Originally posted by lil bitchiness
Um, no.Unless you think every other play writer after Homer was ''Celt' Homer was GREEK.
Let me guess, Euripides might have been a Celt too?! Aristophanes too?
That idea Homer being Celtic is very stupid, and supported by absolutely nothing.
As is the idea of him actually existing.
Originally posted by Darth Macabre
And what war was that? The war for Helen?...Eh, there's really no "solid" evidence that there was a war to begin with....As for Homer being Celtic, there's really no way to tell; after all his "stories" were passed down for hundreds of years. Who knows how they were altered.
The Hittite eventually agreed and sent one of his sons. On his way to Egypt, however, the prince was killed. Believing the Egyptians killed him, the Hittites declared war on Egypt.
If the Hittites and the Egyptians could go to war in the 14th century over the son of the king, why wouldn' t the Mycenaeans and Trojans go to war less than a hundred years later because the king' s wife has been kidnapped? Anyhow, at the moment, there is no supporting data for a war being fought over Helen.
Originally posted by Storm
There is a historical precedent for a war being fought over an injustice done to a king. In the 14th century B.C., the Hittite king received a letter from the Egyptian queen. She said her husband had died and asked the Hittite king if he could send a son for her to marry.The Hittite eventually agreed and sent one of his sons. On his way to Egypt, however, the prince was killed. Believing the Egyptians killed him, the Hittites declared war on Egypt.
If the Hittites and the Egyptians could go to war in the 14th century over the son of the king, why wouldn' t the Mycenaeans and Trojans go to war less than a hundred years later because the king' s wife has been kidnapped? Anyhow, at the moment, there is no supporting data for a war being fought over Helen.
Not to mention that Troy would give the Myceneans a foothold in Asia Minor and easy control of the Bosporus (one of the most essential/profitable aquatic trade route in the mediterranean throught history).
There was much to be gained by conquereing Troy.
Archaeologists who have been digging into the myth of Homer believe the legendary war may have been a process rather than a single event.
This reminds me of a trivia my professor told us. Schliemann would have tampered with artifacts supposedly found at the site. He has been suspected of salting his sites with purchased or faked (manufactured) antiquities.
It is unlikely that the events of the Trojan War happened as written by Homer. One problem is the lack of archaeological evidence suggesting its validity. Another problem is the dependence on an oral tradition of passing along stories. The story of the Iliad was originally passed down orally from generation to generation. Over time, events get added or taken away....until much truth gets lost or severely watered down.
Not long after the Trojan War...the land of Greece entered into a Dark Age, with no written accounts of its history. The writing system of most Greeks, Linear A and Linear B had become lost due to non-use. The Greeks eventually derived a new alphabet through trade with the Phoenicians, hence a change in the language.
Even if written evidence is found supporting the Trojan War...it is not likely that modern archaeologists will understand its meaning, since we can't decipher Linear A or B transcripts. The Greeks at that time would have written in that language.
Anyway, it is unlikely that we will ever know the true story of Troy. Unless another Rosetta Stone is unearthed..lol
Originally posted by Fishy
well to support the war actually happening, I saw a documentary on Discovery channel some time ago, where they had computers redo all the battles Homer described.They went exactly like he described. Very unlikely that somebody can describe a few battles that never happened into great detail.
yeah, I remember watching that also. Interesting program.