The Search for Homer's Ithaca
Alan Crozier
PRESS RELEASE - FOR IMMEDIATE DISTRIBUTION
Issued on behalf of the authors of "Odysseus Unbound: The Search for
Homer's Ithaca" - http://www.odysseus-unbound.org/authors.html
London, 20:00 GMT January 9 2007
NEW SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE CLOSES IN ON WESTERN KEFALLINIA AS THE TRUE
LOCATION OF THE ISLAND OF ITHACA IN HOMER'S ODYSSEY
Results are announced today of new geological work which supports the
dramatic theory about the location of Homer's Ithaca put forward by
British businessman Robert Bittlestone, Cambridge classicist Professor
James Diggle and Edinburgh geologist Professor John Underhill. In their
Cambridge University Press best-selling book "Odysseus Unbound: The
Search for Homer's Ithaca" they proposed that the Ithaca described in
Homer's Odyssey is to be found on western Kefallinia, not the Greek
island that is today called Ithaki.
Today's announcement greatly strengthens the case that catastrophic
rockfalls and landslides triggered by earthquakes filled in an ancient
sea channel and created a landlocked isthmus, joining the previously
separate western peninsula of Kefallinia to the rest of the island.
A 122 metre (400 foot) borehole has been drilled at this isthmus and it
met with no solid limestone bedrock right down to sea level and below,
providing very strong support for the proposal. A Greek Geological
Institute survey has pinpointed a submerged marine valley that lines up
precisely with this buried channel. Bulgarian scientists have now
located microscopic marine fossils caught up in the rockfall material in
the borehole, pointing towards a seawater immersion in the last few
thousand years. American ground-penetrating radar has also confirmed the
contours of the buried channel, while ancient roads interrupted by
landslides have been identified and are still visible on the surface.
Professor John Underhill comments on the new findings:
"We drilled down to a depth of 122 metres, which is almost 15 metres
below today's sea level, and we didn't meet any solid limestone strata
at all. Although this is only a first step in testing whether or not
this whole isthmus was once under the sea, it is a very encouraging
confirmation of our geological diagnosis."
The full text of the Press Release is available at
http://www.odysseus-unbound.org/news.html
The Detailed Results of the research are also available at
http://www.odysseus-unbound.org/news.html
UK TV's Channel 4 News has tonight broadcast a 8-minute news update
about the new research that is now available at
http://www.channel4.com/news/
Robert Bittlestone adds:
"Unlike many historical speculations, our answer to the age-old mystery
of Ithaca's location makes a specific prediction that can be
scientifically tested by geological techniques. The results of John
Underhill's latest tests are very encouraging: they have given us the
confidence to move forward with the next stage of major geological
diagnostics. It will be a stunning outcome if these confirm the solution
proposed in Odysseus Unbound: we shall literally have been given the
chance to rewrite the book of history. But this enigma has been with us
for over 2,500 years so we must await the next set of results with due
patience."
Alan
Peter Alaca
If I drill a hole in my backyard, I will not find any limestone but
I will find a lot of lot marine fossils, not only micro, but macro.
I think that is very encouraging.
But of course I first have to write a book before I start drilling.
--
p.a.
Alan Crozier
news:45a41fc3$0$35349$dbd4...@news.wanadoo.nl...
I presume the rest of the island of Kefallinia does have a solid
limestone bedrock. I don't think it's only the marine fossils that make
this former channel different from the land on either side.
Good luck with the book, Peter. I hope you can interest Cambridge
University Press in it.
Alan
Peter Alaca
> "Peter Alaca" wrote in message
>> If I drill a hole in my backyard, I will not find any limestone but
>> I will find a lot of lot marine fossils, not only micro, but macro.
>> I think that is very encouraging.
>> But of course I first have to write a book before I start drilling.
>
>
> I presume the rest of the island of Kefallinia does have a solid
> limestone bedrock. I don't think it's only the marine fossils that
> make this former channel different from the land on either side.
>
> Good luck with the book, Peter. I hope you can interest Cambridge
> University Press in it.
Thanks Alan. I will keep the group informed about the titles.
BTW. I only was commenting on the text of the press-release.
I didn't read the book, but I know who John Underhill is, so I
suppose at least the geology is okay.
--
p.a.
Alan Crozier
> Alan Crozier <name1...@telia.com > wrote:
> > "Peter Alaca" wrote in message
>
> >> If I drill a hole in my backyard, I will not find any limestone but
> >> I will find a lot of lot marine fossils, not only micro, but macro.
> >> I think that is very encouraging.
> >> But of course I first have to write a book before I start drilling.
> >
> >
> > I presume the rest of the island of Kefallinia does have a solid
> > limestone bedrock. I don't think it's only the marine fossils that
> > make this former channel different from the land on either side.
> >
> > Good luck with the book, Peter. I hope you can interest Cambridge
> > University Press in it.
>
> Thanks Alan. I will keep the group informed about the titles.
Titles in the plural? You are ambitious. Here are some suggestions: "The
Forgotten Frisians", "The Missing Milkers", "The Buried Byre", "The
Cache of Cattle".
> BTW. I only was commenting on the text of the press-release.
> I didn't read the book, but I know who John Underhill is, so I
> suppose at least the geology is okay.
And the philology is OK. That part is by a professor of classics at
Cambridge (he was also librarian at Queens' College when I was there).
Only one of the three authors is an enthusiastic amateur - he's the guy
who came up with the idea in the first place.
Also, the proposed location is not as far-fetched as some things that
have been suggested here (Troy in Finland, Atlantis in the Indian Ocean
and god knows what else).
Alan
Peter Alaca
> "Peter Alaca" <p.a...@purple.invalid> wrote in message
> news:45a4a569$0$27166$dbd4...@news.wanadoo.nl...
>> Alan Crozier <name1...@telia.com > wrote:
>>> "Peter Alaca" wrote in message
>>
>>>> If I drill a hole in my backyard, I will not find any limestone but
>>>> I will find a lot of lot marine fossils, not only micro, but macro.
>>>> I think that is very encouraging.
>>>> But of course I first have to write a book before I start drilling.
>>>
>>>
>>> I presume the rest of the island of Kefallinia does have a solid
>>> limestone bedrock. I don't think it's only the marine fossils that
>>> make this former channel different from the land on either side.
>>>
>>> Good luck with the book, Peter. I hope you can interest Cambridge
>>> University Press in it.
>>
>> Thanks Alan. I will keep the group informed about the titles.
>
> Titles in the plural? You are ambitious.
No, just can't make up my mind.
> Here are some suggestions:
> "The Forgotten Frisians", "The Missing Milkers", "The Buried Byre",
> "The Cache of Cattle".
And all variations and combinations.
Uncle Noah
Glad to see that you have refined your first (somewhat unfair)
comments.
The important thing here is not the marine fossils (of course) but the
factthat the hypothesis has not been disproved. Certainly, there are
some years of field research ahead...
I haven't read the book either. Writing of such book might feel hasty
but maybe this was the only way of invoking the interest of those
necessary (i think you know what i mean).
Peter Alaca
> Glad to see that you have refined your first (somewhat unfair)
> comments.
>
> The important thing here is not the marine fossils (of course) but the
> fact that the hypothesis has not been disproved.
That was the main point of my comment on the press-release.
It is encouraging for the writer, but geology is not enough to
prove the theory. When I have the theory that Ithaca was on
the Dutch coast, that theory is probably not contradicted by
the geology beneath my backyard.
> Certainly, there are some years of field research ahead...
Looking at the headlines today, not everyone is convinced
of that: "Heroic quest for home truth is over"
> I haven't read the book either. Writing of such book might feel hasty
> but maybe this was the only way of invoking the interest of those
> necessary (i think you know what i mean).
--
p.a.
Martin Edwards
next to each other. What difference does it make if Homer was a few
miles out?
--
You can't fool me: there ain't no Sanity Clause - Chico Marx
Alan Crozier
news:_56dnbpgPbwytjjY...@bt.com...
The authors' claim is not that Homer was a few miles out, but that
Homer's description was spot-on. What has happened, they say, is that
the name Ithaca was later applied to a different island which is a few
miles out.
It might not be otiose either if the new identification of Homer's
Ithaca is correct. If there is a "palace of Odysseus" to be found it is
more like likely to be discovered if the archaeologists dig in the right
place and not on a different island. That's the point of the new claim.
Alan
Aggie-tom SLT
"Alan Crozier" <name1...@telia.com> wrote in message
news:2Dbph.28749$E02....@newsb.telia.net...
The question though is what was the island now called Ithaca called before
its name was changed to Ithaca?
Mrow....?
>
> Alan
>
>
Fionn Mac Cumhaill
A possible mechanism for the transport of the name could be also be
related to an earthquake. If the original Ithaca was really badly
clobbered by an earthquake, the survivors may have relocated to a more
inhabitable location. The undersea valley lined up with the
now-filled-in channel strongly suggests a fault. If the old Ithaca
abruptly moved about 20 feet parallel to the fault line, every
structure that was bigger than a dog house would have collapsed. If
this was the case, there might be some really interesting stuff buried
in the ruins of a "palace of Odysseus" - especially if the survivors
bailed out and resettled in "New Ithaca" rather than trying to rebuild
or do extensive salvage work.
chazwin
Homer's works are mainly fictional.
It is highly likely that the island Ithaka known to the people of
classical greece was the self same island that Homer (who ever they/he
were/was) refered to. To the people of the time of Peisistratus when
the poem's finally became written down, Ithaka was that self same
island we know today. What possible sense could there be to a "real"
Ithaka?
Are these learned professors hoping to find Odysseus' bed and bow;
Penelope's embroidery?
They might, with more luck, find the home of Sherlock Holmes.
Chazwin
Agamemnon
"chazwin" <chaz...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1168523333.7...@i39g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> What on earth are these people on?
> Homer's works are mainly fictional.
BULLSHIT. Either prove that claim or retract it.
Homer's works are mainly historical and that is the opinion of all ancient
historians. There is no historical basis for any other opinion on Homer's
works.
> It is highly likely that the island Ithaka known to the people of
> classical greece was the self same island that Homer (who ever they/he
> were/was) refered to. To the people of the time of Peisistratus when
> the poem's finally became written down, Ithaka was that self same
MORE BULLSHIT. Either prove that claim or retract it.
Homer's works we written down between about 1000 and 800 BC according all
ancient Historians. It is historical accepted that writing existed in Greece
since 1900 BC and never died out. The original Minoan Linear A and Phaistos
scripts were replaced by Linear B and Cadmian scripts in Greece by 1450 BC.
In Cyprus the Linear A Cypriot script lasted until 400 BC until it was
replaced by Cadmian script there for there is no historical based for
Homer's works being composed of transmitted to later generations in anything
except writing.
Peter Alaca
> "chazwin" wrote
>> What on earth are these people on?
>> Homer's works are mainly fictional.
> BULLSHIT. Either prove that claim or retract it.
>
> Homer's works are mainly historical and that is the opinion of all
> ancient historians. There is no historical basis for any other
> opinion on Homer's works.
The opinion is that Homer's work is historical, but
there is no historical ground for any other opinion.
That seems a bit contradictory to me.
Or is that my misunderstanding?
> [...]
--
p.a.
Agamemnon
"Peter Alaca" <p.a...@purple.invalid> wrote in message
It is not contradictory.
> Or is that my misunderstanding?
Homer's works are accepted by all ancient writers as being historical.
Nobody every insinuated that the Heroes mentioned in them did not exist or
that the primary events did not take place. There was a Trojan War and
Odysseus took 10 years to return home.
>
>> [...]
>
> --
> p.a.
>
>
Peter Alaca
How reliable are ancient writers as evidence?
--
p.a.
Agamemnon
"Peter Alaca" <p.a...@purple.invalid> wrote in message
Infinitely more reliable that modern writers who have no historical sources
for any other alternative.
>
> --
> p.a.
>
>
Eric Stevens
Top posting corrected.
>What on earth are these people on?
>Homer's works are mainly fictional.
>It is highly likely that the island Ithaka known to the people of
>classical greece was the self same island that Homer (who ever they/he
>were/was) refered to. To the people of the time of Peisistratus when
>the poem's finally became written down, Ithaka was that self same
>island we know today. What possible sense could there be to a "real"
>Ithaka?
>Are these learned professors hoping to find Odysseus' bed and bow;
>Penelope's embroidery?
>They might, with more luck, find the home of Sherlock Holmes.
>
There is considerable evidence that there may be a solid body of fact
underlying the Illiad. I suggest you read 'Troy and Homer' by Joachim
Latacz, details of the english translation of which you can find at
http://tinyurl.com/u3p4m The factual support extends to the geography.
Eric Stevens
Alan Crozier
news:0badq21k9tgrlvuqm...@4ax.com...
<snip>
> There is considerable evidence that there may be a solid body of fact
> underlying the Illiad. I suggest you read 'Troy and Homer' by Joachim
> Latacz, details of the english translation of which you can find at
> http://tinyurl.com/u3p4m The factual support extends to the geography.
Thanks for the tip, Eric. Another book for the reading list.
I take it that Latacz's geography is not compatible with Vinci's. ;-)
Alan
Michael Kuettner
"Alan Crozier" <name1...@telia.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:Fhyph.28866$E02....@newsb.telia.net...
of Basel.
Since you are fluent in German, I'd suggest reading the original book -
Joachim Latacz : Troia und Homer; Piper Verlag Muenchen.
ISBN 3-492-23647-2.
If you are already up-to-date in the Homer controversy, you
might skip the book.
But it's a valuable read for anyone who has not been following the
new aspects brought about by experts on Hittite, etc.
He also does some nice work demonstrating how supposedly "broken" verses
work just fine when pronounced in the greek from Linear-B, instead that
of Homers time, for example.
A slight caveat : He is firmly in Korfmann's camp, re. identification of Troy.
But so am I.
But see for yourself - it's certainly an enjoyable, well-written book.
Cheers,
Michael Kuettner
Eric Stevens
That's another problem.
Latacz's geography for the Illiad is much more convincing than Vinci's
but some of Vinci's geography is much more convincing for the Odyssey.
I still don't see the geography of the Odyssey fitting the
Mediterranean. However, Vinci's scholarship is no match for that of
Latacz.
Latacz did put forward the view that Illiad is not about Troy but
about Agammemnon and Achilles, set against an already known ancient
story of Troy. If that is the case, it is not beyond the bounds of
possibility that the Odyssey is the story of the wanderings of
Odysseus set against the background of - quite what I don't know, but
it involves the far north. How far afield did the Mycenaens actually
get?
I can only hope that someone does for the Odyssey what seems to be
being done for the Illiad.
Eric Stevens
Eric Stevens
I have to agree with you but, in my case, about the English
translation, although I haven't quite finished reading it yet.
I think it may have been Doug Weller who put me onto Latacz. Who ever
it was, thank you.
Eric Stevens
deowll
"Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message
news:X8udnYLRH98...@pipex.net...
That was the recent view of historians up until the city was found. At that
point people started to argue about what was a fact and what was fancy.
People still argue about how much is fact and how much is fable. Maybe not
around you because you pitch a fit.
>
>>
>>> [...]
>>
>> --
>> p.a.
>>
>>
>
Uwe Müller
"Michael Kuettner" <mik...@eunet.at> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:eo6fit$srg$1...@atlas.ip-plus.net...
For those able to read german the series Archaeologia Homerica discusses in
detail what aspects of the story can be identified in the archaeologic
record, and at what time. There are apects that fit well with Mycenean life,
aspects which are contemporary with the early iron age, geometric decorated
pottery, and aspects, that are mixed up, misunderstood or invented by the
author(s).
http://www.v-r.de/de/reihen/27/
The question of wether ancient authors believed the texts to be the truth or
not, is relevant only for their time, not for the time the story is
supposedly happening, the Mycenean age, or for our time.
If you want to believe that a small ditch is the defensive system, which
kept the Greeks at bay for 10 years, Korfmann has a point. If you compare
late Bronze age Hissarlik (and there are still debates about which phase
especially) with contemporary towns in the Balkans, it becomes clear that
Hissarlik is a second rate town at best, not the top notch center described
in the texts.
have fun
Uwe Mueller
chazwin
Agamemnon wrote:
> "chazwin" <chaz...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:1168523333.7...@i39g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> > What on earth are these people on?
> > Homer's works are mainly fictional.
>
> BULLSHIT. Either prove that claim or retract it.
>
> Homer's works are mainly historical and that is the opinion of all ancient
> historians. There is no historical basis for any other opinion on Homer's
> works.
>
>
> > It is highly likely that the island Ithaka known to the people of
> > classical greece was the self same island that Homer (who ever they/he
> > were/was) refered to. To the people of the time of Peisistratus when
> > the poem's finally became written down, Ithaka was that self same
>
> MORE BULLSHIT. Either prove that claim or retract it.
>
> Homer's works we written down between about 1000 and 800 BC according all
> ancient Historians. It is historical accepted that writing existed in Greece
> since 1900 BC and never died out. The original Minoan Linear A and Phaistos
> scripts were replaced by Linear B and Cadmian scripts in Greece by 1450 BC.
> In Cyprus the Linear A Cypriot script lasted until 400 BC until it was
> replaced by Cadmian script there for there is no historical based for
> Homer's works being composed of transmitted to later generations in anything
> except writing.
It is clear that you have no knowledge of the history of writing except
the most basic details.
Linear A is not written in Greek. It was the script of the pre-Greek
community of the region.
Linear B was a modified form of Linear A that seems to have been
written by the Greek conquerors (Dorian invasions) but was NEVER used
for poetry. Linear B was exclusively used for LISTS of items by the
palaces for the economic control of their society. They were based on
syllibles, and as such bore no relationship to ancient Greek script.
Both scripts were lost to the Dark-Age whereupon the Phonecian script
was adpoted during Greece's orientalising period.
You are an ass. Homer's works an oral tradition, and were not collected
and written as a whole until Peisistratus' time in the Athenian
festivals. There is not one scrap of evidence that they were written
any sooner. You are completely forgetting the darkage in which the art
of writting was completely forgetten.
To call Homer history is the words of an ass.
Homer's works are a confused congolomerate of Bronze age and iron age
myths spanning at least 400 years. Some of the material culture
mentioned such as the boar's tusk helmet and tower shield where
memories of the Bronze Age, whilst there are references to Iron Age
culture: completely anachronistic.
>
Are these idiots who seek the "real" Ithaka looking for a Bronze age
Palace or and Iron age Basileus residence? Or are they too shy to say
unless they find the wrong thing?
chazwin
The works of Homer contain some historical information in exactly the
same way that the mythes and legends of King Arthur and the Knights of
the Round table contain SOME history.
Where Arthur is a confusion of Medievel and Darkage morality and
material culture, Homer in exactly the same way is a confusion of
Mycenean and Darkage morality and material culture. The difference is
that Homer was (possibly) written about the Mycenean time after the
Darkage came to and end, whereas Arthur was written during Medievel
times concerning the fall of Rome. Both are spearted by the gulfs of
two darkages.
Looking for the palace of Odysseus on another Island is as idiotic as
looking for the tomb containing the leaden cross of Arthur becasue is
it says so in a 12th century story book.
Suggested reading:
Morris, Ian, 1986, "Use and Abuse of Homer", Classical Antiquity.
Chadwick, 1976, The Mycenaean World, Cambridge University Press.
London.
Desborough, V. R. d'A, 1964, The Last Mycenaeans and their
Successors, Clarenden, Oxford.
Desborough, V. R. d'A, 1972, The Greek Dark Ages, Ernest Benn.
London..
>
> > [...]
>
> --
> p.a.
chazwin
here are some academic works that I suggest you take a
look at.
Morris, Ian, 1986, "Use and Abuse of Homer", Classical Antiquity.
Chadwick, 1976, The Mycenaean World, Cambridge University Press.
London.
Desborough, V. R. d'A, 1964, The Last Mycenaeans and their
Successors, Clarenden, Oxford.
Desborough, V. R. d'A, 1972, The Greek Dark Ages, Ernest Benn.
London..
chazwin
that which many have done before him. Joachim Latacz places Homer in
the 9thCentury which most scholars disagree with, but that is far too
early, even so for the works of Homer to be considered "history" and I
am sure that Joachim Latacz would think it mad to search for the palace
of Odysseus with any certainty.
The archaeological evidence for a war at Troy is Troy VIIa which is
thought to have been destroyed as early as 1300BCE. The hardcopy
evidence for Homer is not for another 400 years, in which the story
survived by word of many mouths: it is not known if Homer was actually
a single person, but himself a kind of creator myth.
What we are left with is story of an unfeasibly large fleet of ships
spending a ridiculously long time beseiging Troy for a most silly
reason. Gentlemen, I implore you, This is not an historical account.
chazwin
You fail to mention the Bronze age references mixed up with Iron age
ones.
You imply that Homer specifically identifies geometric pots: he does
not!!
Indeed most of Homer's references are NOT Mycenean but EIA. The
emergence of the Early Iron Age is comtempory with the fall of Mycenaen
hegemony.
All references to Iron in Homer may come from his own personal
experience, such as the analogy of hot iron in the eye of the Cyclopse
(anachronistic for bronze age).
Much of Homer's bronze age references are confused. You have only to
see how he treats chariots (sort of a taxi service to the battle field)
to know that he has no direct brinze age information. His moral
assumptions are contemporary: mid dark age.
>
> http://www.v-r.de/de/reihen/27/
>
> The question of wether ancient authors believed the texts to be the truth or
> not, is relevant only for their time, not for the time the story is
> supposedly happening, the Mycenean age, or for our time.
>
> If you want to believe that a small ditch is the defensive system, which
> kept the Greeks at bay for 10 years, Korfmann has a point. If you compare
> late Bronze age Hissarlik (and there are still debates about which phase
> especially) with contemporary towns in the Balkans, it becomes clear that
> Hissarlik is a second rate town at best, not the top notch center described
> in the texts.
It is ridiculous to assume that any army would seige a polis for ten
years. It is stupid to beleive that a polis would survive: it is
clearly poetic licence.
It is poetic licence that the Greek had so many ships. This is not
history
>
> have fun
>
> Uwe Mueller
chazwin
It the wrong question. The real question is how far did Homer's (a man
of the dark age) imagination take him. What weird and wonderful stories
was he able to collect and synthesise into this incredible journey?
>
> I can only hope that someone does for the Odyssey what seems to be
> being done for the Illiad.
But that is the assinine project that we are discussing here.
For an interesting balanced and level headed, though not very scholarly
approach why not try Michael Wood's "In search of the Trojan War"
>
>
>
> Eric Stevens
Martin Edwards
> Joachim Latacz is a serious scholar -no problem. He is popularising
> that which many have done before him. Joachim Latacz places Homer in
> the 9thCentury which most scholars disagree with, but that is far too
> early, even so for the works of Homer to be considered "history" and I
> am sure that Joachim Latacz would think it mad to search for the palace
> of Odysseus with any certainty.
> The archaeological evidence for a war at Troy is Troy VIIa which is
> thought to have been destroyed as early as 1300BCE. The hardcopy
> evidence for Homer is not for another 400 years, in which the story
> survived by word of many mouths: it is not known if Homer was actually
> a single person, but himself a kind of creator myth.
> What we are left with is story of an unfeasibly large fleet of ships
> spending a ridiculously long time beseiging Troy for a most silly
> reason. Gentlemen, I implore you, This is not an historical account.
>
Elliot Ness, Al Capone and Frank Nitti all existed as did the
Untouchables, who were the nucleus of what is now the AFT. However,
they were not working with the police: they were set up precisely
because the police were bent. Joe Malone, even if he existed, would not
have been allowed anywhere near Ness for that reason. Capone did brain
a suspected stoolie with a baseball bat, but did not precede the
execution with a Thucidydean speech about baseball. The character
referred to as the Accountant in the movie was a tax inspector and was
not working with either the police or the Untouchables. Ness did not
push Nitti off a roof. Nitti thought he was going to be put away on the
same charges as Capone and shot himself in a railyard. If a story can
change that much in sixty years, what am I bid for fifteen centuries?
ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk
agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM (Agamemnon) wrote:
> The original Minoan Linear A and Phaistos
> scripts were replaced by Linear B and Cadmian scripts
> in Greece by 1450 BC.
Linear A was never used in mainland Greece and as far as
I know the only instance of of the Phaistos script was on
the Phaistos disc. Linear A was not a proto-Greek but a
different language. Homer is generally agreed (if there
was one poet) to have composed the Iliad in the Dark ages
between the fall of Myceanan civilisation and the rise of
Classical Greece.
> for there is no historical based for
> Homer's works being composed of transmitted to later
> generations in anything except writing.
The various kennings in Homer are typical of orally
transmitted poetry. It is disputed whether or not the
Iliad and the Odyssey were composed by the same person and
the Catalogue of Ships is usually regarded as an
interpolation.
> There was a Trojan War and
> Odysseus took 10 years to return home.
When was the last time you actually read the works? The
War lasted 10 years and Odysseus took IIRC 20 years to get
home.
Ken Young
Doug Weller
Agamemnon makes it up as he goes along. Seriously. And he won't change
his mind. He's a racist bigot also.
--
Doug Weller --
A Director and Moderator of The Hall of Ma'at http://www.hallofmaat.com
Doug's Archaeology Site: http://www.ramtops.co.uk
Amun - co-owner/co-moderator http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Amun/
Michael Kuettner
"chazwin" <chaz...@yahoo.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:1168593595....@i15g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Joachim Latacz is a serious scholar -no problem. He is popularising
> that which many have done before him. Joachim Latacz places Homer in
> the 9thCentury which most scholars disagree with,
8th century, AFAIR.
Which scholars disagree with that?
> but that is far too
> early, even so for the works of Homer to be considered "history"
Who considers Homer's poems as "history" ?
They're like the Bible, or the Nibelungenlied "historical sources".
> and I
> am sure that Joachim Latacz would think it mad to search for the palace
> of Odysseus with any certainty.
Not really; parts of the Illias are recited by Homer without being understood.
The ship/catalogur is the most famous example.
> The archaeological evidence for a war at Troy is Troy VIIa which is
> thought to have been destroyed as early as 1300BCE.
Yep, so where's the problem ?
The Nibelungenlied was written down in the 12th century AD, yet it
mentions Attila and Theoderich.
> The hardcopy
> evidence for Homer is not for another 400 years, in which the story
> survived by word of many mouths: it is not known if Homer was actually
> a single person, but himself a kind of creator myth.
The controversy whether Homer was a single person is another kettle of fish.
So you mean that (the) Homer(s) were 8th century ?
Noone claimed anything else.
> What we are left with is story of an unfeasibly large fleet of ships
> spending a ridiculously long time beseiging Troy for a most silly
> reason. Gentlemen, I implore you, This is not an historical account.
>
Of course it isn't. Noone claims that it is. He (them) was (were) (a)
poet(s), not a writer of history.
_But_ there are some grains of history to be gained when we sift through
his works.
Take the ship catalogue : A nice "Who's Who" of Bronze age Greece.
Nestors' drinking vessel or Odysseus' helmet : Bronze age artifacts have
been found which match that description.
Homer was like an AngloSaxon who writes a contemporary piece based
upon Beowulf - everyone knows the story, so I don't need to develop my
characters before starting to spin my yarn.
That's roughly the essence of Latacz's book.
Cheers,
Michael Kuettner
PS : Please stop top-posting.
Eric Stevens
>Hey Eric,
> here are some academic works that I suggest you take a
>look at.
>
>Morris, Ian, 1986, "Use and Abuse of Homer", Classical Antiquity.
>Chadwick, 1976, The Mycenaean World, Cambridge University Press.
>London.
>Desborough, V. R. d'A, 1964, The Last Mycenaeans and their
>Successors, Clarenden, Oxford.
>Desborough, V. R. d'A, 1972, The Greek Dark Ages, Ernest Benn.
>London..
If Latacz is to be believed there have been some major developments in
relevant fields since thos books were written. Do you know of anything
more recent?
Eric Stevens
Italo
> For those able to read german the series Archaeologia
> Homerica discusses in detail what aspects of the story
> can be identified in the archaeologic record, and at what
> time. There are apects that fit well with Mycenean life,
> aspects which are contemporary with the early iron age,
> geometric decorated pottery, and aspects, that are mixed
> up, misunderstood or invented by the author(s).
>
> http://www.v-r.de/de/reihen/27/
> The question of wether ancient authors believed the texts
> to be the truth or not, is relevant only for their time,
> not for the time the story is supposedly happening, the
> Mycenean age, or for our time.
>
> If you want to believe that a small ditch is the
> defensive system, which kept the Greeks at bay for 10
> years, Korfmann has a point.
There's another much smaller rock-cut ditch with postholes,
dated to Troy-II, probably for a wooden wall (see `Eine
stadtmauer aus Holz´, P.Jablonka, p.391 in `Troia - Traum
und Wirklichkeit´ http://www.theiss.de/detail_search.php?n=472 )
However the outer ditch, four meters wide, marks the
perimeter of the lower town of Troy-VI. Behind the ditch
there should have been a (mudbrick?) wall. Its debris may
already been removed two millenia ago.
> If you compare late Bronze age Hissarlik (and there are
> still debates about which phase especially) with
> contemporary towns in the Balkans,
Which are?
Italo
> It is ridiculous to assume that any army would seige a
> polis for ten years.
Where do you read that the city was besieged for ten years.
The events at Troy take place in the 10th year of the war.
e.g. Achilles' army arrives at Troy only after having first
destroyed 23 other cities, "twelve cities with ships, and
eleven by land". One of these, Lelegian Pedasos, is probably
the same as Pitassa, considered to be part of the Hittite
empire (would the Hittite empire have ended already before
the fall of Troy?)
> It is stupid to beleive that a polis would survive: it is
> clearly poetic licence. It is poetic licence that the
> Greek had so many ships. This is not history
Compare the Trojan alliance. These fought also on the side
of the Hittites against the Egyptians at Kadesh. The
Egyptian account says that the enemy forces numbered 47500
men, including 3500 chariots and 37000 infantry.
I don't see why Homer's 1086 ships for a ten year war is
more unlikely as the above numbers for a single battle.
Italo
> Homer's works an oral tradition, and were not collected
> and written as a whole until Peisistratus' time in the
> Athenian festivals.
The story is that Athens didn't possess written copies of
Homer's works until Peisistratus. It was Lycurgus of Sparta
who bought the writings earlier from the descendants of
Creophylus in Samos. The "oral tradition" at Athens goes
back to the written text.
Agamemnon
>
> Peter Alaca wrote:
>> Agamemnon <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM > wrote:
>>
>> > "chazwin" wrote
>>
>> >> What on earth are these people on?
>> >> Homer's works are mainly fictional.
>>
>> > BULLSHIT. Either prove that claim or retract it.
>> >
>> > Homer's works are mainly historical and that is the opinion of all
>> > ancient historians. There is no historical basis for any other
>> > opinion on Homer's works.
>>
>> The opinion is that Homer's work is historical, but
>> there is no historical ground for any other opinion.
>> That seems a bit contradictory to me.
>> Or is that my misunderstanding?
>
> The works of Homer contain some historical information in exactly the
> same way that the mythes and legends of King Arthur and the Knights of
> the Round table contain SOME history.
> Where Arthur is a confusion of Medievel and Darkage morality and
> material culture, Homer in exactly the same way is a confusion of
> Mycenean and Darkage morality and material culture. The difference is
> that Homer was (possibly) written about the Mycenean time after the
> Darkage came to and end, whereas Arthur was written during Medievel
> times concerning the fall of Rome. Both are spearted by the gulfs of
> two darkages.
Twaddle. The Arthurian legends unlike the works of Homer are based on more
than one King Arthur. Several Arthurs who ruled at different times in
history were merged together. The same is true for the Robin Hood legends,
which merged multiple people with the same or similar names.
In the case of the works of Homer there was only ONE Agamemnon, only ONE
Menelaus, only ONE Odysseus and only ONE of each of the other Heroes, and
they all lived at the same time. There is no a case of a Lancelot been
thrown into a story 200 years later or a Maid Marion being added a hundred
years afterwards in Homers works.
>
> Looking for the palace of Odysseus on another Island is as idiotic as
> looking for the tomb containing the leaden cross of Arthur becasue is
> it says so in a 12th century story book.
There was only ONE Odysseus but many King Arthur's so its not the same
thing.
Agamemnon
No it is clear that YOU don't.
>
> Linear A is not written in Greek. It was the script of the pre-Greek
> community of the region.
WRONG!
Linear A has been provend to be Aeolic Greek.
http://www.anistor.co.hol.gr/english/enback/v014.htm
> Linear B was a modified form of Linear A that seems to have been
> written by the Greek conquerors (Dorian invasions) but was NEVER used
WRONG AGAIN!
Linear B was used by the Mycenaean's over 600 years before the Dorians
invaded the Peloponnese.
> for poetry. Linear B was exclusively used for LISTS of items by the
> palaces for the economic control of their society. They were based on
WRONG FOR A THIRD TIME!
The inscriptions that have been discoed also show that Linear B was also
used for religious records and for records of military deployments and
recognisance findings. Absence of inscriptions detailing other uses does not
preclude them, therefore you cannot claim any kind of exclusivity. You have
not idea what Linear B was not used for.
> syllibles, and as such bore no relationship to ancient Greek script.
IRRELEVANT since Cadmian Script existed alongside Linear B according to
historical records and archaeological discoveries.
> Both scripts were lost to the Dark-Age whereupon the Phonecian script
> was adpoted during Greece's orientalising period.
WRONG FOUR TIMES NOW!
Phoenician, i.e. Cadmian Script was brought to Greece in 1430 BC according
to historical records. It was used continuously by the Thebans until about
1200 BC when the Argives sacked Thebes after which the script spread to
Thessaly and Argos, then to Boeotia, and then to Aeolia by 1120 BC and to
Ionia by 1050 BC. By 800 BC at least 5 variants of Cadmian script existed in
Greece meaning it must have been in common usage among all the Greek tribes
by at least 1200 to 1100 BC, and this is now the opinion of all modern
linguists.
>
> You are an ass. Homer's works an oral tradition, and were not collected
No. You are an arse. You have made four basic errors already and now YOU ARE
WRONG FOR THE FIFTH TIME.
ALL the historical, grammatical and archaeological evidence shows that
Homers works were composed in WRITING. The idea oral tradition is a
Victorian FANTASY which was knocked on its head tossed out of the ring by
Frederick Augustus Wolf within a decade or so of it being concocted and
finally berried by Ventris deciphement of Linear B.
NOT ONE oral tradition has ever been shown (let alone proven) to have
existed outside of a extant written tradition, and not one has ever been
proven to have accurately recorded historical events and dates and further
back than living memory. While Homers poems together make up 30,000 lines of
Hexameter, when you include that whole body of Hesiod, and the cycles of
Thebes, Herakles, Perseus, Theseus and the histories and king lists of over
200 Greek City states going back to Minoan times you are talking about over
40 million verses and 100,000 volumes of work that need to have been
memorised by Homers day. This is clearly impossible and proves that this
material could only have been passed down to Homer and his contemporaries in
writing.
> and written as a whole until Peisistratus' time in the Athenian
WRONG FOR THE SIXTH TIME
Homers works were collected by Lycurgus in 883 BC. Have you not read any
history books?
> festivals. There is not one scrap of evidence that they were written
> any sooner. You are completely forgetting the darkage in which the art
You means apart from the testimony of every ancient historian all of whom
say they were.
> of writting was completely forgetten.
> To call Homer history is the words of an ass.
To say that Homer is not history or that he composed and spread his pomes
orally is the words of an arse.
> Homer's works are a confused congolomerate of Bronze age and iron age
> myths spanning at least 400 years. Some of the material culture
NO THEY ARE NOT.
They are factual historical accounts from Mycenaean times which have been
made into poetry.
> mentioned such as the boar's tusk helmet and tower shield where
> memories of the Bronze Age, whilst there are references to Iron Age
> culture: completely anachronistic.
WRONG SEVEN TIMES
The facts that Homers describes Mycenaean bronze age culture correctly
proves that his works were based on FACT and that he was writing not long
after the events occurred.
>>
>
> Are these idiots who seek the "real" Ithaka looking for a Bronze age
> Palace or and Iron age Basileus residence? Or are they too shy to say
> unless they find the wrong thing?
They have already found one.
Agamemnon
"Doug Weller" <dwe...@ramtops.removethis.co.uk> wrote in message
news:hkjfq2h9l60v515a6...@4ax.com...
Look whose the racist bigot and the liar. YOU ARE.
Agamemnon
"Italo" <ola...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:eo9g8a$10d$1...@news2.zwoll1.ov.home.nl...
> chazwin wrote:
>
>
>> Homer's works an oral tradition, and were not collected and written as a
>> whole until Peisistratus' time in the Athenian festivals.
>
> The story is that Athens didn't possess written copies of
> Homer's works until Peisistratus. It was Lycurgus of Sparta
> who bought the writings earlier from the descendants of
Correct.
> Creophylus in Samos. The "oral tradition" at Athens goes
> back to the written text.
>
There were no oral traditions at Athens or any other part of Greece. Its has
already been proven that the Greeks possessed writing since Minoan times in
an unbroken tradition to the presenet. People who still go on about oral
traditions despite this proof including the works of ancient historians who
covered the complete history of Greece from 1800 BC until Roman times are
complete nut cases living in a fantasy land.
Agamemnon
<ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk> wrote in message
news:pJydnbkIjso3WTrY...@pipex.net...
> In article <t-6dnbB-8dgT8DvY...@pipex.net>,
> agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM (Agamemnon) wrote:
>
>> The original Minoan Linear A and Phaistos
>> scripts were replaced by Linear B and Cadmian scripts
>> in Greece by 1450 BC.
>
> Linear A was never used in mainland Greece and as far as
> I know the only instance of of the Phaistos script was on
> the Phaistos disc. Linear A was not a proto-Greek but a
> different language. Homer is generally agreed (if there
Wrong. Linear A was a form of Aeolic Greek.
http://www.anistor.co.hol.gr/english/enback/v014.htm
There are also Linear A inscriptions which have been shown to be Ionic Greek
but grapheus will tell you more about the.
> was one poet) to have composed the Iliad in the Dark ages
> between the fall of Myceanan civilisation and the rise of
> Classical Greece.
>
>> for there is no historical based for
>> Homer's works being composed of transmitted to later
>> generations in anything except writing.
>
> The various kennings in Homer are typical of orally
> transmitted poetry. It is disputed whether or not the
OH NO THEY ARE NOT
Oral traditions are a Victorian FANSTSTY which was knocked on its head and
tossed out of the ring by Frederick Augustus Wolf within a decade or so of
it being concocted and finally burried by Ventris decipherment of Linear B.
Since there was a continuous tradition of writing up to Homers time there is
no need to invent oral tradition to explain how Homer composed his works.
The simplest explanation is always the best and that is that Homer wrote the
Iliad and Odyssey down and learned about the events from earlier books on
the subject. All the kennings in Homer were explained by Wolf as being due
to a process of continuous revisions by later copyists.
> Iliad and the Odyssey were composed by the same person and
> the Catalogue of Ships is usually regarded as an
> interpolation.
>
>> There was a Trojan War and
>> Odysseus took 10 years to return home.
>
> When was the last time you actually read the works? The
> War lasted 10 years and Odysseus took IIRC 20 years to get
> home.
It took him 10 years to return after leaving Troy.
>
> Ken Young
deowll
Not sure I wish to stick my nose in this but the sources I'm familiar with
all seem to think the place names are solid or at least the Greek ones. What
some of the others referred to is more obscure. It may be that not all the
heroes lived at the same time and that the more famous ones got mixed up in
time a bit.
>
>
>
>>
>> > [...]
>>
>> --
>> p.a.
>
deowll
> Joachim Latacz is a serious scholar -no problem. He is popularising
> that which many have done before him. Joachim Latacz places Homer in
> the 9thCentury which most scholars disagree with, but that is far too
> early, even so for the works of Homer to be considered "history" and I
> am sure that Joachim Latacz would think it mad to search for the palace
> of Odysseus with any certainty.
> The archaeological evidence for a war at Troy is Troy VIIa which is
> thought to have been destroyed as early as 1300BCE. The hardcopy
> evidence for Homer is not for another 400 years, in which the story
> survived by word of many mouths: it is not known if Homer was actually
> a single person, but himself a kind of creator myth.
> What we are left with is story of an unfeasibly large fleet of ships
> spending a ridiculously long time beseiging Troy for a most silly
> reason. Gentlemen, I implore you, This is not an historical account.
A mix of fact, myth, and fable. Trying to sort out what is what is
impossible but fun. It does contain references to behaviors, customs, and
material objects, and places, that had been long forgotten at the time they
were first written.
I for one suspect that a league of Greek city states went to war over
something.
deowll
"Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message
>
> "Italo" <ola...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:eo9g8a$10d$1...@news2.zwoll1.ov.home.nl...
>> chazwin wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Homer's works an oral tradition, and were not collected and written as a
>>> whole until Peisistratus' time in the Athenian festivals.
>>
>> The story is that Athens didn't possess written copies of
>> Homer's works until Peisistratus. It was Lycurgus of Sparta
>> who bought the writings earlier from the descendants of
>
> Correct.
>
>> Creophylus in Samos. The "oral tradition" at Athens goes
>> back to the written text.
>>
>
> There were no oral traditions at Athens or any other part of Greece.
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? You go much to
far.
deowll
(Actually the word siege would imply they had the place encircled and the
most I get is the Greeks were near the sea most of the time. For most of
this time span the Greeks weren't trying to control the landward side at
night.)
It is poetic licence that the Greek had so many ships. This is not
history
(I suspect that by later standards many of the ships have been "boats" even
if they were fairly large boats We are not talking ships with three banks of
oars here.)
(Not sure why I'm having to mark my text other than my bleeping program
messed up.)
>
> have fun
>
> Uwe Mueller
chazwin
One odysseus, one agammnon....
You are an ass!
Are you also expecting us to beleive there was one Polymetheus, One
Circe, One Calypso, One Neptune??
WHy don't you stop and actually read Homer?
You sound like Hilter Ein Volk , Ein Reich, Ein Fuereh!!!
chazwin
There was no Homer. The Homeridae were a group of poets, and it is
thought that the iliad and odyssey were not written by the same person
due to differences in style
Sparta and Mycneae are solid place names there is no problem there.
Troy's location was not so unproblematic. The location of Ithaka was
only problematic as all archaeological evidence has been removed by
volcanic activity.
I suppose the point is that the characters in an historical sense could
not have been know with any clarity at the time of Homer. The analogy
with Arthur is a good one. Fall of civilisation- darkage- myths and
legends eventually written down from an oral tradition. The basic time
scale is not so different except that Homer is more confused. Some of
his references go as far back as the high bronze age: Boar tusk helmet
(c.1400bce), chariots, bronze swords, tower sheilds etc, but these are
mixed up with refereneces to iron: the emergence (1000bce) of which is
contemporary with the fall of Mycenean civilisation. The changes of the
dark age were enormous. Previous scripts (used for economic purposes
only) were completely forgotten and a completely novel script was
adapted from the Phoenecian script. While Homer is placed at around
800bce, there is no evidence for these works to have been written down
until c. 560bce in the time of the tyrant Peisistratus.
So between the time of the siege of Troy from archaeological evidence
1200bce (Troy VIIa) till the time the poems were writen down is around
600 years.
For Arthur extant around 500 ce and written down by Geoffrey of
Monmouth c.1100 is a similar timescale. Though there are early Welsh
works which talk of Arthur. In Arthur's case many of the place names
are also secure too: StAustel, Carmarthen, Glastonbury.
There is far more to recommend the existence of Arthur as a leader of
the Romano-British than there is the existence of any particulars of
the Trojan war due to empirical reasons.
We should no more look for Odysseus' home than search for Circe's or
Calypso's islands.
>
>
>
>
> >
> >
> >
> >>
> >> > [...]
> >>
> >> --
> >> p.a.
> >
Uwe Müller
Uwe Müller wrote:
> "Michael Kuettner" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:eo6fit$srg$1...@atlas.ip-plus.net...
Sorry, I hit the wrong button, so the message went to chazwin privately.
> >
> snip >
>> For those able to read german the series Archaeologia Homerica discusses
in
>> detail what aspects of the story can be identified in the archaeologic
>> record, and at what time. There are apects that fit well with Mycenean
life,
>> aspects which are contemporary with the early iron age, geometric
decorated
>> pottery, and aspects, that are mixed up, misunderstood or invented by the
>> author(s).
>You fail to mention the Bronze age references mixed up with Iron age
>ones.
The Mycenean Age is the Late Bronze Age in mainland Greece.
>You imply that Homer specifically identifies geometric pots: he does
>not!!
I tried to describe the early iron age, the time of Homer, as the time of
the geometrically decorated pottery, another technical term of
archaeologists language. It was a bad description and far too short.
>Indeed most of Homer's references are NOT Mycenean but EIA. The
>emergence of the Early Iron Age is comtempory with the fall of Mycenaen
>hegemony.
Not in archaeologic terminology. For archaeologists the Iron age follows
after the Bronze age. And there are lots of things in Homer which are really
Mycenean.
>All references to Iron in Homer may come from his own personal
>experience, such as the analogy of hot iron in the eye of the Cyclopse
>(anachronistic for bronze age).
>Much of Homer's bronze age references are confused. You have only to
>see how he treats chariots (sort of a taxi service to the battle field)
>to know that he has no direct brinze age information. His moral
>assumptions are contemporary: mid dark age.
There is a series of 26 books on aspects of Mycenean life as depicted by
Homer compared with the archaeologic data.
>
> http://www.v-r.de/de/reihen/27/
>
>> The question of wether ancient authors believed the texts to be the truth
or
>> not, is relevant only for their time, not for the time the story is
>> supposedly happening, the Mycenean age, or for our time.
>>
>> If you want to believe that a small ditch is the defensive system, which
>> kept the Greeks at bay for 10 years, Korfmann has a point. If you compare
>> late Bronze age Hissarlik (and there are still debates about which phase
>> especially) with contemporary towns in the Balkans, it becomes clear that
>> Hissarlik is a second rate town at best, not the top notch center
described
>> in the texts.
>It is ridiculous to assume that any army would seige a polis for ten
>years. It is stupid to beleive that a polis would survive: it is
>clearly poetic licence.
The fight supposedly took place at the castle and surrounding town, not
polis of Troy.
For the military bits ask the experts. The story is, that it took them 10
years to cut off all connections and support, severe all lines of
resupplying, before the final phase started with massive battles.
>It is poetic licence that the Greek had so many ships. This is not
>history
AFAIR linguists and archaeologists insist, that the catalogue of ships is
one of the oldest and truly Mycenean (Late Bronze Age) parts and would not
have fit for the iron age settlement and power patterns.
have fun
Uwe Mueller
chazwin
Thanks you. Can you verify the Spartan/Samos connection please?
I had not heard this before. Are you saying Homer was unknown to Athens
before Peisistratus? Or that there was nothing in writing until then?
chazwin
1) There were no Greeks in Crete in Minoan times. The Greeks were
nothern barbarians who swept away the Minoan culture and their Linear A
script. The Pelasgians, as they became know were a subject people:
helots to the Spartans. The resultant change in the social
superstructre effected a change in the language by which economic lists
were written.
2) The Undecipherable Linear A is written in a forgotten language.
There is no evidence for any Greek language being written down before
Linear B.
3)There is NO calligraphic connection between Linear B and Classical
Greek script. Check your facts.
Michael Ventris established the likelyhood that Linear B is written in
a form of Greek.
4) Linear B was COMPLETELY lost to the Greek World until it was
uncovered by archaeology.
5) At the end of the Darkage a completely novel script was adopted from
Phoenician.
There is a break of at least 300 years in which no Greek wrote
anything.
Linear B was adapted into Greek. It was not used for anything else but
economic lists. When the "Mycenean" civilisation fell writing stopped,
that is why they call it a DARKAGE. The earliest verifiable exclusively
Greek writing was Hesiod (750bce). When the works of the Homeridae were
written it was in a deliberately archaic form, so thought to pre-date
Hesiod by a maximum of 100 years.
Your last sentence is complete gibberish.
chazwin
and motives of anyone trying to assert that it is.
"However, Linear A has resisted all attempts at decipherment because
its underlying language is still unknown and probably will remain
obscure since it doesn't seem to relate to any other surviving language
in Europe or Western Asia."
http://www.ancientscripts.com/lineara.html
"Linear A writings produces words that are unrelated to any known
language."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_A
"Linear A has not yet been demonstrably linked to any known language
family. "
http://people.ku.edu/~jyounger/LinearA/
Chazwin.
Let's face it the Greeks were invaders who destroyed Minoan culture.
chazwin
Simply because poets exaggerate. The number of men that 1186 ships
would be at least 100,000 - 140,000 men. The Mycneaen civilisation was
on a tiny scale compared with that of Egypt or the Hittites.
Homer does not say that the ships averaged over 10 years but mustered
at one time into a single fleet at the start of the war.
There are many inconsistencies in Homer. Let's take Odysseus and
Ithaka. The social scale of the descriptions of his home and island
were very domestic. Od made is own bed and plowed his own fields, his
home was not large. Small groups of people gather in assembly, there is
no standing army, no burocracy, no administartion. His palace is a
small farm estate in which there is no room for his father, and enjoys
visits by the goat herder. Homer has no memory of the Mycenaean
palaces. Homer goes from underestimation to exaggeration.
chazwin
> >You fail to mention the Bronze age references mixed up with Iron age
> >ones.
>
> The Mycenean Age is the Late Bronze Age in mainland Greece.
>
> >You imply that Homer specifically identifies geometric pots: he does
> >not!!
>
> I tried to describe the early iron age, the time of Homer, as the time of
> the geometrically decorated pottery, another technical term of
> archaeologists language. It was a bad description and far too short.
In truth Homer is a bizarre and confused mixture of bronze and iron age
life spanning hundreds of years.
The social scale of Odysseus' home is darkage. There are references to
iron age technology (eg cyclopse eye). There are references to BA
technology boars tuks helmet, tower shield. But the description of the
fighting shows a clear misunderstanding of BA warfare: chariots are
used like taxis. It is clear from my readins of the works of Homer that
he reflects the social scale and mores of the Dark age in which Heroes
lead the fighting hand-to-hand, and do silly things like exchange
armour on the battlefield with your enemy, but this is overlaying a dim
memory of a great war, the details of which are mainly lost in the 400
year gap.
I also think that it is another strong possiblity that the Trojan were
also "Greek" speakers too. The argumnts and conflict between the armies
of Menelaeous and Priam do not seem to suffer from lack of
communication, although Homer does make reference linguistic problems
elsewhere.
Uwe Müller
"Italo" <ola...@yahoo.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:eo9cs0$q4a$1...@news1.zwoll1.ov.home.nl...
> Uwe Müller wrote:
>
> > For those able to read german the series Archaeologia
> > Homerica discusses in detail what aspects of the story
> > can be identified in the archaeologic record, and at what
> > time. There are apects that fit well with Mycenean life,
> > aspects which are contemporary with the early iron age,
> > geometric decorated pottery, and aspects, that are mixed
> > up, misunderstood or invented by the author(s).
> >
> > http://www.v-r.de/de/reihen/27/
>
> > The question of wether ancient authors believed the texts
> > to be the truth or not, is relevant only for their time,
> > not for the time the story is supposedly happening, the
> > Mycenean age, or for our time.
> >
> > If you want to believe that a small ditch is the
> > defensive system, which kept the Greeks at bay for 10
> > years, Korfmann has a point.
>
> There's another much smaller rock-cut ditch with postholes,
> dated to Troy-II, probably for a wooden wall (see `Eine
> stadtmauer aus Holz´, P.Jablonka, p.391 in `Troia - Traum
> und Wirklichkeit´ http://www.theiss.de/detail_search.php?n=472 )
>
> However the outer ditch, four meters wide, marks the
> perimeter of the lower town of Troy-VI. Behind the ditch
> there should have been a (mudbrick?) wall. Its debris may
> already been removed two millenia ago.
>
Possible, but not a reliable argument if it isn't there. There are many good
fits for the situation of Hissarlick if compared with the description of
Troy by Homer. But there are other things which don't fit at all.
> > If you compare late Bronze age Hissarlik (and there are
> > still debates about which phase especially) with
> > contemporary towns in the Balkans,
>
> Which are?
"The excavation results at Troy VI and Besik Bay show a remarkable poverty
of imports in general and of precious objects in particular and no
connections at all with the Black Sea region. Troy's role in trade was
peripheral and restricted to the Aegean. Furthermore, evidence for writing
and even for sealing as well as for any commercial architecture is missing
on the hill of Hisarlik. Troy VI was not a commercial city and cannot even
be proven to have been a city at all, since the alleged evidence for a
densely built-up lower city, encircled by a city wall and defensive ditch,
does not bear close scrutiny." Frank Kolb, Troy VI: A Trading Center and
Commerical City?. in: AJA 108 (4), (2004), 577-613
you can download the article from
http://www.ajaonline.org/index.php?ptype=content&aid=50 or search among past
issues
Bernhard Hänsel, Troia im Tausch- und Handelsverkehr der Ägäis oder Troia
ein Handelsplatz? In: Der neue Streit um Troia - eine Bilanz. Ed. C. Ulf
(Muenchen 2003) 105-119.
or
Bernhard Hänsel, Bronzezeitliche Stadtstruktur im Karpatenbecken, in:
Festschrift für A. Vulpe (Baia Mare 2003) 207-217.
or
Bernhard Hänsel, : Stationen der Bronzezeit zwischen Griechenland und
Mitteleuropa, in: Bericht der Roemisch-Germanischen Kommision 83, 2002
(2003) 69-97
will give you a recent survey of trade, urbanity, communication and commerce
in the area .
There was a big public debate because of the Troy-Hissarlik controversy in
Germany, culminating in a symposium in Tuebingen in 2002. I don't know if it
has been published yet, but a majority of the scientists taking part did not
agree with Korffmanns theory of the historicity of Homer and the
identification of Hissarlick as that historic Troy.
>
> > it becomes clear that Hissarlik is a second rate town at
> > best, not the top notch center described in the texts.
Further references from the pro Toy and pro Korffmann side of the issue at
http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/troia/deu/fachliteratur.html
have fun
Uwe Mueller
Agamemnon
> Hey Listen, Linear A is not Greek, and I would suspect the rationale
> and motives of anyone trying to assert that it is.
>
>
> Chazwin.
>
> Let's face it the Greeks were invaders who destroyed Minoan culture.
BULLSHIT!
The Minoans were Greeks and their biological descendents are still around
today.
Agamemnon
"deowll" <deo...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:pr_ph.171$bp4...@bignews4.bellsouth.net...
>
> "Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message
> news:SsSdnSQ0EY5...@pipex.net...
>>
>> "Italo" <ola...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> news:eo9g8a$10d$1...@news2.zwoll1.ov.home.nl...
>>> chazwin wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Homer's works an oral tradition, and were not collected and written as
>>>> a whole until Peisistratus' time in the Athenian festivals.
>>>
>>> The story is that Athens didn't possess written copies of
>>> Homer's works until Peisistratus. It was Lycurgus of Sparta
>>> who bought the writings earlier from the descendants of
>>
>> Correct.
>>
>>> Creophylus in Samos. The "oral tradition" at Athens goes
>>> back to the written text.
>>>
>>
>> There were no oral traditions at Athens or any other part of Greece.
>
> ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? You go much
> to far.
>
Oral traditions are unfounded SCIENCE FICTION!
Martin Edwards
Phoenician-derived script?
--
You can't fool me: there ain't no Sanity Clause - Chico Marx
Agamemnon
>
> Agamemnon wrote:
>> "Italo" <ola...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> news:eo9g8a$10d$1...@news2.zwoll1.ov.home.nl...
>> > chazwin wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >> Homer's works an oral tradition, and were not collected and written as
>> >> a
>> >> whole until Peisistratus' time in the Athenian festivals.
>> >
>> > The story is that Athens didn't possess written copies of
>> > Homer's works until Peisistratus. It was Lycurgus of Sparta
>> > who bought the writings earlier from the descendants of
>>
>> Correct.
>>
>> > Creophylus in Samos. The "oral tradition" at Athens goes
>> > back to the written text.
>> >
>>
>> There were no oral traditions at Athens or any other part of Greece. Its
>> has
>> already been proven that the Greeks possessed writing since Minoan times
>> in
>> an unbroken tradition to the presenet. People who still go on about oral
>> traditions despite this proof including the works of ancient historians
>> who
>> covered the complete history of Greece from 1800 BC until Roman times are
>> complete nut cases living in a fantasy land.
>
> 1) There were no Greeks in Crete in Minoan times. The Greeks were
> nothern barbarians who swept away the Minoan culture and their Linear A
YOU ARE TALKING OUT OF YOUR ARSEHOLE.
Go and take a look at what the word barbarian means. It means someone who
does not speak Greek you moronic imbecile.
> script. The Pelasgians, as they became know were a subject people:
You are clearly out of your depth. Go and read a real history book.
The Pelasgians were Greek speaking peoples descended from Phoroneus that
originally came from Argos in the Peloponnese and moved to Arcadia,
Thessaly, Crete, Hellespont and northern Italy. Greek was a dialect of
Pelasgian which became more widespread than Pelasgian.
> helots to the Spartans. The resultant change in the social
You are talking out of you arsehole and making things up as you go along.
> superstructre effected a change in the language by which economic lists
> were written.
MADE UP BULLSHIT
Read a history book.
> 2) The Undecipherable Linear A is written in a forgotten language.
> There is no evidence for any Greek language being written down before
> Linear B.
WRONG!
Linear A was a form of Aeolic Greek.
http://www.anistor.co.hol.gr/english/enback/v014.htm
There are also Linear A inscriptions which have been
> 3)There is NO calligraphic connection between Linear B and Classical
> Greek script. Check your facts.
Who said there ever was. Linear B was used in parallel to Cadmian script in
Mycenaean times.
READ A HISTORY BOOK YOU IMBECILE.
> Michael Ventris established the likelyhood that Linear B is written in
> a form of Greek.
> 4) Linear B was COMPLETELY lost to the Greek World until it was
> uncovered by archaeology.
BULLSHIT.
Linear B's cousin script archaic Cypriot scrip was used in Cyprus up until
400 BC in a continuous unbroken tradition since Minoan times. In the rest of
Greece Cadmian Script replaced Linear B almost completely by 1100 BC and was
being used since at least 1430 BC.
> 5) At the end of the Darkage a completely novel script was adopted from
> Phoenician.
WRONG!
Cadmian script was used continuously in Greece since 1430 BC when Cadmus
brought it from Phoenicia. READ A HISTORY BOOK YOU IDIOT!
> There is a break of at least 300 years in which no Greek wrote
> anything.
WRONG!
There is no historical evidence whatsoever for any break. NONE!
All the history books say writing was in used continuously in Greece since
1800 BC without interruption.
> Linear B was adapted into Greek. It was not used for anything else but
> economic lists. When the "Mycenean" civilisation fell writing stopped,
WRONG!
It was used to record religious matters and military recognisance and
displaces as well so that destroy your argument completly. You cannot make a
claim of what Linear B was not used for since only a small factions of it
survives.
> that is why they call it a DARKAGE. The earliest verifiable exclusively
Have you not read Herodotus or Pausanius, or Eusebius or Jerome or Diodorus
or the Parian Marble? There was NO dark age. The history of this period was
full recorded by the ancient Greeks including the migrations, constructions,
and battles that took place and all of the kings that ruled and the length
of their reigns.
> Greek writing was Hesiod (750bce). When the works of the Homeridae were
WRONG AGAIN!
Hesiod lived in 916 BC when Megacles was king of Athens.
> written it was in a deliberately archaic form, so thought to pre-date
> Hesiod by a maximum of 100 years.
You are making everything up as you are going along. Homer and Hesiod were
contemporaries. There only thing Hesiod wrote himself was Works and Days.
Theogony was written about 80 or 100 years after Hesiod. Obviously you have
not read it or any other historical record so its no wonder you keep getting
your facts wrong.
>
> Your last sentence is complete gibberish.
Everything you have written is complete gibberish. GO AND GET AN EDUCATION!
Agamemnon
> You have not a shred of evidence for your words.
> One odysseus, one agammnon....
> You are an ass!
> Are you also expecting us to beleive there was one Polymetheus, One
> Circe, One Calypso, One Neptune??
> WHy don't you stop and actually read Homer?
> You sound like Hilter Ein Volk , Ein Reich, Ein Fuereh!!!
You have lost any credibility you people might have thought you had
completely.
GO AND READ A HISTORY BOOK.
You have NOT A SHRED of HISTORICAL EVIDENCE to deny the existence of the
Homeric Heroes as individuals. NONE WHATSOEVER. EVERY ANCIENT HISTORIAN
agree that they existed and there is not one decanting voice offering any
alternative.
Agamemnon
Get an education you moron.
The Greek Heroes were worshiped a virtual Gods by their descendents. They
were the ancestor of the royalties of every Greek city state and were
honoured like past mayors and kings are today, in fact more so. There is no
conceivable reason given the vast body of Hellenic historical literature and
the nature of the Greek religion that Homer did not know of them with any
clarity.
> with Arthur is a good one. Fall of civilisation- darkage- myths and
WRONG. There is no analogy with King Arthur.
King Arthur was based on more than one king that lived at times. The Heroes
of Homer were ALL INDIVIDUALS who ALL LIVED AT THE SAME TIME.
> legends eventually written down from an oral tradition. The basic time
BULLSHIT. You have NO HISTORICAL EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER for an oral tradition
or a fall in civilisation. There period of your so-called dark age is
covered by Diodorus, Eusebius, Pausanius, Jerome, the Parian Marble,
Herodotus, Apollodorus and Aristotle.
> scale is not so different except that Homer is more confused. Some of
> his references go as far back as the high bronze age: Boar tusk helmet
> (c.1400bce), chariots, bronze swords, tower sheilds etc, but these are
> mixed up with refereneces to iron: the emergence (1000bce) of which is
WRONG AGAIN!
Iron was discovered in Cyprus and Mt. Ida by the Idean Dactyls Celmis and
Damnameneus in 1418 BC.
> contemporary with the fall of Mycenean civilisation. The changes of the
> dark age were enormous. Previous scripts (used for economic purposes
> only) were completely forgotten and a completely novel script was
WRONG.
The fact that the works of Homer and Hesiod exist shows that writing
continued to exist continuously and that Cadmian script was used in an
unbroken tradition since 1430 BC when Cadmus founded Thebes.
> adapted from the Phoenecian script. While Homer is placed at around
> 800bce, there is no evidence for these works to have been written down
Homer is placed in 880 BC.
> until c. 560bce in the time of the tyrant Peisistratus.
BULLSHIT!
READ A HISTORY BOOK YOU IDIOT.
Lycurgus of Sparta collected the works together al most as soon as they were
written by Homer.
> So between the time of the siege of Troy from archaeological evidence
> 1200bce (Troy VIIa) till the time the poems were writen down is around
> 600 years.
WRONG.
From the historical and archaeological evidence the account of the Trojan
War was written down originally as military dispatches as it happened.
Within 100 years it was collated and written down as history and the Heroes
were worshiped as virtual Gods. This historical account was taken to Ionia
with Homers ancestors in 1036 BC and Homer wrote his poems based on it and
earlier embellishments of it in 880 BC and later copyists embellished Homer
even further so that by the time of Piseistratus may versions existed which
were then epitomised into a standard version.
> For Arthur extant around 500 ce and written down by Geoffrey of
> Monmouth c.1100 is a similar timescale. Though there are early Welsh
> works which talk of Arthur. In Arthur's case many of the place names
> are also secure too: StAustel, Carmarthen, Glastonbury.
TOTALLY IRRLEVENT.
>
> There is far more to recommend the existence of Arthur as a leader of
> the Romano-British than there is the existence of any particulars of
> the Trojan war due to empirical reasons.
WRONG!
Arthur was a composite figure. The Heroes of Homer were all individuals.
> We should no more look for Odysseus' home than search for Circe's or
> Calypso's islands.
>
FOOL!
grapheus
Martin Edwards a écrit :
> chazwin wrote:
> > Joachim Latacz is a serious scholar -no problem. He is popularising
> > that which many have done before him. Joachim Latacz places Homer in
> > the 9thCentury which most scholars disagree with, but that is far too
> > early, even so for the works of Homer to be considered "history" and I
> > am sure that Joachim Latacz would think it mad to search for the palace
> > of Odysseus with any certainty.
> > The archaeological evidence for a war at Troy is Troy VIIa which is
> > thought to have been destroyed as early as 1300BCE. The hardcopy
> > evidence for Homer is not for another 400 years, in which the story
> > survived by word of many mouths: it is not known if Homer was actually
> > a single person, but himself a kind of creator myth.
> > What we are left with is story of an unfeasibly large fleet of ships
> > spending a ridiculously long time beseiging Troy for a most silly
> > reason. Gentlemen, I implore you, This is not an historical account.
> >
> Elliot Ness, Al Capone and Frank Nitti all existed as did the
> Untouchables, who were the nucleus of what is now the AFT. However,
> they were not working with the police: they were set up precisely
> because the police were bent. Joe Malone, even if he existed, would not
> have been allowed anywhere near Ness for that reason. Capone did brain
> a suspected stoolie with a baseball bat, but did not precede the
> execution with a Thucidydean speech about baseball. The character
> referred to as the Accountant in the movie was a tax inspector and was
> not working with either the police or the Untouchables. Ness did not
> push Nitti off a roof. Nitti thought he was going to be put away on the
> same charges as Capone and shot himself in a railyard. If a story can
> change that much in sixty years, what am I bid for fifteen centuries?
>
I fully agree with you. The TRUTH is between the position of Agamemnon
(The Homeric Poem is History) and the Chazwin's one (It is pure
Fiction).
And most of the "strangenesses" of it have been satisfactorily
explained by J. Faucounau in his book "Les Origines Grecques à L'Age
de Bronze" (Paris 2005) in the frame of his "Proto-Ionian Theory".
grapheus
Agamemnon
"Martin Edwards" <big_m...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:WL2dnVHJbLB...@bt.com...
They didn't suddenly stop using Linear B. Linear B was used in parallel with
Cadmian script from 1430 BC. Inscriptions made in Cadmian script from
Mycenaean times are clearly documented by Herodotus. The Argives adopted
Cadmian script over Linear B when the Epigoni captured Thebes (or earlier
judging by Herodotus description concerning Amphitryon). The Pelasgians
adopted it when the Cadmians were expelled to Thessaly. The Athenians,
Aeolians and Ionians adopted it from the Pelasgians that were expelled from
Thebes. The Dorians adopted it when Autesion joined them in Dryopis before
they invaded the Peloponnese and replaced the Mycenaean's/Achaeans/Argives.
chazwin
> does not speak Greek you moronic imbecile.
Yes you idiotic fool - I know what that "literal" meaning is. I am
talking about the usual meaning: that of uncivilised and ignorant
philistines, which exactly describes the invading "greeks" who
destoryed Minoan civilisation.
One can opnly wonder at the assinine choice of your own handle
"agamemnon" suggesting "resolute". You are clearly and resolutely
attached to you irrationality.
>
> > script. The Pelasgians, as they became know were a subject people:
>
> You are clearly out of your depth. Go and read a real history book.
>
> The Pelasgians were Greek speaking peoples descended from Phoroneus that
> originally came from Argos in the Peloponnese and moved to Arcadia,
> Thessaly, Crete, Hellespont and northern Italy. Greek was a dialect of
> Pelasgian which became more widespread than Pelasgian.
The language of the Pelasgians is still unknown as is the language in
which Linear A was written.
>
> > helots to the Spartans. The resultant change in the social
>
> You are talking out of you arsehole and making things up as you go along.
You have clearly never heard of the Dorian invasions.
>
> > superstructre effected a change in the language by which economic lists
> > were written.
>
> MADE UP BULLSHIT
>
> Read a history book.
>
> > 2) The Undecipherable Linear A is written in a forgotten language.
> > There is no evidence for any Greek language being written down before
> > Linear B.
>
> WRONG!
>
> Linear A was a form of Aeolic Greek.
You are a arsehole with some pro-greek agenda. You will never
understand the ancient history of the Greek lands becasue your eyes are
blinded by some bizarre prejeudice.
>
> http://www.anistor.co.hol.gr/english/enback/v014.htm
>
> There are also Linear A inscriptions which have been
>
>
> > 3)There is NO calligraphic connection between Linear B and Classical
> > Greek script. Check your facts.
>
> Who said there ever was. Linear B was used in parallel to Cadmian script in
> Mycenaean times.
You said, in support of your stupid idea that Homer was history, that
there had been a continuous unbroken use of writting from Linear A to
Homer. You are an ass to suggest it because writing was not used for
history until Herodotus, Linear A and B were used by burocrats, ALL
examples are lists of items. When Greece emerged from the darkage
Linear scripts were unknown to them and they borrowed Phoenecian
writing. There is not one shred of evidence that Greeks used any other
scripts.
>
> READ A HISTORY BOOK YOU IMBECILE.
>
> > Michael Ventris established the likelyhood that Linear B is written in
> > a form of Greek.
> > 4) Linear B was COMPLETELY lost to the Greek World until it was
> > uncovered by archaeology.
>
> BULLSHIT.
>
> Linear B's cousin script archaic Cypriot scrip was used in Cyprus up until
> 400 BC in a continuous unbroken tradition since Minoan times.
There is not one shred of evidence for this. You are having a laff
mate!
You are making this up as you go along. What is your fucking agenda
mate?
I imagine that anyone stupid enough to call himslef Agamemnon can't be
trusted to make any rational statments concerning Greek history.
> In the rest of
> Greece Cadmian Script replaced Linear B almost completely by 1100 BC and was
> being used since at least 1430 BC.
>
> > 5) At the end of the Darkage a completely novel script was adopted from
> > Phoenician.
>
> WRONG!
>
> Cadmian script was used continuously in Greece since 1430 BC when Cadmus
> brought it from Phoenicia. READ A HISTORY BOOK YOU IDIOT!
Prove it!
>
>
> > There is a break of at least 300 years in which no Greek wrote
> > anything.
>
> WRONG!
>
> There is no historical evidence whatsoever for any break. NONE!
There is absence of evidence which in this case is evidence of absence.
I suppose you think that up to 400 years of Darkage never happened?
Wanker!
>
> All the history books say writing was in used continuously in Greece since
> 1800 BC without interruption.
WHy the fuck did they adopt Phoenecian writting? Because the
"barbarian" Greek invaders stole Linear A from the non Greek
inhabitants of Greece, and got them to use it to write in Greek, but
during the fall of Mycenaean "civilisation" the Greek were too stupid
to do it for themselves and the art was forgotten until they learned
writing again. This time from the east during what is known as the
orientalising period.
>
> > Linear B was adapted into Greek. It was not used for anything else but
> > economic lists. When the "Mycenean" civilisation fell writing stopped,
>
> WRONG!
>
> It was used to record religious matters and military recognisance and
> displaces as well so that destroy your argument completly. You cannot make a
> claim of what Linear B was not used for since only a small factions of it
> survives.
All examples were economic in nature, lists of people and things. No
poetry, no history, nothing interesting except to ancient economists:
absolutely no stories of heroes.
>
> > that is why they call it a DARKAGE. The earliest verifiable exclusively
>
> Have you not read Herodotus or Pausanius, or Eusebius or Jerome or Diodorus
> or the Parian Marble? There was NO dark age.
I have read them all. Herodotus had no information about his immediate
past - how should he have? The stuff he did not know he made up.
I rely on scholarship, I do not rely on story tellers to get my ancient
history. I do not beleive that the Minotaur existed, nor Circe, nor
Calypso, there was no Sirens or Golden Fleece. If you want to look a
complete arse then please continue to ignore the last 200 years of
scholarship in ancient history.
Have you not read Snodgrass
What a fucking JOKE!!! Here it is the quote of the week. Agamennon says
" THERE WAS NO DARK AGE"
Here are one or two publications that I have read and studied, every
single one of them disagrees with you.
Boardman 1967, Excavations in Chios 1952-1955 Greek Emporio, ABSA,
Supp.6, Thames and Hudson.
Burkert W. 1992, The Orientalizing Revolution, Harvard University
Press.
Burn, A. R. 1966 (2nd ed.), The World of Hesiod: A study of the Greek
Middle Ages c. 900-700, Benjamin Blom, NY.
Cartledge, P. 1979, Sparta and Laconia: A Regional History 1300-362 BC,
Routledge & Kegan Paul , London.
Champion, T., Gamble, C., Shennan, S., Whittle, A. 1984, Prehistoric
Europe, Academic Press. London.
Coldstream, J N, 1977, Geometric Greece, Methuen.
Desborough, V. R. d’A, 1952, Protogeometric Pottery, Clarendon Press,
Oxford.
Desborough, V. R. d’A, 1964, The Last Mycenaeans and their
Successors, Clarendon, Oxford.
Desborough, V. R. d’A, 1972, The Greek Dark Ages, Ernest Benn.
London..
Drews R, 1983, Basileus, Yale.
Finley M I, 1964, The World of Odysseus, Chatto and Windus.
Finley M I, (1981a) 1957, "Homer and Mycenae: Property and Tenure." in
Historia Vol. 6, pp133ff
Finley 1981 b, Marriage, sale and Gift in the Homeric World, Economy
and Society in Ancient Greece, London, Chatto & Windus.
Finley 1981 c, Early Greece: The Bronze and Archaic Ages, Chatto and
Windus.
Geddes, A. G. 1984, Who’s who in Homeric Society?, Classical Quaterly
34(I), pp17-36.
Griffin, J. 1980, Homer, Oxford University Press
Hägg, R. 1983, The Greek Renaissance of the Eighth Century BC:
Tradition and Innovation, Stockholm.
Halverson, J. 1985, Social Order in the Odyssey, Hermes Zeitschrift
Für Klassische Philologie, 113, pp 129- 145
James, P. J. et al 1991, Centuries of Darkness, Johnathan Cape London.
Millett P. 1984, Hesiod and his World, Proceedings of the Cambridge
Philological Society, No. 210 (New Series, No 30) pp 84-115.
Morris, I., 1986, The Use and Abuse of Homer, Classical Antiquity,
Vol. 5: 1, 81-138.
Morris, I., 1986 b , Gift and commodity in Archaic Greece, Man 21,1-17.
Morris I., 1987, Burial and Ancient Society, Cambridge.
Snodgrass, 1971, The Dark Age of Greece, Edinburgh.
Snodgrass, 1974, An Historical Homeric Society?, JHS XCIV, pp 114ff.
Snodgrass 1980, Archaic Greece: the age of experiment, London.
Snodgrass, 1987, An Archaeology of Greece: the present state and future
scope of a discipline, University of California Press.
Snodgrass, 1989, "The coming of the Iron Age in Greece: Europe's
earliest Bronze/Iron Age transition" in Sorensen and Thomas (eds.),
The Bronze-Iron Age transition in Europe, BAR, Oxford, pp22ff.
Starr, C. G. 1961, The Origins of Greek Civilisation¸ Johnathan Cape.
London.
Starr, C. G. 1977, The Economic and Social Growth of Early Greece
800-500 B.C.
Thomas C G, 1966, "The Roots of Homeric Kingship", in Historia 15, pp
387-407.
Ventris, M & J. Chadwick, 1956, Documents in Mycenaean Greek, Cambridge
University Press.
West, M.L. 1988, The Rise of the Greek Epic, Journal of Hellenic
Studies, cviii, pp 151-172.
West, M. L., 1994, Greek Lyric Poetry, Oxford University Press.
Whitley, James, 1991, Style and society in Dark Age Greece: the
changing face of a pre-literate society 1100-700 BC, Cambridge
University Press.
You are a class A arsehole!!!!
The greek dark age is a vital part of every single one of these
publications!!!
You can't continue to get your view of ancient history solely from
story books - things have moved on. This is an ARCHEOLOGY NG. Why not
start by reading Snodgrass 1971 you will learn something.
The history of this period was
> full recorded by the ancient Greeks including the migrations, constructions,
> and battles that took place and all of the kings that ruled and the length
> of their reigns.
>
> > Greek writing was Hesiod (750bce). When the works of the Homeridae were
>
> WRONG AGAIN!
>
> Hesiod lived in 916 BC when Megacles was king of Athens.
Wanker alert!!!!!!
Hesiod (Hesiodos, Ἡσίοδος), the early Greek poet and rhapsode,
presumably lived around 700 BC. Historians have debated the priority of
Hesiod or of Homer, and some authors have even brought them together in
an imagined poetic contest. Modern scholars disagree as to which was
earlier; their lives very likely overlapped.
chazwin
There is some grain of truth (historically) in Homer - I studied this
very topic for three years of my life. But you need to take care with
it.
Homer's works emerged from a long dark age and are essentially
collections of stories that grew long in the telling through the
period. I would no more open Homer to find the facts of history then I
would open Mort'DArthur to find out what happened in britain after the
Romans left.
We should not look for Odysseus' home, anymore than we should look for
Circe or Polyphemus bones. But Homer is rich in social detail about the
mores and activities of the Dark Age from which the stories emerged.
The fact that there may or may not have been a seige at Troy, or when
exactly that happened is not as interesting as the possibility of
reconstructing darkage social structure from Homer and the
archeoelogical evidence.
I will place Agamemnon in the same charlatan category as Schielman who
paraded his wife with the "Jewels of Helen", picked up from the steps
of Troy were they had been dropped 3200 years before. I take my ancient
history seriously but soberly, I employ evidence and try to avoid
sensationalism and wish fulfilment.
Agamemnon
> Go and take a look at what the word barbarian means. It means someone who
> does not speak Greek you moronic imbecile.
<<<Yes you idiotic fool - I know what that "literal" meaning is. I am
talking about the usual meaning: that of uncivilised and ignorant
philistines, which exactly describes the invading "greeks" who
destoryed Minoan civilisation.>>>
You are stark raving MAD and an ignorant RACIST bigot.
The Minoans were ethnic Greeks and their civilisation was not destroyed by
anyone. It died by itself due to a volcanic eruption in 1628 BC and was
replaced by the Argive and Aeolic civilisations. Go and read a history book
such as Diodorus you moron. Tectemus the son of Dorus led an expedition of
Aeolians and Pelasgians who colonised Crete in about 1380 BC. The Cretan ie.
Minoan monarchy still continued to rule despite this with Minos II the son
of Lycastus the son of Minos I becoming king after Asterius the son of
Tectemus.
>
> > script. The Pelasgians, as they became know were a subject people:
>
> You are clearly out of your depth. Go and read a real history book.
>
> The Pelasgians were Greek speaking peoples descended from Phoroneus that
> originally came from Argos in the Peloponnese and moved to Arcadia,
> Thessaly, Crete, Hellespont and northern Italy. Greek was a dialect of
> Pelasgian which became more widespread than Pelasgian.
<<<The language of the Pelasgians is still unknown as is the language in
which Linear A was written.>>>
BULLSHIT.
We know perfectly well what language the Pelasgains spoke since Herodotus
tells up. It was proto-Greek.
>
> > helots to the Spartans. The resultant change in the social
>
> You are talking out of you arsehole and making things up as you go along.
You have clearly never heard of the Dorian invasions.
>
> > superstructre effected a change in the language by which economic lists
> > were written.
>
> MADE UP BULLSHIT
>
> Read a history book.
>
> > 2) The Undecipherable Linear A is written in a forgotten language.
> > There is no evidence for any Greek language being written down before
> > Linear B.
>
> WRONG!
>
> Linear A was a form of Aeolic Greek.
<<<You are a arsehole with some pro-greek agenda. You will never
understand the ancient history of the Greek lands becasue your eyes are
blinded by some bizarre prejeudice.>>>
You are an IGNORANT RACIST BIGOT
Go and read a history book.
>
> http://www.anistor.co.hol.gr/english/enback/v014.htm
>
> There are also Linear A inscriptions which have been
>
>
> > 3)There is NO calligraphic connection between Linear B and Classical
> > Greek script. Check your facts.
>
> Who said there ever was. Linear B was used in parallel to Cadmian script
> in
> Mycenaean times.
<<<You said, in support of your stupid idea that Homer was history, that
there had been a continuous unbroken use of writting from Linear A to
Homer. You are an ass to suggest it because writing was not used for
history until Herodotus, Linear A and B were used by burocrats, ALL
examples are lists of items. When Greece emerged from the darkage
Linear scripts were unknown to them and they borrowed Phoenecian
writing. There is not one shred of evidence that Greeks used any other
scripts.>>>
You are a CRAZY FOOL.
Where did you get the moronic idea that writing was not used for history
until Herodotus. Is it something that your crazy mind has made up. Have you
actually read Herodotus. Clearly not since you would know that he used
Hecataeus as his source.
Linear B was used to record religious matters and military recognisance and
dispatches as well so that destroys your argument completely. There is NO
historical evidence whatsoever to show that writing died out in Greece or
which makes the ridiculous claim that Phoenician script was adopted more
than 600 years after Cadmus. ALL historians are agreed that the Greeks used
Cadmian script since 1430 BC.
>
> READ A HISTORY BOOK YOU IMBECILE.
>
> > Michael Ventris established the likelyhood that Linear B is written in
> > a form of Greek.
> > 4) Linear B was COMPLETELY lost to the Greek World until it was
> > uncovered by archaeology.
>
> BULLSHIT.
>
> Linear B's cousin script archaic Cypriot scrip was used in Cyprus up until
> 400 BC in a continuous unbroken tradition since Minoan times.
<<<There is not one shred of evidence for this. You are having a laff
mate!>>>
You are talking out of you ARSEHOLE.
You clearly know nothing about history or archaeology.
That Linear B's cousin script archaic Cypriot script was used in Cyprus up
until 400 BC in a continuous unbroken tradition since Minoan times is a
SCIENTIFIC AND HISTORICAL FACT!
> In the rest of
> Greece Cadmian Script replaced Linear B almost completely by 1100 BC and
> was
> being used since at least 1430 BC.
>
> > 5) At the end of the Darkage a completely novel script was adopted from
> > Phoenician.
>
> WRONG!
>
> Cadmian script was used continuously in Greece since 1430 BC when Cadmus
> brought it from Phoenicia. READ A HISTORY BOOK YOU IDIOT!
<<<Prove it!>>>
Simple. Read Jerome's Chronicon and Diodorus, Herodotus and Pausanius all of
which cover the period from 1800 BC until Roman times in an account which is
not broken by any so-called dark ages. The historical tradition is
continuous in over 200 Greek city states and is proven archaeologically and
the only way this history could have been passed down this accurately in so
many states is by use of writing. It is LUDICROUS to suggest anything else.
>
>
> > There is a break of at least 300 years in which no Greek wrote
> > anything.
>
> WRONG!
>
> There is no historical evidence whatsoever for any break. NONE!
<<<There is absence of evidence which in this case is evidence of absence.
I suppose you think that up to 400 years of Darkage never happened?
Wanker!>>>
You are talking complete CODSWALLOP. There is no historical evidence
whatsoever for any 400 break since this period is covered by the Greek
historians I have mentioned.
>
> All the history books say writing was in used continuously in Greece since
> 1800 BC without interruption.
<<<WHy the fuck did they adopt Phoenecian writting? Because the
"barbarian" Greek invaders stole Linear A from the non Greek
inhabitants of Greece, and got them to use it to write in Greek, but
during the fall of Mycenaean "civilisation" the Greek were too stupid
to do it for themselves and the art was forgotten until they learned
writing again. This time from the east during what is known as the
orientalising period.>>>
CODSWALLOP YOU SICK RACIST IMBECILE!
>
> > Linear B was adapted into Greek. It was not used for anything else but
> > economic lists. When the "Mycenean" civilisation fell writing stopped,
>
> WRONG!
>
> It was used to record religious matters and military recognisance and
> displaces as well so that destroy your argument completly. You cannot make
> a
> claim of what Linear B was not used for since only a small factions of it
> survives.
<<<All examples were economic in nature, lists of people and things. No
poetry, no history, nothing interesting except to ancient economists:
absolutely no stories of heroes.>>>
WRONG!
Linear B was used to record religious matters and military recognisance and
dispatches as well so that destroys your argument completely. You cannot
make a claim of what Linear B was not used for since only a small faction of
it survives.
>
> > that is why they call it a DARKAGE. The earliest verifiable exclusively
>
> Have you not read Herodotus or Pausanius, or Eusebius or Jerome or
> Diodorus
> or the Parian Marble? There was NO dark age.
<<<I have read them all. Herodotus had no information about his immediate
past - how should he have? The stuff he did not know he made up.>>>
You have read NOTHING and you are clearly lying.
<<<Here are one or two publications that I have read and studied, every
single one of them disagrees with you.>>>
So from looking at your list, none of which are history books, you have
clearly not read the work of any ancient historians for yourself and know
nothing whatsoever about ancient history.
You are clearly out of your depth on the subject.
<<<You can't continue to get your view of ancient history solely from
story books - things have moved on. This is an ARCHEOLOGY NG. Why not
start by reading Snodgrass 1971 you will learn something.>>>
No you imbecile, soc.history.ancient is a HISTORY newsgroup. We do not
accept the fantasies of ill-informed archaeologists who have not studied any
history books over here. The job of archaeologists is to dig things up for
historians to study. It is not their job to have a historical opinion on
anything since they are not educated in the subject.
The history of this period was
> full recorded by the ancient Greeks including the migrations,
> constructions,
> and battles that took place and all of the kings that ruled and the length
> of their reigns.
>
> > Greek writing was Hesiod (750bce). When the works of the Homeridae were
>
> WRONG AGAIN!
>
> Hesiod lived in 916 BC when Megacles was king of Athens.
<<<Wanker alert!!!!!!>>>
Yes we know, you are a wanker.
<<<Hesiod (Hesiodos, Ἡσίοδος), the early Greek poet and rhapsode,
presumably lived around 700 BC. Historians have debated the priority of
Hesiod or of Homer, and some authors have even brought them together in
an imagined poetic contest. Modern scholars disagree as to which was
earlier; their lives very likely overlapped.>>>
You clearly have not studied history.
ALL historians agree that Hesiod lived before the Olympiads began and that
the most likely date for when he wrote his only work, Works and Days is the
one given by the majority of ancient historians and that is 916 BC. Anyone
who makes up other dates which are not based on historical records is not a
historian.
Agamemnon
Go and read Plutarch's, Life of Lycurgus.
Italo
My personal view is that after alphabetic writing came in
general use (in the 8th c) the people who could still read
the linear-B rapidly became fewer. At one point noone in
mainland Greece could read the older texts anymore and these
became only available from the memory of the bardic
repertoire. So also at Athens the previously written songs
depended on the festivals. That is when Homer (around 700bc?
on Chios or in that general area) reworked and compiled some
of these older texts (such as the work of Pronapides of
Athens, mentioned by Diodorus) into the Iliad and Odyssey as
we know them. So the Homeric stories were not new to Athens,
they were rather re-introduced, but now in the alphabetic
script.
The Kreophyleioi lived at Samos, the Homeridai at Chios.
I'm going by my annotated bookmarks, as the Perseus
website is offline. In any case different versions have
Lycurgus obtaining Homer's poems either from Homer himself
or from the Kreophyleioi of Samos.
Peisistratus got them from Chios according to one version.
Plutarch:
From Crete he (Lycurgus) sailed to Asia, with design, as is
said, to examine the difference betwixt the manners and
rules of life of the Cretans, which were very sober and
temperate, and those of the Ionians, a people of sumptuous
and delicate habits, and so to form a judgment; just as
physicians do by comparing healthy and diseased bodies. Here
he had the first sight of Homer's works, in the hands, we
may suppose, of the posterity of Creophylus; and, having
observed that the few loose expressions and actions of ill
example which are to be found in his poems were much
outweighed by serious lessons of state and rules of
morality, he set himself eagerly to transcribe and digest
them into order, as thinking they would be of good use in
his own country. They had, indeed, already obtained some
slight repute among the Greeks, and scattered portions, as
chance conveyed them, were in the hands of individuals; but
Lycurgus first made them really known.
http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/lycurgus.html
Tzetzes:
"the texts of the poets were corrected first by Zenodotus,
and later by Aristarchus. The text of the Homeric poems,
which previously had existed in various different forms, was
established by 72 grammarians when Peisistratus was tyrant
of Athens; but later the text was revised by Aristarchus and
Zenodotus, who were two of the other scholars who corrected
texts at the time of Ptolemaeus. Some writers ascribe the
edition which was made under Peisistratus to just four
scholars: Orpheus of Croton, Zopyrus of Heracleia,
Onomacritus of Athens, and Epiconcylus. "
http://www.attalus.org/translate/poets.html
IIRC these corrections and revisions all consisted of
_removal_ of any material that was not present in _all_
different editions.
The "72 grammarians" I consider a 'myth', btw, to explain
the notion that these stories already circulated beforehand.
Agamemnon
> chazwin wrote:
>> Italo wrote:
>>
>>> chazwin wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Homer's works an oral tradition, and were not collected and written as
>>>> a whole until Peisistratus'
>>>> time in the Athenian festivals.
>>>
>>> The story is that Athens didn't possess written copies
>>> of Homer's works until Peisistratus. It was Lycurgus
>>> of Sparta who bought the writings earlier from the descendants of
>>> Creophylus in Samos. The "oral tradition" at Athens goes back to the
>>> written text.
>>
>>
>> Thanks you. Can you verify the Spartan/Samos connection please? I had not
>> heard this before. Are you saying Homer
>> was unknown to Athens before Peisistratus? Or that there
>> was nothing in writing until then?
>
> My personal view is that after alphabetic writing came in
> general use (in the 8th c) the people who could still read
Rubbish. By 800 BC there were already at least 5 variants of the Cadmian
script in Greece and another in Cyprus. This means that Cadmian was in
general use by 1200 BC in order for these variants to have evolved.
> the linear-B rapidly became fewer. At one point noone in
> mainland Greece could read the older texts anymore and these
More Rubbish. There is no historical evidence whatsoever for such a claim.
Anyone living in the time of Homer and Hesiod (900 BC) would have been able
to understand Mycenaean Greek.
> became only available from the memory of the bardic
Complete and Utter Rubbish. There is no historical evidence whatsoever to
for such a claim. All ancient historians say that Homer and Hesiod wrote
down their works. ONLY AN IMBECILE that has not read either author would
make such a ridiculous claim about a memory of the bardic repertoire since
only an imbecile would not know that Works and Days takes a form of a LETTER
by Hesiod to his brother talking about legal issues and when to plant crops,
make provisions and go sailing. Works and Days would never have been passed
down by any bard.
> repertoire. So also at Athens the previously written songs
> depended on the festivals. That is when Homer (around 700bc?
900 BC. Have you read Jerome or the Parian Marble?
> on Chios or in that general area) reworked and compiled some
> of these older texts (such as the work of Pronapides of
> Athens, mentioned by Diodorus) into the Iliad and Odyssey as
> we know them. So the Homeric stories were not new to Athens,
> they were rather re-introduced, but now in the alphabetic
> script.
Twaddle. The Hemeric stories were written down in writing and were already
widely spread in the time of Lycurgus in 880 BC. The only thing that
occurred in the time of Piseistartus was that all the multiple written
accounts were standardised.
Agamemnon
"Michael Kuettner" <mik...@eunet.at> wrote in message
news:eo8qta$3ni$1...@atlas.ip-plus.net...
>
> "chazwin" <chaz...@yahoo.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:1168593595....@i15g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>> Joachim Latacz is a serious scholar -no problem. He is popularising
>> that which many have done before him. Joachim Latacz places Homer in
>> the 9thCentury which most scholars disagree with,
>
> Which scholars disagree with that?
All of them. Homer lived in 880 BC. If you claim another day cite a
historical source.
>
>> but that is far too
>> early, even so for the works of Homer to be considered "history"
>
> Who considers Homer's poems as "history" ?
> They're like the Bible, or the Nibelungenlied "historical sources".
>
>> and I
>> am sure that Joachim Latacz would think it mad to search for the palace
>> of Odysseus with any certainty.
>
> Not really; parts of the Illias are recited by Homer without being
> understood.
> The ship/catalogur is the most famous example.
Poppycock. The catalogue of ships clearly shows that the Iliad was a
historical work and that is the way it was understood by Herodotus, Plato,
Diodorus and everyone else. All the main Greek city states participated in
the war and they wanted their participation to be know just like the states
that fought for and against the Persians are listed by Herodotus.
>
>> The hardcopy
>> evidence for Homer is not for another 400 years, in which the story
>> survived by word of many mouths: it is not known if Homer was actually
>> a single person, but himself a kind of creator myth.
>
> The controversy whether Homer was a single person is another kettle of
> fish.
> So you mean that (the) Homer(s) were 8th century ?
> Noone claimed anything else.
Homer lived in 880 BC. Stop making dates up that have no basis in historical
literature.
>
>> What we are left with is story of an unfeasibly large fleet of ships
>> spending a ridiculously long time beseiging Troy for a most silly
>> reason. Gentlemen, I implore you, This is not an historical account.
>>
> Of course it isn't. Noone claims that it is. He (them) was (were) (a)
> poet(s), not a writer of history.
Poppycock. All ancient historical agreed that Homer's works were historical.
There is no historical basis whatsoever to make a counter claim. If there
were you would be able to cites texts to that effect.
> _But_ there are some grains of history to be gained when we sift through
> his works.
> Take the ship catalogue : A nice "Who's Who" of Bronze age Greece.
> Nestors' drinking vessel or Odysseus' helmet : Bronze age artifacts have
> been found which match that description.
> Homer was like an AngloSaxon who writes a contemporary piece based
> upon Beowulf - everyone knows the story, so I don't need to develop my
> characters before starting to spin my yarn.
Hogwash.
The Iliad and Odyssey were part of what was known as the epic cycle and no
just one of texts. The epic cycle covered all of Minoan and Mycenaean Greek
history from the time of the Titanomacy when Zeus fought the Titans for
power to the deaths of Orestes and Odysseus.
The events leading up to the Iliad were already covered in the Cypria, and
the events after it were covered in the Aetheopis, the Sack of Tory and the
Returns of which the Odysseay was part of.
Before the Cypria there was the Epigoni and the Thebaid and along side these
was the cycle of Herakles and that of Theseus. Hyginus Fabulae shows that
the epic cycle consisted of at least 200 or more separate works, and this is
backed up by the number of plays that were written by Euripides, Sophocles
and Aeschylus based on earlier poetic material.
>
> That's roughly the essence of Latacz's book.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Michael Kuettner
>
> PS : Please stop top-posting.
>
>
Agamemnon
> On Thu, 11 Jan 2007 21:49:25 GMT, "Alan Crozier"
> <name1...@telia.com> wrote:
>
>>"Eric Stevens" <eric.s...@sum.co.nz> wrote in message
>>news:0badq21k9tgrlvuqm...@4ax.com...
>>
>><snip>
>>> There is considerable evidence that there may be a solid body of fact
>>> underlying the Illiad. I suggest you read 'Troy and Homer' by Joachim
>>> Latacz, details of the english translation of which you can find at
>>> http://tinyurl.com/u3p4m The factual support extends to the geography.
>>
>>
>>Thanks for the tip, Eric. Another book for the reading list.
>>
>>I take it that Latacz's geography is not compatible with Vinci's. ;-)
>>
>
>
> Latacz's geography for the Illiad is much more convincing than Vinci's
> but some of Vinci's geography is much more convincing for the Odyssey.
> I still don't see the geography of the Odyssey fitting the
> Mediterranean. However, Vinci's scholarship is no match for that of
> Latacz.
>
> Latacz did put forward the view that Illiad is not about Troy but
> about Agammemnon and Achilles, set against an already known ancient
> story of Troy. If that is the case, it is not beyond the bounds of
> possibility that the Odyssey is the story of the wanderings of
> Odysseus set against the background of - quite what I don't know, but
> it involves the far north. How far afield did the Mycenaens actually
> get?
The Odyssey is mainly set around the Adriatic and Ionian Sea. It has nothing
whatsoever to do with the north. Maybe you are confusing it with Apollonius
Argonautica which describes the Rhine and Rhone.
>
> I can only hope that someone does for the Odyssey what seems to be
> being done for the Illiad.
>
>
>
> Eric Stevens
Agamemnon
> Joachim Latacz is a serious scholar -no problem. He is popularising
> that which many have done before him. Joachim Latacz places Homer in
No they do not. All the ancient historians place homer in the 9th century
BC. There is no historical basis for a later date.
> early, even so for the works of Homer to be considered "history" and I
> am sure that Joachim Latacz would think it mad to search for the palace
> of Odysseus with any certainty.
> The archaeological evidence for a war at Troy is Troy VIIa which is
> thought to have been destroyed as early as 1300BCE. The hardcopy
WRONG.
Troy VIIa was destroyed in about 1200 BC which matches that traditional date
for when Troy was sacked in 1181/0 BC (Jerome) or 1183/2 BC (Diodorus). The
actual date based on historical and astronomical records is more like on the
full moon of 14/15 May (15 Thargelion compared to 12 Thargelion as claimed
by Hellanicus) 1182 BC. Jerome takes the end of the war as the first full
year of the reign of Clytemnestra after the murder of Agamemnon on 13
Gamelion (February 2) 1181 BC whereas Diodorus gives the correct date. The
Parian Marble only has the war lasting 9 years after which the Heroes spend
most of the next year arguing about when to return home.
> evidence for Homer is not for another 400 years, in which the story
> survived by word of many mouths: it is not known if Homer was actually
POPPYCOCK. How do you explain the fact that the ancient historians got the
year for Troy's capture correct and left long enough for Cassandra to give
birth to twins by Agamemnon before he and she were murdered unless they kept
a written record of the dates and astronomical events including the
lunation's their calendar was based on?
> a single person, but himself a kind of creator myth.
> What we are left with is story of an unfeasibly large fleet of ships
> spending a ridiculously long time beseiging Troy for a most silly
> reason. Gentlemen, I implore you, This is not an historical account.
>
What we are left with is proof that you are an idiot.
>
>
> Michael Kuettner wrote:
>> "Alan Crozier" <name1...@telia.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
>> news:Fhyph.28866$E02....@newsb.telia.net...
>> > "Eric Stevens" <eric.s...@sum.co.nz> wrote in message
>> > news:0badq21k9tgrlvuqm...@4ax.com...
>> >
>> > <snip>
>> >> There is considerable evidence that there may be a solid body of fact
>> >> underlying the Illiad. I suggest you read 'Troy and Homer' by Joachim
>> >> Latacz, details of the english translation of which you can find at
>> >> http://tinyurl.com/u3p4m The factual support extends to the geography.
>> >
>> >
>> > Thanks for the tip, Eric. Another book for the reading list.
>> >
>> > I take it that Latacz's geography is not compatible with Vinci's. ;-)
>> >
>> No, Latacz is a serious scholar. He's a Greek philologist at the
>> university
>> of Basel.
>> Since you are fluent in German, I'd suggest reading the original book -
>> Joachim Latacz : Troia und Homer; Piper Verlag Muenchen.
>> ISBN 3-492-23647-2.
>> If you are already up-to-date in the Homer controversy, you
>> might skip the book.
>> But it's a valuable read for anyone who has not been following the
>> new aspects brought about by experts on Hittite, etc.
>> He also does some nice work demonstrating how supposedly "broken" verses
>> work just fine when pronounced in the greek from Linear-B, instead that
>> of Homers time, for example.
>>
>> A slight caveat : He is firmly in Korfmann's camp, re. identification of
>> Troy.
>> But so am I.
>> But see for yourself - it's certainly an enjoyable, well-written book.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Michael Kuettner
>
Italo
That there was a wooden wall protecting the lower town of
Troy-II seems well evidenced. It would be expected that
Troy-VI would have had better developed defences as Troy-II.
The remnants of the walls may still be found, though as the
Roman town extended beyond the settlement area of Troy-VI it
may be that they cleared it.
>>> If you compare late Bronze age Hissarlik (and there
>>> are still debates about which phase especially) with
>>> contemporary towns in the Balkans,
>>
>> Which are?
>
>
> "The excavation results at Troy VI and Besik Bay show a
> remarkable poverty of imports in general and of precious
> objects in particular and no connections at all with the
> Black Sea region. Troy's role in trade was peripheral and
> restricted to the Aegean. Furthermore, evidence for
> writing and even for sealing as well as for any
> commercial architecture is missing on the hill of
> Hisarlik. Troy VI was not a commercial city and cannot
> even be proven to have been a city at all, since the
> alleged evidence for a densely built-up lower city,
> encircled by a city wall and defensive ditch, does not
> bear close scrutiny." Frank Kolb, Troy VI: A Trading
> Center and Commerical City?. in: AJA 108 (4), (2004),
> 577-613 you can download the article from
> http://www.ajaonline.org/index.php?ptype=content&aid=50
> or search among past issues
Elaborate article, but the conclusions seem to require a
rather nihilistic interpretation of the available evidence.
compare eg this:
"The reconstructed defensive ditch encircling
the settlement area is unfounded. No ditch
has been found in the east, especially in the
northeast, where the terrain was flat.."
to the findings of the 2006 campaign:
"One important result of the strongly reduced excavation
activities is the detection of the continuation of the
rock-cut ditch, which marks the limits of the late bronze
age lower settlement. So far this ditch had only been
verified by excavation in the south and the west of the
settlement. This year a search trench in the southeast
(areal G27) displayed the turn of the ditch into northeast
direction. This turn so far had only been postulated.
http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/troia/eng/neues.html#campaign2006
Ein wichtiges Ergebnis dieses Jahres war das Freilegen einer
eindeutigen Fortsetzung des in den Felsuntergrund
eingetieften Grabens von 4 m Breite und durchschnittlich 1,5
m Tiefe mit spätbronzezeitlicher Verfüllung. Diese Struktur
konnte bisher nur im Süden und Westen durch Grabung auf ca.
700 m Länge verifiziert werden. Nun wurde im Südosten das
bisher nur vermutete Umbiegen des Grabens in nordöstliche
Richtung bestätigt.
http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/uni/qvo/pm/pm2006/pm-06-128.html
> Bernhard Hänsel, Troia im Tausch- und Handelsverkehr der
> Ägäis oder Troia ein Handelsplatz? In: Der neue Streit um
> Troia - eine Bilanz. Ed. C. Ulf (Muenchen 2003) 105-119.
> or Bernhard Hänsel, Bronzezeitliche Stadtstruktur im
> Karpatenbecken, in: Festschrift für A. Vulpe (Baia Mare
> 2003) 207-217. or Bernhard Hänsel, : Stationen der
> Bronzezeit zwischen Griechenland und Mitteleuropa, in:
> Bericht der Roemisch-Germanischen Kommision 83, 2002
> (2003) 69-97
>
> will give you a recent survey of trade, urbanity,
> communication and commerce in the area .
Any contemporary Balkan sites they mention comparable to
Troy VI?
Italo
My personal view is that after alphabetic writing came in
general use (in the 8th c) the people who could still read
the linear-B rapidly became fewer. At one point noone in
mainland Greece could read the older texts anymore and these
became only available from the memory of the bardic
repertoire. So also at Athens the previously written songs
depended on the festivals. That is when Homer (around 700bc?
on Chios or in that general area) reworked and compiled some
of these older texts (such as the work of Pronapides of
Athens, mentioned by Diodorus) into the Iliad and Odyssey as
we know them. So the Homeric stories were not new to Athens,
they were rather re-introduced, but now in the alphabetic
script.
The "72 grammarians" may be a just 'myth', IMO, related to
Uwe Müller
There is a small trench cut in the bedrock, it runs for a couple of meters,
than there is no ditch, and than again a few meters of ditch. That is the
evidence for the wooden wall.
They are suspecting that there was more earth on top of the bedrock, and
that the ditch was only needed in the few areas were it was not sufficiently
to hold the posts. The gap between the trench parts was supposed to be a
gate, with no signs how the gap would have been closed. The end pieces of
the ditch were treated differently, which could indicate that the ditches
were not build and/or used at the same time.
The date given rests on finds from the filling of the ditch, if it had been
build by Greeks or Romans and refilled before preparing the area for new
building sites, the soil used for filling would still contain mostly late
bronze age ceramics.
I do not think this is convincing, at least given whats published of the
trench and its finds.
To critizise Kolb I'd rather point at the instances where he argues, given
definitions would not be met by the Hissarlick excavations. This is the kind
of debate I feel is pointless, becaue the late Bronze age builders at
Hissarlick did not know the definitions. They would not have met the
criteria, wether they build Troy or Hissarlick.
> It would be expected that
> Troy-VI would have had better developed defences as Troy-II.
> The remnants of the walls may still be found, though as the
> Roman town extended beyond the settlement area of Troy-VI it
> may be that they cleared it.
Lots of stuff may still be found, but I would not want to build on argument
on stuff that was still to be found.
The most convincing argument ist the scarcity of anything from a late Bronze
Age context, that indicates connections beyond the Hissarlick plain. Armies
from a wide region were supposedly defending Troy, people from an even wider
region trading with the town. Hissarlick does not show any of these long
distance connections, it lacks the living quarters, palace, administrational
buildings and workshops, connected with a political and economical center.
>
>
> >>> If you compare late Bronze age Hissarlik (and there
> >>> are still debates about which phase especially) with
> >>> contemporary towns in the Balkans,
> >>
> >> Which are?
> >
> >
> > "The excavation results at Troy VI and Besik Bay show a
> > remarkable poverty of imports in general and of precious
> > objects in particular and no connections at all with the
> > Black Sea region. Troy's role in trade was peripheral and
> > restricted to the Aegean. Furthermore, evidence for
> > writing and even for sealing as well as for any
> > commercial architecture is missing on the hill of
> > Hisarlik. Troy VI was not a commercial city and cannot
> > even be proven to have been a city at all, since the
> > alleged evidence for a densely built-up lower city,
> > encircled by a city wall and defensive ditch, does not
> > bear close scrutiny." Frank Kolb, Troy VI: A Trading
> > Center and Commerical City?. in: AJA 108 (4), (2004),
> > 577-613 you can download the article from
> > http://www.ajaonline.org/index.php?ptype=content&aid=50
> > or search among past issues
>
> Elaborate article, but the conclusions seem to require a
> rather nihilistic interpretation of the available evidence.
That is one reason so many people are pissed off with the Hissarlick
excavations by Korfmann, little of the evidence is published and available
as such for debate. Publication policies seem to be as tight as military
security, participants had to agree not to say or publish anything without
consent from Korfmann. Lots of speculations, interim reports and
declarations of (premature) succes, little published evidence.
>
> compare eg this:
>
> "The reconstructed defensive ditch encircling
> the settlement area is unfounded. No ditch
> has been found in the east, especially in the
> northeast, where the terrain was flat.."
>
> to the findings of the 2006 campaign:
The text was published in 2004.
>
> "One important result of the strongly reduced excavation
> activities is the detection of the continuation of the
> rock-cut ditch, which marks the limits of the late bronze
> age lower settlement. So far this ditch had only been
> verified by excavation in the south and the west of the
> settlement. This year a search trench in the southeast
> (areal G27) displayed the turn of the ditch into northeast
> direction. This turn so far had only been postulated.
> http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/troia/eng/neues.html#campaign2006
>
> Ein wichtiges Ergebnis dieses Jahres war das Freilegen einer
> eindeutigen Fortsetzung des in den Felsuntergrund
> eingetieften Grabens von 4 m Breite und durchschnittlich 1,5
> m Tiefe mit spätbronzezeitlicher Verfüllung. Diese Struktur
> konnte bisher nur im Süden und Westen durch Grabung auf ca.
> 700 m Länge verifiziert werden. Nun wurde im Südosten das
> bisher nur vermutete Umbiegen des Grabens in nordöstliche
> Richtung bestätigt.
> http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/uni/qvo/pm/pm2006/pm-06-128.html
The only infos given are that a new ditch has been found. They believe it
connects to the ditches already found, which are again described in detail,
but no details are given for the new ditch.
That would be careless at best.
>
> > Bernhard Hänsel, Troia im Tausch- und Handelsverkehr der
> > Ägäis oder Troia ein Handelsplatz? In: Der neue Streit um
> > Troia - eine Bilanz. Ed. C. Ulf (Muenchen 2003) 105-119.
> > or Bernhard Hänsel, Bronzezeitliche Stadtstruktur im
> > Karpatenbecken, in: Festschrift für A. Vulpe (Baia Mare
> > 2003) 207-217. or Bernhard Hänsel, : Stationen der
> > Bronzezeit zwischen Griechenland und Mitteleuropa, in:
> > Bericht der Roemisch-Germanischen Kommision 83, 2002
> > (2003) 69-97
> >
> > will give you a recent survey of trade, urbanity,
> > communication and commerce in the area .
>
> Any contemporary Balkan sites they mention comparable to
> Troy VI?
Kastanas for instance. Only there are much more artefacts from a wide region
of political and economical connections in Kastanas, populations seems to
have been bigger and more wealth was displayed (as in modern thinking).
>
> > There was a big public debate because of the
> > Troy-Hissarlik controversy in Germany, culminating in a
> > symposium in Tuebingen in 2002. I don't know if it has
> > been published yet, but a majority of the scientists
> > taking part did not agree with Korffmanns theory of the
> > historicity of Homer and the identification of Hissarlick
> > as that historic Troy.
>
> >>> it becomes clear that Hissarlik is a second rate town
> >>> at best, not the top notch center described in the
> >>> texts.
> >
> snip >
have fun
Uwe Mueller
Uwe Müller
I agree, they must have been close enough to the cultural background of the
attackers. Incidentally the whole setting, the riches of Troy, political and
economical connections, defenses, workshops etc. would fit much better for
an early bronze age Hissarlick. Only, there are no plausible 'Greek'
attackers at that time.
Could there be a third layer in the Illias, telling about a rich early
bronze age town, or what has been remembered about such place? Schliemann
identified the early bronze age treasures with the Troy of Homer.
Archaeologic dating showed he was off considerably for the rough dates
agreed upon for the Trojan War.
Could Homer have fashioned a story of some roughly contemporary action, set
up against a background of the most glorious helladic power, the Myceneans,
and the most glorious city still remembered, Troy? For us Homer, whoever
used that name, is the dawn of Greek civilization, for himself, the
situation may have been much more gloomy. Glory would have been a thing of
the past only, his contemporaries were little more than a bunch of pirates
nests in the eyes of their neighbours.
How are notions like development and progress treated by Homer?
Uwe Müller
"Eric Stevens" <eric.s...@sum.co.nz> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:m10gq2l4k376ij6i0...@4ax.com...
> On 12 Jan 2007 01:05:37 -0800, "chazwin" <chaz...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >Hey Eric,
> > here are some academic works that I suggest you take a
> >look at.
> >
> >Morris, Ian, 1986, "Use and Abuse of Homer", Classical Antiquity.
> >Chadwick, 1976, The Mycenaean World, Cambridge University Press.
> >London.
> >Desborough, V. R. d'A, 1972, The Greek Dark Ages, Ernest Benn.
> >London..
>
> relevant fields since thos books were written. Do you know of anything
> more recent?
In 1999 the European Council staged a large multi-national exhibition, Gods
and Heroes of the Bronze Age. Europe at the Time of Ulysses. There is a
catalogue out, even in English, written by the major scholars of that field.
http://www2.kah-bonn.de/1/33/0e.htm
have fun
Uwe Mueller
Peter Alaca
> "Eric Stevens" schrieb
>> If Latacz is to be believed there have been some major developments
>> in relevant fields since thos books were written. Do you know of
>> anything more recent?
>
> In 1999 the European Council staged a large multi-national
> exhibition, Gods and Heroes of the Bronze Age. Europe at the Time of
> Ulysses. There is a catalogue out, even in English, written by the
> major scholars of that field. http://www2.kah-bonn.de/1/33/0e.htm
Gods and heroes of the European Bronze Age
Unlike the other translations, no subtitle.
ISBN 0 500 01915 0
Excellent book, with many realy marvelous photos.
--
p.a.
chazwin
It could so easily be the case that Homer was reflecting contemporary
settlements of Greek in Western Asia. He could have been providing a
mythical rationale for contemporary but using older stories of the
Bronze.
What is remarkable is that some of the BA material culture was
remembered across the darkage. It is possible that some items wer
curated as heroic weapons in shrines.
Ther aer many possibly ways to see Homer.
>
> Could there be a third layer in the Illias, telling about a rich early
> bronze age town, or what has been remembered about such place? Schliemann
> identified the early bronze age treasures with the Troy of Homer.
> Archaeologic dating showed he was off considerably for the rough dates
> agreed upon for the Trojan War.
Certainly Schlieman was somethig of a showman, and his techniques would
be frowned upon today. He possibly did more to confuse and confound the
issue of the Trojan war - a real pity as archeology is destructive.
>
> Could Homer have fashioned a story of some roughly contemporary action, set
> up against a background of the most glorious helladic power, the Myceneans,
> and the most glorious city still remembered, Troy?
I think this is accurate. The personal social scale where individual
heroes do battle, using their chariots as taxis, does not recommend
itslef to a battle invovling 100,000-140,000 men suggested by the
catalogue of ships (Il bk 2).
For us Homer, whoever
> used that name, is the dawn of Greek civilization, for himself, the
> situation may have been much more gloomy. Glory would have been a thing of
> the past only, his contemporaries were little more than a bunch of pirates
> nests in the eyes of their neighbours.
>
> How are notions like development and progress treated by Homer?
Current at the time of Homer is Hesiod: the story of development is one
of Decline. This, I think, is also suggested in Homer. The story of
mankind is a gradual fall from a time of the Golden age falling to
silver, the bronze age and thence to Heroes and to his present.
Hesiod's story reflects his life of toil among the ruins of previous
cultures. Each successive generation faces a worse fate than the last.
The silver race invented crime. The bronze were fierce warlike
monstrous heroes. The heroes were his predecessors of the Trojan war
and he laments; " would that I were not born among the fifth", never
free from toil and misery: Iron Age - his own
The people of the Darkage knew full well of their past glories. The
evidence was all around them in deserted BA palaces. These building
were known as "Cyclopean": the stones of their construction were so
huge that no one thought they were built by human hand but by the
cyclopses.
> have fun
And you
>
> Uwe Mueller
Doug Weller
>
>Any contemporary Balkan sites they mention comparable to
>Troy VI?
Robert Salinas Price's claim is that Troy as an area, but specifically, so
far as towns/cities go, see:
http://www.troya.com.mx/Towns_Iliad/TOWNS.html#Troy
Doug
--
Doug Weller --
A Director and Moderator of The Hall of Ma'at http://www.hallofmaat.com
Doug's Archaeology Site: http://www.ramtops.co.uk
Amun - co-owner/co-moderator http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Amun/
chazwin
Agamemnon wrote:
> "Italo" <ola...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:eobqmk$a5$1...@news6.zwoll1.ov.home.nl...
> > chazwin wrote:
> >> Italo wrote:
> >>
> >>> chazwin wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> Homer's works an oral tradition, and were not collected and written as
> >>>> a whole until Peisistratus'
> >>>> time in the Athenian festivals.
> >>>
> >>> The story is that Athens didn't possess written copies
> >>> of Homer's works until Peisistratus. It was Lycurgus
> >>> of Sparta who bought the writings earlier from the descendants of
> >>> Creophylus in Samos. The "oral tradition" at Athens goes back to the
> >>> written text.
> >>
> >>
> >> Thanks you. Can you verify the Spartan/Samos connection please? I had not
> >> heard this before. Are you saying Homer
> >> was unknown to Athens before Peisistratus? Or that there
> >> was nothing in writing until then?
> >
> > My personal view is that after alphabetic writing came in
> > general use (in the 8th c) the people who could still read
>
> Rubbish. By 800 BC there were already at least 5 variants of the Cadmian
> script in Greece and another in Cyprus. This means that Cadmian was in
> general use by 1200 BC in order for these variants to have evolved.
But where is your evidence? If you are serious in making the claim that
Greeks could write from 1800bce to the modern day without interuption
you will also have to account for why they changed scripts; how these
scripts were used; how widespread was this practice; and most
importantly, relevant to the discussion, show evidence that the myths
and legends of Homer were recorded - otherwise you are full of so much
hot air.
>
> > the linear-B rapidly became fewer. At one point noone in
> > mainland Greece could read the older texts anymore and these
>
> More Rubbish. There is no historical evidence whatsoever for such a claim.
> Anyone living in the time of Homer and Hesiod (900 BC) would have been able
> to understand Mycenaean Greek.
Homer and Hesion are more likely to have lived 750bce - what is your
evidence for downdating by this ridiculous amount?
>
> > became only available from the memory of the bardic
>
> Complete and Utter Rubbish. There is no historical evidence whatsoever to
> for such a claim. All ancient historians say that Homer and Hesiod wrote
> down their works. ONLY AN IMBECILE that has not read either author would
> make such a ridiculous claim about a memory of the bardic repertoire since
> only an imbecile would not know that Works and Days takes a form of a LETTER
> by Hesiod to his brother talking about legal issues and when to plant crops,
> make provisions and go sailing. Works and Days would never have been passed
> down by any bard.
There has been much scholarly work on the oral tradition, by those I
trust far more than a imbecile who styles himself agamemnon and thinks
Herodotos is to be relied on concerning the darkage!!
>
>
> > repertoire. So also at Athens the previously written songs
> > depended on the festivals. That is when Homer (around 700bc?
>
> 900 BC. Have you read Jerome or the Parian Marble?
No serious philologist or ancinet historian would support such a wild
claim!! Homer was born no earlier than 800 at the extreme limit. The
words that were LATER written down from an oral tradition date from no
earlier than 750 and are parallel, though slightly earlier thatn
Hesiod.
>
> > on Chios or in that general area) reworked and compiled some
> > of these older texts (such as the work of Pronapides of
> > Athens, mentioned by Diodorus) into the Iliad and Odyssey as
> > we know them. So the Homeric stories were not new to Athens,
> > they were rather re-introduced, but now in the alphabetic
> > script.
>
> Twaddle. The Hemeric stories were written down in writing and were already
> widely spread in the time of Lycurgus in 880 BC.
Where is your proof ???????????? Where is there the smallest scrap of
evidence to support such a strange idea?
The only thing that
> occurred in the time of Piseistartus was that all the multiple written
> accounts were standardised.
I think you mean Peisistratus idiot!! Get it right you numb skull!
There were no known written accounts. The festival was for bards
working in the oral tradition. There was great pride amoungst them that
they were not literate. Literacy remained a minority activity, even
Socrates was illiterate, and prided himself on the skill of memory.
>
chazwin
Agamemnon wrote:
> "Michael Kuettner" <mik...@eunet.at> wrote in message
> news:eo8qta$3ni$1...@atlas.ip-plus.net...
> >
> > "chazwin" <chaz...@yahoo.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> > news:1168593595....@i15g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> >> Joachim Latacz is a serious scholar -no problem. He is popularising
> >> that which many have done before him. Joachim Latacz places Homer in
> >> the 9thCentury which most scholars disagree with,
> >
> > 8th century, AFAIR.
> > Which scholars disagree with that?
>
> All of them. Homer lived in 880 BC. If you claim another day cite a
> historical source.
Joachim Latacz proceeds on the assumption that Homer's works were the
first written down, after a gap of 400 years following the fall of
Mycenaean civilisation. This occurred , he says, in the LATE 8th
century("second half"). In other words around 750 - 700 bce."27 hundred
years ago".
Read it for yourself!!!!! He does not deviate from the majority of
scholars on this matter, though some put Homer more recently.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0472083538/ref=sib_dp_pt/104-3031532-5240745#reader-link
Other scholars agree: Moses Finley,
GET OVER IT!!!!
Or produce ONE scholar that agrees with you idiotic idea - ONE!!!!
> > Not really; parts of the Illias are recited by Homer without being
> > understood.
> > The ship/catalogur is the most famous example.
>
> Poppycock. The catalogue of ships clearly shows that the Iliad was a
> historical work and that is the way it was understood by Herodotus, Plato,
> Diodorus and everyone else. All the main Greek city states participated in
> the war and they wanted their participation to be know just like the states
> that fought for and against the Persians are listed by Herodotus.
HAHAHAH - If the catalogue of ships were true then Menelaeous would
have mustered and army of between 100,000- 140,000 in one day, and 1186
ships. No one in history except Kublai Khan has ever or ever will again
muster such a large number of ships.Not even Rome in its hayday could
ever have put so many soldiers or ships into battle. If you think
this is history, you are totally mad!
>
> >
> >> The hardcopy
> >> evidence for Homer is not for another 400 years, in which the story
> >> survived by word of many mouths: it is not known if Homer was actually
> >> a single person, but himself a kind of creator myth.
> >
> > The controversy whether Homer was a single person is another kettle of
> > fish.
> > So you mean that (the) Homer(s) were 8th century ?
> > Noone claimed anything else.
>
> Homer lived in 880 BC. Stop making dates up that have no basis in historical
> literature.
The entire world of Classical history disagrees with you - FAC UT
VIVAS!
>
> >
> >> What we are left with is story of an unfeasibly large fleet of ships
> >> spending a ridiculously long time beseiging Troy for a most silly
> >> reason. Gentlemen, I implore you, This is not an historical account.
> >>
> > Of course it isn't. Noone claims that it is. He (them) was (were) (a)
> > poet(s), not a writer of history.
>
> Poppycock. All ancient historical agreed that Homer's works were historical.
> There is no historical basis whatsoever to make a counter claim. If there
> were you would be able to cites texts to that effect.
No one claims this is history except agamemnon!!! What a joke!
>
> > _But_ there are some grains of history to be gained when we sift through
> > his works.
> > Take the ship catalogue : A nice "Who's Who" of Bronze age Greece.
> > Nestors' drinking vessel or Odysseus' helmet : Bronze age artifacts have
> > been found which match that description.
The vessel inscribed "Nestor's cup" was from a time after Nestor was a
popular mythical heroes, no one thinks the object was actually his cup.
> > Homer was like an AngloSaxon who writes a contemporary piece based
> > upon Beowulf - everyone knows the story, so I don't need to develop my
> > characters before starting to spin my yarn.
>
> Hogwash.
>
> The Iliad and Odyssey were part of what was known as the epic cycle and no
> just one of texts. The epic cycle covered all of Minoan and Mycenaean Greek
> history from the time of the Titanomacy when Zeus fought the Titans for
> power to the deaths of Orestes and Odysseus.
I can't beleive you have read Homer.
> >
grapheus
chazwin wrote :
> Actually this is not my position.
> There is some grain of truth (historically) in Homer - I studied this
> very topic for three years of my life. But you need to take care with
> it.
Of course !.. But the main point is that there is some historical truth
in the Homeric poems. It's the work of the Modern historians,
archaeologists, linguists, etc. to find what is historical and what is
not.
> Homer's works emerged from a long dark age and are essentially
> collections of stories that grew long in the telling through the
> period. I would no more open Homer to find the facts of history then I
> would open Mort'DArthur to find out what happened in britain after the
> Romans left.
> We should not look for Odysseus' home, anymore than we should look for
> Circe or Polyphemus bones. But Homer is rich in social detail about the
> mores and activities of the Dark Age from which the stories emerged.
> The fact that there may or may not have been a seige at Troy, or when
> exactly that happened is not as interesting as the possibility of
> reconstructing darkage social structure from Homer and the
> archeoelogical evidence.
I don't agree. Maybe Odysseus is a fictional character. But it has been
definitely established that there has been a "Trojan War". You cannot
put both things on the same level !..
> I will place Agamemnon in the same charlatan category as Schielman who
> paraded his wife with the "Jewels of Helen", picked up from the steps
> of Troy were they had been dropped 3200 years before.
Which "Agamemnon" ??? If you are talking about the guy posting in this
Group, you are too elogious in comparing him to Schlieman !..
grapheus
chazwin
what we have proof for is that you are an
ignorant literalist. The ancient writers were not equipped to know when
these Mycenaean events occured. There had been a 400 year long dark age
in which little or no written records were kept.
You seem to be a person who is self taught: get thee to a university
and gauge the opinion of those with brains who have painstakingly
reconstructed ancient history with peer-reviewed and rationally argued
publications, and with the labour of archaeology.
You cannot treat myths and legends of Homer literally. The irony seems
to be missing here. Do you also accept that Circe lived, do you think
it is possible to turn people into pigs?
Let's look at Diodorus (1st c bce) - what was his evidence for placing
the seige of Troy at 1180ish? = heresay -nothing more. Indeed there is
no reliable evidence that we know the site of Troy. If it was at
Hissarlik, then most evidence was destoyed in the Schielman excavations
or should I say treasure hunt.
The evidence which links this site (particularly VIIa-b) to Homer's
Trojan war is based entirely on 3 arrow heads and some evidence of
burning. Hissarlik is a ruin of a ruin. We cannot say if Diodorus is
correct as there is nothing with which to compare his assertion.
These are the simple facts. Learn to live with it!
Chazwin
This is an utterly specious argument. What you are in effect saying is
that they got the date right becasue they got the date right. =
idiotic!!!! A most pathetic circular argument. There is no independant
evidence that Greeks were in the region until around 800bce.
Schlieman's dig nor any subsequent digs have uncovered any indisputable
greek material culture.
chazwin
Italo wrote:
> chazwin wrote:
> > Italo wrote:
> >
> >> chazwin wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>> Homer's works an oral tradition, and were not
> >>> collected and written as a whole until Peisistratus'
> >>> time in the Athenian festivals.
> >>
> >> The story is that Athens didn't possess written copies
> >> of Homer's works until Peisistratus. It was Lycurgus
> >> of Sparta who bought the writings earlier from the
> >> descendants of Creophylus in Samos. The "oral
> >> tradition" at Athens goes back to the written text.
> >
> >
> > Thanks you. Can you verify the Spartan/Samos connection
> > please? I had not heard this before. Are you saying Homer
> > was unknown to Athens before Peisistratus? Or that there
> > was nothing in writing until then?
>
> My personal view is that after alphabetic writing came in
> general use (in the 8th c) the people who could still read
> the linear-B rapidly became fewer.
It is more likely that Linear B, which was only used for economic
lists, was completely forgotten around 1200bce, and the introduction of
the Phonecian script was a novel literary event. The dark age
reperesents a time of extreme depopulation and political fragmentation.
The need for a means of recording was gone. If you insist that Linear B
remained in use throughout the darkage then this would need some
evidence to support it. You would also have to account for why would it
be abandoned in favour of the new script from the east?
chazwin
First, let me remind you of the thread: a search for Odysseus' Ithaka -
so we can actually agree that there is no particular reason Odysseus is
an historical character..
But I have also to take exception with "definetly established " Trojan
war. You can be forgiven for saying so, but that is no more certain
than whether or not Menelaeous had a brother called Agamemnon.
1) There is no indisputable location for Troy, though Hissarlik is
likely. The various level of Troy show evidence for a small hillfort
(rather than a large city).
2) The fact that there may have been "a" war there at some time would
not be surprising for ANY ancient hillfort.
3) The most likely level VIIa is thought to have been "destoyed" by war
due to the find of 3 arrow heads and some burning. The fact that the
archaeological dates (1300-1190) match are near enough the dates of the
traditional date (c.1180)from Diodorus may be co-incidental. (at least
100 out btw)
4) There is no evidence of Greek material culture on the site which is
a serious problem.
When you put all this together then whatever may have happened at
Hissarlik (c. 1200) does not very well correspond to Homer's
description of a seige of a mighty city involving 1186 ships and as
many as 140000 Greek soldiers.
So where does that leave us?
Martin Edwards
The case of "Cyclopean" buildings is indeed a case in point.
--
You can't fool me: there ain't no Sanity Clause - Chico Marx
grapheus
chazwin a écrit :
YES.
> But I have also to take exception with "definetly established " Trojan
> war. You can be forgiven for saying so, but that is no more certain
> than whether or not Menelaeous had a brother called Agamemnon.
> 1) There is no indisputable location for Troy, though Hissarlik is
> likely. The various level of Troy show evidence for a small hillfort
> (rather than a large city).
More than "likely" for the following reasons : a)- the Tradition saying
that Troy was close the Detroit of the Dardanelles b)- the FACT that
there is no other city in the said area. c)- the archaeological finds
at Hissarlick, which allow us to "reconstruct" the history of the city,
coherent with the other data, including the Epic ones (See hereafter).
> 2) The fact that there may have been "a" war there at some time would
> not be surprising for ANY ancient hillfort.
No ! The "Trojan War" has very special characteristics : it is IGNORED
by the Hittite texts -- It is VERY IMPORTANT in the Greek Tradition,
which places the city where Hissarlick is.
> 3) The most likely level VIIa is thought to have been "destroyed" by war
> due to the find of 3 arrow heads and some burning. The fact that the
> archaeological dates (1300-1190) match are near enough the dates of the
> traditional date (c.1180)from Diodorus may be co-incidental. (at least
> 100 out btw)
No ! Because, not only the DATE is coherent with the Epic, but the
other archaeological data are : there is NO Mycenaean pottery before
level VII (excepted in the very last years of Troy VI). Very strange
indeed, when one notices the abondant Mycenaean pottery at Miletos, for
instance, during the same period !
> 4) There is no evidence of Greek material culture on the site which is
> a serious problem.
Not at all !.. On the contrary !.. The absence of Mycenaean pottery at
Troy at a time when it was abundant at Miletos, for instance, perfectly
fits with the History of the city, as "reconstructed" in the frame of
J.Faucounau's "Proto-Ionian Theory".
But of course, if one doesn't know this theory, he has some trouble to
understand this!..
>
> When you put all this together then whatever may have happened at
> Hissarlik (c. 1200) does not very well correspond to Homer's
> description of a seige of a mighty city involving 1186 ships and as
> many as 140000 Greek soldiers.
Of course !.. This is an obvious poetic exageration ... But only a
fool can take the Homeric text litterally !..
And the hard fact remains : the city of Troy has been successfully
attacked by the Mycenaeans, who settled there during about half a
century during the Troy VIIb-Period..
grapheus
Agamemnon
Get an education you FOOL.
I told you to go and read some history books. Now go and do it.
Greek recorded history goes back to 1800 BC. How do you think it was
recorded except by writing. We already have proof that Linear A script and
the Phaistos script existed at this time. It is up to you to prove that
writing, which everyone knows existed, was not used to record this history.
It is you that are challenging established historical facts not me. If you
deny these facts then you must prove that the whole body of Greek history is
made up. It is truly laughable that you should make such a claim in the
first place, in defiance of the accounts of every ancient historian. There
is not one modern historian who challenges these accounts.
>
>>
>> > the linear-B rapidly became fewer. At one point noone in
>> > mainland Greece could read the older texts anymore and these
>>
>> More Rubbish. There is no historical evidence whatsoever for such a
>> claim.
>> Anyone living in the time of Homer and Hesiod (900 BC) would have been
>> able
>> to understand Mycenaean Greek.
>
> Homer and Hesion are more likely to have lived 750bce - what is your
> evidence for downdating by this ridiculous amount?
Prove your ridiculous moronic claim with historical evidence or else retract
it.
The majority of ancient historians place Homer and Hesiod around 900 BC. If
they were to have lived in 750 BC they would have been contemporary with the
poet Eumelus who wrote the Aetheopis and the Sack of Troy, therefore anyone
making this ridiculous claim obviously does not know their history.
>
>
>>
>> > became only available from the memory of the bardic
>>
>> Complete and Utter Rubbish. There is no historical evidence whatsoever to
>> for such a claim. All ancient historians say that Homer and Hesiod wrote
>> down their works. ONLY AN IMBECILE that has not read either author would
>> make such a ridiculous claim about a memory of the bardic repertoire
>> since
>> only an imbecile would not know that Works and Days takes a form of a
>> LETTER
>> by Hesiod to his brother talking about legal issues and when to plant
>> crops,
>> make provisions and go sailing. Works and Days would never have been
>> passed
>> down by any bard.
>
> There has been much scholarly work on the oral tradition, by those I
There has been BULLSHIT. It is nothing more than Science Fiction and was
ripped to pieced by Wolf and finally buried with the decipherment of Linear
B as Greek.
> trust far more than a imbecile who styles himself agamemnon and thinks
> Herodotos is to be relied on concerning the darkage!!
FOOL.
Where the hell did you get the idea there was ever a dark age when not one
ancient historians refers to such a thing. There is NOT ONE shred of
historical evidence for such a claim, and those making it are nothing more
than FANTASISTS not historians.
>>
>> > repertoire. So also at Athens the previously written songs
>> > depended on the festivals. That is when Homer (around 700bc?
>>
>> 900 BC. Have you read Jerome or the Parian Marble?
>
> No serious philologist or ancinet historian would support such a wild
RUBBISH. Everyone who has studied history supports this date since it is the
one given by the majority of ancient historians.
> claim!! Homer was born no earlier than 800 at the extreme limit. The
BULLSHIT. Proved this claim with historical cites or else RETRACT IT.
> words that were LATER written down from an oral tradition date from no
> earlier than 750 and are parallel, though slightly earlier thatn
> Hesiod.
MORE BULLSHIT.
THERE ARE NO SUCH THINGS AS ORAL TRADITIONS. The are noting more than
VICTORIAN FANTASIES. And why would one be required to explain Homer and
Hesiod when there is already overwhelming proof that writing existed in
Greece continuously since 1800 BC and that Cadmain script was in general
usage by 1200 BC? Oral traditions cannot possibly explain the need for over
100,000 books to have existed by Homers time (900 BC) in order to account
for the existence of the historical accounts of over 200 Greek city states
in the time of Pausanius. What do you think happend. That everyone decided
to memorise 100,000 books worth of historical information which wasn't even
poetic, such as Hesiod's Works and Days? You are a FOOL to even consider it.
It was all put down in writing.
>
>>
>> > on Chios or in that general area) reworked and compiled some
>> > of these older texts (such as the work of Pronapides of
>> > Athens, mentioned by Diodorus) into the Iliad and Odyssey as
>> > we know them. So the Homeric stories were not new to Athens,
>> > they were rather re-introduced, but now in the alphabetic
>> > script.
>>
>> Twaddle. The Hemeric stories were written down in writing and were
>> already
>> widely spread in the time of Lycurgus in 880 BC.
>
> Where is your proof ???????????? Where is there the smallest scrap of
> evidence to support such a strange idea?
Go and read Plutarch Life of Lycrugus and GET AN EDUCATION.
>
> The only thing that
>> occurred in the time of Piseistartus was that all the multiple written
>> accounts were standardised.
>
> I think you mean Peisistratus idiot!! Get it right you numb skull!
IMBECILE
> There were no known written accounts. The festival was for bards
WRONG.
> working in the oral tradition. There was great pride amoungst them that
There was NO SUCH THING. Not one ancient historian mentions the existence of
an oral traditions because oral traditions are an invention of the
Victorians.
> they were not literate. Literacy remained a minority activity, even
> Socrates was illiterate, and prided himself on the skill of memory.
What a load of BULLSHIT.
Socrates illiterate. ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY?
How did you come up this with pack of LIES. You clearly have not read Plato
or Xenophon.
Why would someone who earned his living as a SCULPTOR, someone who was
employed by others to write down eulogies and other inscriptions on stone,
be illiterate. YOU ARE A COMPLETE UNEDUCATED IDIOT. Socrates taught others
to read and write and also taught etymologies so why would he be illiterate.
You are either a systematic liar who keeps making things up or have been
completely brainwashed or both.
hagen
Agamemnon wrote:
> <ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:pJydnbkIjso3WTrY...@pipex.net...
> > In article <t-6dnbB-8dgT8DvY...@pipex.net>,
> > agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM (Agamemnon) wrote:
> >
> >> The original Minoan Linear A and Phaistos
> >> scripts were replaced by Linear B and Cadmian scripts
> >> in Greece by 1450 BC.
> >
> > Linear A was never used in mainland Greece and as far as
> > I know the only instance of of the Phaistos script was on
> > the Phaistos disc. Linear A was not a proto-Greek but a
> > different language. Homer is generally agreed (if there
>
I don't quite understand. Why should anyone do something as stupid as
to replace an (enumeratable) annual ledger of no words "the Phaistos
disc" with a script like linear B ?
Get up to date:
http://web.gvdnet.dk/GVD002393/phaistos.htm
Hagen
> Wrong. Linear A was a form of Aeolic Greek.
>
> http://www.anistor.co.hol.gr/english/enback/v014.htm
>
> There are also Linear A inscriptions which have been shown to be Ionic Greek
> but grapheus will tell you more about the.
>
> > was one poet) to have composed the Iliad in the Dark ages
> > between the fall of Myceanan civilisation and the rise of
> > Classical Greece.
> >
> >> for there is no historical based for
> >> Homer's works being composed of transmitted to later
> >> generations in anything except writing.
> >
> > The various kennings in Homer are typical of orally
> > transmitted poetry. It is disputed whether or not the
>
> OH NO THEY ARE NOT
>
> Oral traditions are a Victorian FANSTSTY which was knocked on its head and
> tossed out of the ring by Frederick Augustus Wolf within a decade or so of
> it being concocted and finally burried by Ventris decipherment of Linear B.
> Since there was a continuous tradition of writing up to Homers time there is
> no need to invent oral tradition to explain how Homer composed his works.
> The simplest explanation is always the best and that is that Homer wrote the
> Iliad and Odyssey down and learned about the events from earlier books on
> the subject. All the kennings in Homer were explained by Wolf as being due
> to a process of continuous revisions by later copyists.
>
>
> > Iliad and the Odyssey were composed by the same person and
> > the Catalogue of Ships is usually regarded as an
> > interpolation.
> >
> >> There was a Trojan War and
> >> Odysseus took 10 years to return home.
> >
> > When was the last time you actually read the works? The
> > War lasted 10 years and Odysseus took IIRC 20 years to get
> > home.
>
> It took him 10 years to return after leaving Troy.
>
> >
> > Ken Young
Agamemnon
>
> Agamemnon wrote:
>> "Michael Kuettner" <mik...@eunet.at> wrote in message
>> news:eo8qta$3ni$1...@atlas.ip-plus.net...
>> >
>> > "chazwin" <chaz...@yahoo.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
>> > news:1168593595....@i15g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>> >> Joachim Latacz is a serious scholar -no problem. He is popularising
>> >> that which many have done before him. Joachim Latacz places Homer in
>> >> the 9thCentury which most scholars disagree with,
>> >
>> > 8th century, AFAIR.
>> > Which scholars disagree with that?
>>
>> All of them. Homer lived in 880 BC. If you claim another day cite a
>> historical source.
>
> Joachim Latacz proceeds on the assumption that Homer's works were the
> first written down, after a gap of 400 years following the fall of
On the assumption. Therefore he has NO HISTORICAL EVIDENCE for any of his
claims whatsoever.
Joachim Latacz is not a historian but a CRACKPOT theorist.
If he'd actually consulted real historians such as Diodorus, Pausanius,
Herodotus, Eusebius, Jerome, Plutarch and the Parian Marble he would have
known that there was no 400 year gap. There was a continuous line of
recorded history.
> Mycenaean civilisation. This occurred , he says, in the LATE 8th
> century("second half"). In other words around 750 - 700 bce."27 hundred
> years ago".
> Read it for yourself!!!!! He does not deviate from the majority of
> scholars on this matter, though some put Homer more recently.
Joachim Latacz is a CRAZY FANTASIST if he making these moronic unsupported
claims.
>
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0472083538/ref=sib_dp_pt/104-3031532-5240745#reader-link
>
> Other scholars agree: Moses Finley,
Another FANTASIST.
>
> GET OVER IT!!!!
>
> Or produce ONE scholar that agrees with you idiotic idea - ONE!!!!
It is not an idea, nor idiotic. It is HISTORICAL FACT and all genuine
historians agree with it. If you disagree with the body of ancient history
then it is up to you to prove that it is wrong.
>
>
>> > Not really; parts of the Illias are recited by Homer without being
>> > understood.
>> > The ship/catalogur is the most famous example.
>>
>> Poppycock. The catalogue of ships clearly shows that the Iliad was a
>> historical work and that is the way it was understood by Herodotus,
>> Plato,
>> Diodorus and everyone else. All the main Greek city states participated
>> in
>> the war and they wanted their participation to be know just like the
>> states
>> that fought for and against the Persians are listed by Herodotus.
>
> HAHAHAH - If the catalogue of ships were true then Menelaeous would
> have mustered and army of between 100,000- 140,000 in one day, and 1186
And what is wrong with that? Over 40,000 were evacuated on one day at
Dunkirk, mostly on small boats, and over 140,000 took part in the D-Day
ladings, all in one day.
> ships. No one in history except Kublai Khan has ever or ever will again
> muster such a large number of ships.Not even Rome in its hayday could
> ever have put so many soldiers or ships into battle. If you think
> this is history, you are totally mad!
FOOL!
You clearly have no idea about any history at all.
>
>
>>
>> >
>> >> The hardcopy
>> >> evidence for Homer is not for another 400 years, in which the story
>> >> survived by word of many mouths: it is not known if Homer was actually
>> >> a single person, but himself a kind of creator myth.
>> >
>> > The controversy whether Homer was a single person is another kettle of
>> > fish.
>> > So you mean that (the) Homer(s) were 8th century ?
>> > Noone claimed anything else.
>>
>> Homer lived in 880 BC. Stop making dates up that have no basis in
>> historical
>> literature.
>
> The entire world of Classical history disagrees with you - FAC UT
> VIVAS!
WRONG. First of all it is not classical history we are discussing but
Archaic history and ALL historians are agreed with me since there is no
alternative. Only a fool would deny it.
>
>>
>> >
>> >> What we are left with is story of an unfeasibly large fleet of ships
>> >> spending a ridiculously long time beseiging Troy for a most silly
>> >> reason. Gentlemen, I implore you, This is not an historical account.
>> >>
>> > Of course it isn't. Noone claims that it is. He (them) was (were) (a)
>> > poet(s), not a writer of history.
>>
>> Poppycock. All ancient historical agreed that Homer's works were
>> historical.
>> There is no historical basis whatsoever to make a counter claim. If there
>> were you would be able to cites texts to that effect.
>
> No one claims this is history except agamemnon!!! What a joke!
>
FOOL!
ALL historians accept it is history. Only a fool would deny it.
>
>>
>> > _But_ there are some grains of history to be gained when we sift
>> > through
>> > his works.
>> > Take the ship catalogue : A nice "Who's Who" of Bronze age Greece.
>> > Nestors' drinking vessel or Odysseus' helmet : Bronze age artifacts
>> > have
>> > been found which match that description.
>
> The vessel inscribed "Nestor's cup" was from a time after Nestor was a
> popular mythical heroes, no one thinks the object was actually his cup.
>
IMBECILE!
>
>> > Homer was like an AngloSaxon who writes a contemporary piece based
>> > upon Beowulf - everyone knows the story, so I don't need to develop my
>> > characters before starting to spin my yarn.
>>
>> Hogwash.
>>
>> The Iliad and Odyssey were part of what was known as the epic cycle and
>> no
>> just one of texts. The epic cycle covered all of Minoan and Mycenaean
>> Greek
>> history from the time of the Titanomacy when Zeus fought the Titans for
>> power to the deaths of Orestes and Odysseus.
>
> I can't beleive you have read Homer.
You clearly have not read Homer or any other ancient writer whereas I have.
This is why you are making so many mistakes and are clearly deluded about
ancient history.
chazwin
Of course, but the point is that the people at the time of Homer knew
they were in the depths of a darkage with many clues about the former
glory that we know as Mycenaen. Hesiod's myth is one of human decline.
Agamemnon
> Hey Agamemnon,
> what we have proof for is that you are an
> ignorant literalist. The ancient writers were not equipped to know when
> these Mycenaean events occured. There had been a 400 year long dark age
BULLSHIT. They were perfectly equipped to know about it since there was a
continuous unbroken body of recorded history going back to 1800 BC. The fact
that they wrote about this history proves that it existed and that there was
no dark age.
There idea of a dark as is SHEER LUNACY which is not corroborated by even
one announce historian. It is PURE FANTASY and the realm of science fiction
not history.
> in which little or no written records were kept.
You have no proof or basis for that whatsoever, since it is contradicted by
the works of every ancient Historian.
> You seem to be a person who is self taught: get thee to a university
> and gauge the opinion of those with brains who have painstakingly
> reconstructed ancient history with peer-reviewed and rationally argued
> publications, and with the labour of archaeology.
You clearly have not studied history or read the work of any ancient writer
at all. From your list of authors it is clear that you are addicted to the
work of science fiction and fantasy writers who know nothing of ancient
history either, and are making up ludicrous conspiracy theorise in order to
see books.
> You cannot treat myths and legends of Homer literally. The irony seems
> to be missing here. Do you also accept that Circe lived, do you think
> it is possible to turn people into pigs?
YOU ARE A FOOL. Circe lived. There are people who live like pigs and behave
like them and you are one of them.
>
> Let's look at Diodorus (1st c bce) - what was his evidence for placing
> the seige of Troy at 1180ish? = heresay -nothing more. Indeed there is
> no reliable evidence that we know the site of Troy. If it was at
IMBECILE
Diodorus had access to the work of earlier historians, who he names, who
dated the event. Diodorus date is the same as that used by the Parian Marble
and Thucydides who dates it 80 years before the Dorian invasion. Everyone in
the ancient world know when Troy was capture and when Rome was founded and
when Aeneas became king of Latium and when the Olympiads began.
Anyone who denies the accepted date for the capture of Troy is a FANTASIST
since there is no basis to deny it. King lists for Sparta, Athens, Corinth,
Sicyon and Rome exist with the lengths of reigns of the kings which all give
the same date. If you want to deny Diodorus then you must PROVE that he was
wrong and that every other ancient historian was also wrong. Only a LUNATIC
conspiracy theorist would deny the validity of the entire body of ancient
history.
> Hissarlik, then most evidence was destoyed in the Schielman excavations
> or should I say treasure hunt.
> The evidence which links this site (particularly VIIa-b) to Homer's
> Trojan war is based entirely on 3 arrow heads and some evidence of
> burning. Hissarlik is a ruin of a ruin. We cannot say if Diodorus is
> correct as there is nothing with which to compare his assertion.
CRAP. The site of Hissarlik corresponds to Homers description of Troy and of
the suburb of Ilium. The archaeological date for when the suburb of Ilium
was built of 1300 BC is when Jerome says Ilus built it. The date for the
destruction of Troy VII in 1250 BC is when Jerome says Herakles destroyed
it. The date for the destruction of Troy VIIa is when everyone says Troy was
captured by the Achaeans. Hittite texts name Ilium (Wilusa) and name two of
its kings Erichthonius (Cthonius), and Tros (Alexandros), and they also name
the Achaeans (Akhiyawa) and a whole host of other Greek place names such a
Lysia. There is no denying the historical validly of Homers account.
>
> These are the simple facts. Learn to live with it!
You are a fool that knows nothing about history. Learn to live with it!
Agamemnon
"hagen" <dan5...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1168797887.5...@s34g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> Agamemnon wrote:
>> <ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk> wrote in message
>> news:pJydnbkIjso3WTrY...@pipex.net...
>> > In article <t-6dnbB-8dgT8DvY...@pipex.net>,
>> > agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM (Agamemnon) wrote:
>> >
>> >> The original Minoan Linear A and Phaistos
>> >> scripts were replaced by Linear B and Cadmian scripts
>> >> in Greece by 1450 BC.
>> >
>> > Linear A was never used in mainland Greece and as far as
>> > I know the only instance of of the Phaistos script was on
>> > the Phaistos disc. Linear A was not a proto-Greek but a
>> > different language. Homer is generally agreed (if there
>>
> I don't quite understand. Why should anyone do something as stupid as
> to replace an (enumeratable) annual ledger of no words "the Phaistos
> disc" with a script like linear B ?
The Phaistos disc has been proven to be a funeral record of the burial of a
proto-Ionian king called Arion. It is not an annual ledger. The Phaistos
script predates Linear B and is contemporary to Linear A and has been proven
to be Greek.
chazwin
I have told you before that I have a BA in Ancient History and
Archaeology at a godd British University and A PhD in Classical
Archaeology.
> Get an education you FOOL.
>
> I told you to go and read some history books. Now go and do it.
>
> Greek recorded history goes back to 1800 BC.
No it does not. Herodotus marj the begining of history. He is widely
credited as being the first historian. As the first in the field he had
to rely on myths for the earliest part of his tale and on heresay for
the rest.
>How do you think it was
> recorded except by writing. We already have proof that Linear A script and
> the Phaistos script existed at this time. It is up to you to prove that
> writing, which everyone knows existed, was not used to record this history.
All examples of Linear A are indecipherable because it was not written
in Greek.
All examples of Linear B as in the form of clay tablets that record
economic lists: no poetry, no myths , no history.
The understanding of Linear A was lost forever, Linear B was lost until
Michael Ventris deciphered it.
> It is you that are challenging established historical facts not me. If you
> deny these facts then you must prove that the whole body of Greek history is
> made up. It is truly laughable that you should make such a claim in the
> first place, in defiance of the accounts of every ancient historian. There
> is not one modern historian who challenges these accounts.
You are living in a fantasy land, and making an arse of yourself.
>
> >
> > Homer and Hesion are more likely to have lived 750bce - what is your
> > evidence for downdating by this ridiculous amount?
>
> Prove your ridiculous moronic claim with historical evidence or else retract
> it.
As the entire discipline of philology and Classical Studies agrees with
me I think the burden of proof is on you to say other wise. As I asked
you before - find ONE scholar that agrees with your idiotic dating and
I will look at it.
In the meantime try to look at some of the works on that partial
bibliography I showed you before.
> The majority of ancient historians place Homer and Hesiod around 900 BC. If
> they were to have lived in 750 BC they would have been contemporary with the
> poet Eumelus who wrote the Aetheopis and the Sack of Troy, therefore anyone
> making this ridiculous claim obviously does not know their history.
As I say every scholar in the entire canon of Classical Philology and
Archaeology think you are wrong. WHy the hell should I take your word
for it when every single book on Homer, the darkage, date in not one
minute earlier than 800bce.
> Where the hell did you get the idea there was ever a dark age when not one
> ancient historians refers to such a thing. There is NOT ONE shred of
> historical evidence for such a claim, and those making it are nothing more
> than FANTASISTS not historians.
The whole point about a darkage is that is is DARK. People stopped
recording stuff, civilisations collapsed, buildings emptied, people
went back to the land and the social structure crumbled. There is much
evidence of a darkage, even David Rohl's downsizing puts it at 200
years, rather than the conventional 400-450 years. How the hell do you
explain all the ruins known to archaeology? How do you explain the
myths of cyclopean buildings: Mycenaean building so remote from memory
of the local inhabitants that they thought them built by Cyclopses?
How do you explain 400 years of pottery development as descripbed by
Coldstream, Snodgrass, Desborough and Whitney.
Submycenaean SM 1125-1050
Early/Middle Protogeometric EPG/MPG 1050-975
Late Protogeometric LPG 975-900
Early Geometric I EG I 900-875
Early Geometric II EG II 875-850
Middle Geometric I MG I 850- 800
Middle Geometric II MG II 800- 760
Late Geometric Ia LG Ia 760-750
Late Geometric Ib LG Ib 750-735
Late Geometric IIa LG IIa 735-720
Late Geometric IIb LG IIb 720-700
Early Protoattic EPA 700-675
Middle Protoattic MPA 675-650
Late Protoattic LPA 650-625
Transitional Tr 625-575
Black Figure BF 575-525
Early Red Figure ERF 525-500
Are you saying that these figures are all fantasy?
>
>
> >>
> >> > repertoire. So also at Athens the previously written songs
> >> > depended on the festivals. That is when Homer (around 700bc?
> >>
> >> 900 BC. Have you read Jerome or the Parian Marble?
How the Hell would Jerone have found this out - What was his evidence?
I'll tell you - he read a fucking history book which was also wrong:
probably Diodorus: who was also wrong too.
> >
> > No serious philologist or ancient historian would support such a wild
>
> RUBBISH. Everyone who has studied history supports this date since it is the
> one given by the majority of ancient historians.
Have you actually studied Ancient History in a University?
> > claim!! Homer was born no earlier than 800 at the extreme limit. The
>
> BULLSHIT. Proved this claim with historical cites or else RETRACT IT.
>
> > words that were LATER written down from an oral tradition date from no
> > earlier than 750 and are parallel, though slightly earlier thatn
> > Hesiod.
<<< Twaddle sniped >>.
> > The only thing that
> >> occurred in the time of Piseistartus was that all the multiple written
> >> accounts were standardised.
> >
> > I think you mean Peisistratus idiot!! Get it right you numb skull!
>
> IMBECILE
Sorry my apologies - not numb-skull, imbecile. If you prefer to be know
as an imbecile then I can accomodate you.Hey Agamemnon you are an
imbecile.
> > There were no known written accounts. The festival was for bards
> > working in the oral tradition. There was great pride amoungst them that
>
> There was NO SUCH THING. Not one ancient historian mentions the existence of
> an oral traditions because oral traditions are an invention of the
> Victorians.
>
> > they were not literate. Literacy remained a minority activity, even
> > Socrates was illiterate, and prided himself on the skill of memory.
>
> What a load of BULLSHIT.
>
> Socrates illiterate. ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY?
>
> How did you come up this with pack of LIES. You clearly have not read Plato
> or Xenophon.
I have read ALL the works of Plato and the works of Xenophon too.
Plato makes it quite clear that when it came to writing, Socrates would
have none of it.
If you don't know that, then you don't know shit!
>
> Why would someone who earned his living as a SCULPTOR, someone who was
> employed by others to write down eulogies and other inscriptions on stone,
> be illiterate. YOU ARE A COMPLETE UNEDUCATED IDIOT. Socrates taught others
> to read and write and also taught etymologies so why would he be illiterate.
Back to fantasy land?? Tell why not one scrap of writing has survived!
Tell me why he specifically rejects writing in favour of memory.
He specifically denies taking money for teaching. In fact he
specifically denies being a teacher. He insists that he is a midwife of
ideas. It is unclear how he earned a living: probably from his estate
which he seems to know somthing about in Xenophon. Nowhere does it say
he taught writing.
In which of Plato's or Xenophon's dialogues does it mention that
Socrates knew how to write?
I am quite happy to look it up if you know where it is.
> You are either a systematic liar who keeps making things up or have been
> completely brainwashed or both.
No I am a perosn who has actually studied the topic we are talking
about.
Here are some of the books I have read:
I have some more if you wish - but this was the main bibliography for
my PhD.
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Boardman 1967, Excavations in Chios 1952-1955 Greek Emporio, ABSA,
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age interaction in the Rhone basin of France, In Chapion (ed.) Centre
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Oxford.
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Successors, Clarendon, Oxford.
Desborough, V. R. d’A, 1972, The Greek Dark Ages, Ernest Benn.
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University Press
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Åströms Förlag, Göteborg.
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Finley M I, (1981a) 1957, "Homer and Mycenae: Property and Tenure." in
Historia Vol. 6, pp133ff
Finley 1981 b, Marriage, sale and Gift in the Homeric World, Economy
and Society in Ancient Greece, London, Chatto & Windus.
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Windus.
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Agamemnon
WRONG.
It is you that needs to give an account of why Linear B would have been
forgotten in 1200 BC and why Phoenician script would have to be re-imported
into Greece when it was already in use since the time of Cadmus in 1430 BC
according to ALL ancient historians and there is an unbroken historical
record in ancient Greece which records all major events dating from 1800 BC.
It is you that needs to explain why you believe there was a dark age when
there is no historical evidence whatsoever for such a thing and when all
ancient historians record the events that took places in this no-existent
dark age.
Explain the Dorian invasion, the Ionian and Aeolian migrations, the wars of
the Spartans, the life of Lycurgus, the history of the Arcadians and
Messenians which is recorded, Argive history which is recorded and
Corinthian and Athenian history which all cover this period. Explain the
existence of the king lists for all of these city states. Explain the
existence of history of Rome as recorded by Livy which also spans this
non-existent dark age. Only a LUNATIC conspiracy theorist that has never
studied ancient history or read a single historical text would propose that
all this was made up.
chazwin
It is overstating it to call it a hard fact! Have you ever been on an
excavation? There are many and various ways to interpret a dig, and the
danger is that you tend to find what you are looking for.
How much Mycenaean pottery exists in the ruined ruins of Schlieman's
Troy?
This does not unequivocally mean there was an invasion but may indicate
trade.
The absence of Mycenaean pottery in Level VI is not surprising as it
predates the main period of the Ionian expansion and the main period of
the Mycenaen civilisation itself.
As I recall Miletus was one of the earliest settlements.?? y/n?
Don't get me wrong - I know the Greeks moved east a settled there in
large numbers for many years.
But I think it most likely that "Troy" was a mythic device for a long
period of history covering the whole move east. Maybe the cat. of ship
reflects the 200 years of expansion. I just don't think we should be
looking for a single siege, but a reflexion of a metaphor wrought
large.
chazwin
You arsebandit! You wont get anywhere by lying. You are a dipshit!
Name ONE historian that agrees with your viewpoint.
<<crap sniped>>