions (during that time it was believed the whole Trojan war was a fabrication). But then in the early 20th century we dug a few up.
These helmets were only used between the 17th and 11th centuries, and so whoever was talking about them in the 8th-6th centuries BCE must have been continuing a tradition that went back centuries.
And I agree with your sea peoples narrative, when you put it like that it all adds up. But within the limits of a strict historicism, there's simply not enough evidence.
No one is "discrediting" Homer either. People take his stuff really seriously as a source of bronze age geopolitics and culture, but a work of history it is not. The centuries of poetic accretion attest to that.