Posted on 10/03/2008 11:34:06 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
In his influential book, "Troy and Homer," German classicist Joachim Latacz argues that the identification of Hisarlik as the site of Homer's Troy is all but proven. Latacz's case is based not only on archeology, but also on fascinating reassessments of cuneiform tablets from the Hittite imperial archives. The tablets, which are dated to the period when the Late Bronze Age city at Hisarlik was destroyed, tell a story of a western people harassing a Hittite client state on the coast of Asia Minor. The Hittite name for the invading foreigners is very close to Homer's name for his Greeks - Achaians - and the Hittite names for their harassed ally are very close to "Troy" and "Ilios," Homer's names for the city.
"At the very core of the tale," Latacz argues, "Homer's 'Iliad' has shed the mantle of fiction commonly attributed to it."
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Parry studied how living oral poets learned their techniques and made recordings of such poetry (in Yugoslavia) in order to understand better how Homer would have operated. The Homeric poems are much longer than could have been performed on one occasion but show the traits of oral poetry (like many repeated phrases). Homer would have inherited basic stories from earlier generations. Some genuine information was preserved but it's hard to know what really dates back to the 13th century BC and what was added by later poets--how many of the figures in the Iliad are real people and how many are made-up names, for example.
It's not entirely clear why and when the Iliad and Odyssey were written down--obviously not before the adoption of the alphabet. Later on rhapsodes memorized the fixed texts word for word--Plato's dialogue Ion features a rhapsode named Ion who knows Homer's poems by heart.
That “shortage of women” is part of what drives China and the Saracens. That “shortage of women” drives hyper masculine societies toward conquest of more introspective feminine societies.
an anhropologist some years ago found that the oral traditions regarding the sea voyages of the polynesian people who left Tahiti for Hawaii were remarkably accurate as to the navigational info which had been transferred over generations by the keepers of the oral tradition using mnemetic remembrance codes.
We all remember the boy scout pledge amd the pledge of allegiance that we memorized.
those are merely micro oral traditions that virtually everyone can remember.
I don[t think it is unusual or impossible that culturally important, but lengthly, stories of a culture can be memorized by selected ‘shamans’ or singers to pass down the traditions of a people.
I never understood the position Helen held in the story - a willing captive that would belong to whomever was strong enough to hold on to her until I realized this has to do with the ancient practice of wife-napping and counting coup?
The Greek counter raids failed until an earthquake leveled the city walls and allowed the Greeks to take the city?\
The Illiad, of course ends with the death and funeral of the Trojan hero Hector, who is my favorite hero in the story.
I think at this time Greece had settlements that were more akin to those found in Western Europe during the middle ages. You had the land lord’s fortress at the high point (an acropolis) and maybe a market square and temple complex and the rest of the people lived on small farms?
Thanks!
The recent tendency seems to be to go back to the notion that the Troy of the Trojan War was level VI (not VIIA). The people doing the most recent excavations at Troy (since 1988) seem to be of that persuasion.
Either the war was extraordinary enough to be remembered or Homer was so talented a bard he made it worth remembering.
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