Geologists investigate Trojan battlefield

BBC NEWS ^ | 02/07/03 | N/A

[TigerLikesRooster]

FYI

[TigerLikesRooster]

This is for you. I enjoy your postings on archeology and
ancient history greatly. Keep it coming and please ping me
if you post one.

[blam]

Thanks. This is good, I like the map.

[11th_VA]

Very interesting - put me on your ping list as well.

[capitan_refugio]

As a geologist and a Trojan (the USC type), I fully endorse this thread.

Bump

[AnAmericanMother]

Great! Heinrich Schliemann defied the learned men of his day (he was an autodidact and amateur archaeologist) and the more research we do the more he is shown to have been right against all the odds.

One of the major objections made at the time to his location of Troy at Hissarlik was its distance from the coast. This takes care of that objection quite neatly.

My daughter's class just read the Iliad (in Fagles' new - at least to me, I learned on Lattimore - translation) and I was the guest lecturer on antiquities, complete with show and tell (alas, all reproductions albeit official Greek ones!) The kids got a blast out of trying on the "Mask of Agamemnon," even though it wasn't him after all, it was probably one of his relatives. They were amazingly tolerant of the whole thing (maybe it was the baklava I brought . . . ??? )

[blam]

Do you think the people were proto-Celts? (It's to bad that LostTribe got banned)

[AnAmericanMother]

Do you think the people were proto-Celts? (It's to bad that LostTribe got banned)

No, I think we are their cultural and spiritual heirs but probably not in blood to any great extent, other than the common Indo-European ancestry all Westerners share. The Roman Empire stands between us and them, so that there probably was some inevitable mixing around of families that occurred as a result of the extent of the Pax Romana -- and the resulting import and export of Greek slaves here, there and everywhere. The Romans knew their cultural superiors when they saw 'em!

The Celts were already pretty much in place and making characteristic artifacts while the Myceneans were just getting started with their citadels . . . and of course that LONG predates Homer as well as the Greeks Homer was singing about.

[Little Bill]

Neat map, but the Greeks chose a strange place for a seige camp.

[SteveH]

I wonder if it was man made erosion (as in, logging forests) which caused the bay to fill.

There's a typo in the first inset box... John Kraft, not Chris Kraft... someone's daydreaming about a nice fishing boat!

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #10

It would not be surprising.

[WatchNKorea]

Thank you for this informative post. Keep up the good work.

[yianni]

Ping, please.

[Eternal_Bear]

Alexander the Great literally believed in the account provided by the Iliad. For him, his invasion of the Persian Empire was the resumption of a war started 800 years previously between Europe and Asia. He later went on the conquer Southwest Asia and ascribed it to divine providence. It just all goes to show what believing in myths can do for you.

[blam]

"I wonder if it was man made erosion (as in, logging forests) which caused the bay to fill.

There's a typo in the first inset box... John Kraft, not Chris Kraft... someone's daydreaming about a nice fishing boat!"

The Euphrates did the same thing. Ur was once a seaside town, it is many miles inland now. Also, Chris Kraft was the director of NASA at one time.

[Movemout]

I believe he was the first flight director at JSC and laid the groundwork for systemizing flight operations which have withstood the test of time.

The article on Troy is fascinating. If Homer did such a good job describing the geography I wonder why the author feels it was necessary to ascribe the wooden horse to myth.

[SoCal Pubbie]

Whew! For a minute there I thought they had dug up the Coliseum field to study all those Irish that were slaughtered last November!

[KellyAdmirer]

Silting in of the old coastline is very common in Turkey. Former seaside towns such as Ephesus and Priene now are miles inland. Gradual lack of access to the sea is what killed those towns but, ironically, is what preserved some of them in magnificent condition.

[SteveH]

Apparently Chris is a nickname for John C. Kraft, the professor...