Schliemann's Loss Of Troy

Thucydides and Homer, though they lived a relatively short 300 years apart, wrote about very different Greek cultures. While the Greeks who Homer wrote about in The Iliad were, in many respects, dissimilar to the Greeks in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, this stands in marked contrast to the profound similarities that exist between contemporary cultures and those that Thucydides wrote of. There are, however, similarities between modern cultures and those in Homer’s writing, as well as differences between modern ones and those in Thucydides’ writing. Thucydides’ history is, therefore, a relational bridge between the cultures of ancient Greece and modern ones.

Kathleen’s first archaeological experience was in the Great Zimbabwe in Southern Rhodesia as a photographer where she was joined by Gertrude Caton-Thomson. This expedition had been made possible by her father’s facilitation and connections along with Margaret Fry’s persuasion. As she would prove useful on this excavation, being both industrious and reliable, her duties would expand beyond taking pictures to overseeing the workers assisting at the site. After she returned to England, at the completion of the Zimbabwe expedition, Kathleen joined Sir Mortimer Wheeler’s staff at his excavation at Roman Verulamiun (St. Albans), north of London. While there she would study Wheeler’s method of stratigraphic excavation. Wheeler’s findings were based on the concept developed by geologist William Smith where materials accumulate on a site through a sequence of layers that explain the historical timeline

The Trojan War. The Epic war. The war of Homer, and Hektor, and Achilles. It is so well known to us, yet so remote. Yet are the works of Homer mere flights of fantasy? Or is there some small (or even large) degree of truth to the stories that he so vividly brings to life in the Iliad and the Odyssey? Can it be demonstrated that far from being a culture-myth, the Trojan war was in fact a real event. This paper considers the evidence for the historicity of the Trojan war, utilising evidence from within the Homeric texts, archaeological and epigraphic evidence. The best approach to this issue is to ask a set of fundamental questions that underpin the issue of the Trojan War's historicity. These questions are:

The stories told in the Iliad and Odyssey are based on stories handed down over several generations, for they preserve (as we have seen) memories of an already quiet far distant past. The two pomes show clear connection in their language and style, in the manner in which their incidents presented, and in the combination of agreement with level, which distinguish their creation.

The Trojan War. Confined totally to the pages of Homer's The Illiad, the indulgent fantasy of a Greek poet who lived over two and a half thousand years ago- or a historic fact at the centre of the most famous quarrel ever? The Illiad is the ancient tale of a mighty city called Troy that lay at the edge of Asia Minor whose prince abducted Helen, the most beautiful woman of all time, from the king of Greek Sparta, causing the Greeks to send an army in a thousand ships to attack and lay siege to Troy for 10 years. Historians have long doubted the credibility of Homer as a reliable historical source. However evidence has been uncovered by archaeologists to suggest that The Iliad has some basis in truth

Over the years, classical myths from the Greco-Roman world have been “modernized” in order to better suit today’s audience. One of the most famous of these myths is The Iliad by Homer, which has recently been turned into a movie called Troy. Wolfgang Peterson, the director of the 2004 movie, manipulated specific scenes in order to dramatize critical events for viewers. Instead of directly following Homers myth, he does this in order to make the movie/ storyline more relatable and current for today’s times. Both of these pieces take place within the Aegean Sea as well as Mycenae, Sparta, and Troy.

100 years ago, a man by the name of Heinrich Schliemann, dug somewhere in the position of current day Turkey, he is thought to have been the archeologist to re-discover Troy. There in 'believed to be' Troy, enormous and magnificent cities built in the Bronze Age, (where Homer's Trojan War takes place) have been found. In addition, proof of some ancient community has unveiled itself, artifacts such as trading currency. However the most informative section of the supposed Troy has been its architecture and fortifications. These indicate that the cities (within 'New' Troy) were built so as to deflect the deadly glares of war. Fortifications such as the walls and mazes within Troy can be linked to the famous chariots that did so inflict unimaginable

Schliemann himself once wrote, "If my memoirs now and then contain contradictions, I hope that these may be pardoned when it is considered that I have revealed a new world of archaeology. The objects which I brought to light by thousands are of a kind hitherto never or but rarely found. It was an entirely new world for me; I had to learn everything by myself and only by and by could I attain the insight" (qtd. in Duchêne 45). Even Traill comes to the defense of Schliemann's contributions; "The greatness of his achievements and their enduring significance are beyond dispute" (Traill 97). Schliemann rediscovered an important site occupied from the Early Bronze Age until Roman times that whose levels of strata most likely contain the Homeric city of Troy ("Homeric Questions Part III -Archaeology- 9/06/98"). He put the science of stratigraphy to practice and innovated archaeology by building off of the processes of his predecessors. His digs at Mycenae led to Sir Arthur Evans's discovery of the city of Knossos and the lost civilization of the Minoans, precursors to the Myceneans ("The Minoan Costume"). Neither the Minoans nor the Myceneans had existed in anything

The Iliad is one of the most profound pieces of literature ever discovered, as well a one of the most controversial. Although the epic is set in Mycenaean Greece (12th cent. BCE) there is much historical, archeological and linguistic evidence points towards the piece being written between 760 and 710 B.C.E. Mycenaean Greece existed in the Bronze Age, which was believed by later Greeks to be an Age of great kingdoms where glorious gods frequented earth. The Iliad was mostly composed in Ionian dialect which some scholars believe signifies the origin of the author (eastern Greece) or that the author was using the dialect for artistic purposes. The author attributed to writing the Iliad is Homer, but some scholars question whether Homer was a real person or perhaps multiple people. The Iliad is set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles. The concept of heroism, as well as honor, are major currents

Homer’s Iliad has been a European myth for many millennia , the long poetic narrative written in the 8th century B.C. recounts a fearsome war fought over a beautiful woman. The reliability of Homers Iliad as a true historical document has been challenged for hundreds of years and only through archaeological studies can the truth be deciphered. The Iliad was written five centuries after the war, where the stories had been passed down through the oral tradition, therefore the type of society reflected within the poems resemble much more the time of Homer . The fact and fiction of the Iliad has been uncovered through archaeology. Archaeologist found a site in which they thought to have been ‘Troy’ destroyed by the powerful country of Mycenae

The discovery included a tremendous number of objects, from all periods of antiquity. Explicitly, such things as a rare Neolithic male figurine, Mycenaean shards, bone flutes, iron and bronze rings, miniature bronze statutes, fifty thousand terracotta figurines from the classical period and twenty-four thousand “knucklebones” (used for astrology, or prophecy). Generally, the ruins that survive today date from the extremely intense period of activity at the site during the sixth century B.C. Apparently due to the magnitude of the gloomy cave, intense lighting becomes

Good afternoon fellow archaeologists. Over the course of five years, I have been researching, investigating and excavating the archaeological site at Hissarlik, which is believed to be the location of ancient Troy. Troy was the location of the most well-known literature in Ancient Greek history, Homer’s Iliad. The Iliad recounts the final fifty three days of the ten year conflict between the Greeks and Trojans, otherwise known as the Trojan War. Recently, debates have fired up on whether Homer’s Iliad accurately depicts factual evidence on a combat that occurred, or if it was just a fictional narrative composed for entertainment purposes. Archaeologists have taken this debate into account when excavating at the site of Troy and have attempted

The stories provide an important insight into early human society, and illustrate, in some respects, how little has changed. Even if The Iliad itself seems unfamiliar, the story of the siege of Troy, the Trojan War and Paris’ kidnapping of Helen, the world’s most beautiful woman, are all familiar characters or scenarios. Some scholars insist that Homer was personally familiar with the plain of Troy, due to the geographical accuracy in the poem. Homer’s real life may remain a mystery, but the very real impact of his works continues to illuminate our world

Barry Strauss, professor of classics at Cornell University attempts to redefine a one of history’s biggest love affairs, the Trojan War. Strauss explains how certain events and characters from Homers “The Odyssey” might have actually existed, but also uses modern discoveries from the Bronze Age to compare Homers account to those of Egypt, the Middle East, and etc. While Homer’s epic should not be read as a historical document which recounts the Trojan War hundred percent accurately, it can still be seen as document which embodies some historical truth. The novel as a whole explains the customs, economic standing, fighting styles and beliefs of the Greeks. Strauss’s writing style allows for the book to be accessible to both students and historians. He argues that just like Franz Ferdinand was the spark which ignited World War 1, Helen on the other hand was just a spark which escalated an existing tension between the Greeks and Trojans. Strauss’s personal input on the war itself gives the novel a different outlook on the Trojan War because, it allows for readers to see beyond the facts and make connections with ideas that Strauss had made with recent discoveries and Homers epic.

Troy has long been shrouded by myth, with historians and other experts trying to answer the questions that this great city poses. One of the questions at the center of the mystery of Troy that has long plagued historians is whether or not Troy actually existed. The setting for the great epics of Homer, a location that bore witness to one of the most famous wars of all time, that saw the fall of some of history’s greatest heroes; but was any of it real? Is there a historical basis behind the story of Achilles’s rage, Patroclus’s sacrifice, or Hector’s death? When Hienrik Schliemann set out to answer this question in the late 19th century he felt he had with his discovery of Hisarlik at the mouth of the Dardanelles (Kolb, 2004). As more modern-day archaeologists have excavated the site, the belief of Hisarlik as the Troy of legend has been called into question. The site that Schliemann believed to be Troy simply was not a prominent enough city during the time period of the Trojan War for such a large conflict to have taken place. While Homer may have drawn some inspiration from historical events for his epic poems, the Trojan War was a fictional event.