Replies

We do know that the Trojan War was a real event. Hittite records have revealed quite a bit of information about the area at that time. Troy was one of their allies/vassels.

Those records refer to a raid/raids along the coast as Homer describes Achilles making. And they contain correspondence to and about the King of the Achaeans possibly Agamemnon.

Homer, the Bible and Shakespeare have made up most of the important education of Western man. I would be reluctant to argue with any of these sources about anything.

[from a file, probably posted here a while back]

Blegen thought that VI was destroyed by an earthquake, and that VIIa, which he called a squatter city, was the Troy of the Trojan war. Interesting that Blegen speaks of an earthquake -- there is plenty in the Iliad which suggests some kind of natural disaster going on. Thucydides also records massive quakes during the Peloponnesian war.

My view is that Dorpfeld was correct, VI is the Troy of the war, but would agree with Blegen VIIa was a squatter city, adding that VIIa was leveled by the so-called Hittites. The city of the fine walls has now been shown to have been quite extensive, more typical of Anatolian towns than those of Greece.

From the records at Hattusas, it's obvious that there was plenty of piratical raiding going on, and that's probably what the Trojan War was. When the story was written down it got embellished somewhat by Homer. Wood notes that the name Homer means "hostage", which suggests a hostage exchange typical of ancient treaties.

But it wouldn't be at all surprising if the cast of characters involved in the raids (the leaders anyway) remained more or less the same.

In Search of the Trojan War
by Michael Wood
"These vague resemblances do not look like mere chance; Achaiwoi/Ahhiyawa; Alaksandus/Alexandros [Paris]; Wilusa/Wilios; Taruisa/Troia: each in isolation presents problems, but four resemblances is pressing coincidence too far." (p 207 of the earlier edition, italics in original)
"Was There a Trojan War?" Evidence from Hittite Records
by J.D. Hawkins
May/June 2004
A long letter from a Hittite king, probably Hattusili III (who ruled circa 1267-1237 B.C.), to the king of Ahhiyawa mentions that Wilusa was once a bone of contention between the two. The location of Ahhiyawa has been controversial since its earliest recognition in the Hittite texts in the 1920s. The scattered references to it suggested that it lay across the sea and that its interests often conflicted with those of the Hittites. What is now known of the geography of western Anatolia makes it clear that there could be no room on the mainland for the kingdom of Ahhiyawa. Furthermore, the references to the political interests of Ahhiyawa on the west coast mesh well with increasing archaeological evidence for Mycenaean Greeks in the area, so that it is now widely accepted that "Ahhiyawa" is indeed the Hittite designation for this culture.