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In his influential book, "Troy and Homer," German classicist Joachim Latacz argues that the identification of Hisarlik as the site of Homer's Troy is all but proven. Latacz's case is based not only on archeology, but also on fascinating reassessments of cuneiform tablets from the Hittite imperial archives. The tablets, which are dated to the period when the Late Bronze Age city at Hisarlik was destroyed, tell a story of a western people harassing a Hittite client state on the coast of Asia Minor. The Hittite name for the invading foreigners is very close to Homer's name for his Greeks...

Ancient Troy was much bigger than previously thought, and may have housed as many as 10,000 people, new excavations have revealed. The lower town, in which most of the population would have lived, may have been as large as 40 hectares (100 acres), according to Professor Ernst Pernicka... Excavations by the late Manfred Korfmann showed that this Troy was just the citadel and that a much larger lower town lay south of it enclosed by a rock-cut ditch (The Times, February 25, 2002). Professor Pernicka's continuation of Korfmann's work has confirmed the substantial nature of this defensive work, which was...

Lufkin Mayor Jack Gorden has been selected by the Texas Transportation Committee to serve on a citizens' advisory committee for putting together information regarding the proposed Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor. According to Texas Department of Transportation officials, advisory committee members represent a cross-section of community and business leaders, landowners, local transportation experts and others. "Our goal is to enhance the public dialogue and meaningfully involve more Texans in transportation decisions," said Texas Transportation Commission Chair Hope Andrade. "These committees will have an important seat at the table as we work together to shape the future of transportation for our state." Gorden...

Schliemann's identification of Troy with a place near Turkey's Aegean coast called Hisarlik is more certain than ever. He wasn't the first to make the connection, but his excavations in 1870 proved the Bronze Age city was prosperous enough to match Homer's description... Among the subdued lands, Hittite texts tell us, was a place called Wilusa. Since the 1920s, shortly after Hittite was deciphered, some have identified Wilusa with Troy (Ilios in Greek, possibly Wilios before Greek lost its W sound)... several Hittite texts... use the place-name "Ahhiyawa," currently thought to refer to one or more Greek-speaking kingdoms. Ahhiyawa is...

TROY -- The mosque, a converted funeral home, is so small it can't accommodate worshipers for the best-attended prayers of the week. On Fridays, they pray in the basement of a nearby college athletic center instead. They also borrow space for marriage ceremonies. And interfaith meetings. And holidays."It's time the community gets its own place," said Abdulkadir Elmi, a trustee and ex-president of Troy's Masjid al-Hidaya.That should start to happen at the end of this month, with a groundbreaking expected for a proper mosque with a dome and two minarets on more than 12 acres in Latham.It's a small story...

Most people think the modern-day Ionian island of Ithaki is the location. But geologists are this week sinking a test borehole on nearby Kefalonia in an attempt to test whether its western peninsula of Paliki is the real site. The scientists hope to find evidence that the peninsula once stood proud, separated from Kefalonia by a narrow, navigable marine channel. It is only within the last 2,500-3,000 years - and long after Homer's time - that the channel has been filled in, the team contends. "We can't prove the story of the Odyssey is true, but we can test whether...

In his new novel, 'The Fall of Troy', Peter Ackroyd recreates the19th-century excavation of one of antiquity's greatest sites which was led byan archaeologist whose methods have always provoked controversy.. Some details about Heinrich Schliemann's life are documented but not too much should be taken for granted about a man so adept at presenting grand conclusions based on dodgy evidence. The location of the Homeric Ithaca remains in dispute and what Schliemann did find on modern Ithaca was no palace; the treasure he unearthed at Troy has since been dated to more than a thousand years before Homer's Trojan war;...

Virgil's demi-god city 'found'Castor and Pollux fought Aeneas at Amyclae (ANSA) - Rome, April 6 - Italian archaeologists believe they have found an ancient city where the demi-gods Castor and Pollux fought Aeneas, the Trojan hero whose descendants founded Rome . Lorenzo and Stefania Quilici of Bologna and Naples universities claim the large, massive-walled settlement dating from the VI to III Century BCE was the city of Amyclae, believed by Renaissance scholars to be somewhere near Lake Fondi between Rome and Naples . "The road there is a perfectly preserved stretch of the ancient Via Appia," said Lorenzo Quilici ....

February 25, 2002 Recent finds prove that Homer's stories were more than myth By Norman Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent A CYNICAL scholar once noted that the reason that academic disputes were so bitter was that the stakes were so small. In the real world maybe, but Troy has been a battleground for 3,000 years not because of mundane matters of funding and status but because of its grip on our imaginations. There may or may not have been a decade’s siege on the edge of the Dardanelles around 1100BC, pitting Late Mycenaean Greeks against their neighbours and possible distant kin: but ...

The tiniest human This award winning photograph was taken by Robert Wolfe, Medical Photographer at the University of Minnesota. This tiny unborn child was yet alive at this moment, only 6-7 weeks after the first day of last menstrual period, a just removed tubal (ectopic) pregnancy. "Eleven years ago while administering an anesthetic for ruptured ectopic pregnacy (at two months gestation) I was handed what I believe was the smallest living human being ever seen. The embryo sac was intact and transparent. Within the sac was a tiny (approx. 1cm) human male swimming extremely vigorously in the amniotic fluid, while...

Palace of Homer's hero rises out of the myths From John Carr in Athens ARCHAEOLOGISTS claim to have unearthed the remains of the 3,500-year-old palace of Ajax, the warrior-king who according to Homer’s Iliad was one of the most revered fighters in the Trojan War. Classicists hailed the discovery, made on a small Greek island, as evidence that the myths recounted by Homer in his epic poem were based on historical fact. The ruins include a large palace, measuring about 750sq m (8,000sq ft), and believed to have been at least four storeys high with more than thirty rooms. Yannos...

TROY, Mich. — A judge who sentenced three teenagers to probation for being drunk at their high school prom had them jailed after he saw them drinking and ridiculing him on a Web site one of them created. "I told them, 'If you think this gives me any pleasure, you're wrong,'" Oakland County District Judge Michael Martone said after sentencing the last of the girls, Amanda Senopole, to 10 days in jail last week. "You know, it's just a crying shame," Martone said. "I work my butt off trying to help kids like this, trying to figure out what works....

Helen of Troy Existed? By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery NewsWas a Queen of Sparta Helen of Troy? Oct. 17, 2005— Helen of Troy, described in the epic poem The Iliad, was based on a real woman, according to a new book that weaves history, archaeology and myth to recreate the famous ancient Greek beauty's life. According to the new theory proposed by Bettany Hughes, Helen's mythological character was inspired by a wealthy Bronze Age leader from the southern mainland of Greece. Hughes, a former Oxford University scholar who has conducted research in the Balkans, Greece, and Asia Minor, was unavailable for...

POROS, Island of Kefalonia, Greece - The tomb of Odysseus has been found, and the location of his legendary capital city of Ithaca discovered here on this large island across a one-mile channel from the bone-dry islet that modern maps call Ithaca. This could be the most important archeological discovery of the last 40 years, a find that may eventually equal the German archeologist Heinrich Schliemann’s 19th Century dig at Troy. But the quirky people and politics involved in this achievement have delayed by several years the process of reporting the find to the world. Yet visitors to Kefalonia, an...

Bulgarian archeologists uncover treasure of thousands of golden ornaments Canadian Press Wednesday, August 17, 2005 SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) - Archeologists working a dig in central Bulgaria have unearthed some 15,000 miniature rings and other gold ornaments that date to the end of the third millennium BC - a find they say matches the famous treasure of Troy, scholars announced Wednesday. The 4,100- to 4,200-year-old golden ornaments have been gradually unearthed over the past year from an ancient tomb near the central village of Dabene, 120 kilometres east of the capital, Sofia, according to Prof. Vasil Nikolov, the consultant on the...

No one knows exactly why the Trojan War was waged, when it took place, or whether it took place at all. Excavations at the ancient site of Troy have unearthed no wreckage of a giant wooden horse, no statues of Helen, no physical evidence that a warrior named Achilles ever existed.

VILNIUS - Few countries are so fortunate as to have an archaeological treasure trove preserving 10 millennia of human settlement. A discovery so impressive that it bears comparison to the Greek city of Troy, which had been consigned to myth until late nineteenth-century archaeologists dug up a hill in Turkey proving its existence, and showing that a stack of eight cities had been built on top. In the 1970s, Lithuanian archaeologists began following up rumours of a magnificent ancient city, stumbling across a site about 35 km from Vilnius unscathed by war and industrial development, which many now call Lithuania’s...

MOSCOW (AP) - A legendary collection of gold objects from ancient Troy seized by Soviet troops in Berlin in 1945 should become Russian government property, a top Russian cultural official said in remarks published Saturday. But Anatoly Vilkov, deputy chief of the Russian agency that preserves the nation's cultural legacy, stopped short of ruling out the objects' return, as quoted by the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets. The gold collection - excavated by amateur German archaeologist Hermann Schliemann - will be made federal property after it is inventoried, he said. It could be exhibited in Germany but only if its return is...

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 19 - Are movies growing bigger as theater audiences are becoming smaller? That's one conclusion to draw from the box-office results of 2004, as Hollywood pursued its penchant for big-budget event films - from Warner Brothers' "Troy" to 20th Century Fox's "I, Robot," to Sony Pictures' "Spider-Man 2" - but the number of moviegoers in the United States dropped for the second year in a row. With nearly two weeks to go before the end of 2004, domestic box-office receipts appeared likely to top last year's total of $9.27 billion, nearing $9.4 billion, according to Exhibitor Relations,...

The failure of "Alexander," the newspaper wrote, has "brutally exposed the cultural and moral divide which slices America in two." Uh-huh. "It is being suggested that a film about a global warrior with dyed blond hair and waxed legs was never going to conquer an America fresh out of a presidential election in which gay rights became a major issue." Is there another America they might be talking about? Major issue? Brutally exposed? The last thing an American movie brutally exposed was Kathy Bates in the hot-tub scene of "About Schmidt."

I went to see the movie Troy, reluctantly, last night with my husband. We both turned to each other at the end and said... the left who said the Passion was bloody and so harsh for all eyes, just have no leg to stand on. I do think Brad Pitt is trying and will be taking the place of Mel Gibson in these type of roles, since Hollywood has left Mel out to dry. I would not recommend seeing it. Unless your into blood, and lots of naked bodies.

HARRY Potter star Fiona Shaw and Troy beauty Saffron Burrows have set up home together, The Sun can reveal. The lesbian pair are said to be deeply in love and are planning to cement their relationship by going public with it.Fiona — Harry’s aunt Petunia in the boy wizard films — is 45. And Saffron, Trojan warrior Hector’s wife Andromache in Troy, is 14 years younger at 31. But the age gap has not affected their romance — and Fiona has now moved into Saffron’s £500,000 penthouse in Clerkenwell, North London. A close pal of the pair said yesterday: “They...

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- "Pops" has gotten the green light from the NCAA to play football at South Carolina. Tim Frisby, the Gamecocks' 39-year-old walk-on receiver, was granted his eligibility by the NCAA membership services staff, the school said. Frisby is expected to be in uniform when the Gamecocks play Troy at Williams-Brice Stadium on Saturday night.Frisby, nicknamed Pops by his teammates, recently retired after 20 years in the U.S. Army, where he was Ranger-qualified with the 82nd Airborne. He served in Desert Storm and the Kosovo conflict.His playing status was on hold because of eligibility concerns with the NCAA...

Refinements of radiocarbon dates appear to rob the monumental tomb at Gordion of its claim to having been the final resting place of the illustrious King Midas, researchers reported last week in the journal Science. American and European scientists analyzed the effects of the sun's cycles on amounts of radioactivity absorbed from year to year, as recorded in tree rings. They said the research had given archaeologists and historians a more precise chronology for the Middle East and Aegean regions in the Bronze and Iron Ages. One of the researchers, Dr. Peter I. Kuniholm, an archaeologist at Cornell University, said ...

One of the major discoveries of the Italian Renaissance, this sculptural grouping was found in Rome in 1506 in the ruins of Titus' palace. It depicts an event in Vergil's Aeneid (Book 2). The Trojan priest Laocoön was strangled by sea snakes, sent by the gods who favored the Greeks, while he was sacrificing at the altar of Neptune. Because Laocoön had tried to warn the Trojan citizens of the danger of bringing in the wooden horse, he incurred the wrath of the gods.

Scientists say warfare began after people formed villages By Dan Vergano Gannett News Service From ancient Troy to today's Iraq, warfare forms the backdrop of human history. But anthropologists, archaeologists and other scholars tend to disagree on war's origins: Some see it as an ailment of civilization and others say it has deeper roots. Two anthropologists from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, suggest that although people could have come into conflict before civilization, archaeological remains of burning homes, fleeing refugees and slain captives show simple raids steadily maturing into full-scale warfare as humans settled into villages and society became...

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Atlantis, the legendary island nation over whose existence controversy has raged for thousands of years, was actually Ireland, according to a new theory by a Swedish scientist. Atlantis, the Greek philosopher Plato wrote in 360 BC, was an island in the Atlantic Ocean where an advanced civilization developed some 11,500 years ago until it was hit by a cataclysmic natural disaster and sank beneath the waves. Geographer Ulf Erlingsson, whose book explaining his theory will be published next month, says the measurements, geography, and landscape of Atlantis as described by Plato match Ireland almost exactly. "I am...

50 ancient tombs uncovered From correspondents in Athens July 18, 2004 ARCHEOLOGISTS have discovered 50 tombs dating back to the late Minoan period, around 1400 BC, and containing a number of artifacts on the Greek island of Crete, ANA news agency reported today. The tombs were part of the once powerful ancient city of Kydonia, which was destroyed at the time but later rebuilt. The oldest among them contained bronze weapons, jewellery and vases and are similar to the tombs of fallen soldiers of the Mycenaean type from mainland Greece, said the head of the excavations, Maria Vlazaki. The more...

A spectacular result of the new excavations has been the verification of the existence of a lower settlement from the seventeenth to the early twelfth centuries B.C. (Troy levels VI/VIIa) outside and south and east of the citadel. As magnetometer surveys and seven excavations undertaken since 1993 have shown, this lower city was surrounded at least in the thirteenth century by an impressive U-shaped fortification ditch, approximately eleven and a half feet wide and six and a half feet deep, hewn into the limestone bedrock. Conclusions about the existence and quality of buildings within the confines of the ditch...

John Edwards once claimed he was channeling the soul of a dead baby before a jury in a medical malpractice case. But if that seems in poor taste, consider the depths to which the tort lawyers' friends in Congress will sink to preserve maximum latitude for lawsuits. Exploiting the families of suicide victims? Fair game, it would seem. ... You get the idea: the usual Republican administration serving big business shtick. But remarkably, the House GOP couldn't summon the courage to defend itself and allowed passage on a voice vote of a Hinchey-sponsored amendment that would strip $500,000 from the...

Board pulls priest accused of sex abuse Albany -- James C. McNerney put on leave after adverse review; panel clears Rev. Jupin The pastor of St. Peter's and St. Paul's churches in Troy was placed on administrative leave Sunday after a diocesan review board ruled that allegations of sexual abuse against him may be true. The Rev. James C. McNerney, 56, has been accused of sexually abusing a minor in the 1980s. Ordained in 1981, McNerney has served at a half-dozen institutions since then. He has been pastor at St. Paul the Apostle Church and St. Peter's since 2000. Bishop...

Does Hollywood use schools and teachers to pimp movies to young children? I suspect that they do. We already know that companies provide schools with products and supplies in exchange for in-class advertising and promotion. The following is a true story. (Although, in writing this, I have undoubtedly improved upon the grammar of the responses I received from the children.) Yesterday, I was talking to a friend's third-grade daughter about her school curriculum. I asked her what she was studying this week. "The Greeks," she said. I asked further, "Why are you studying the Greeks and what are you learning...

Please boycott the movie "Troy: that releases today. Brad Pitt, a rabid Bush hater and support of "Traitor" Democrat John Kerry needs to take a beating in this movie. If the movie does not do well at the box office Pitt is toast as an actor!

<p>Clunky epic. Running time: 163 minutes. Rated R (violence, brief gore). At the Empire, the Lincoln Square, the Kips Bay, others.</p> <p>IT'S perhaps unfair to expect contemporary Hollywood moviemakers to do justice to Homer's "Iliad" or the legends of the Trojan War that have inspired artists and writers through the centuries.</p>

The invasion of Iraq occurred just as shooting for the film got underway in Malta. "I couldn't believe it," 60-year-old Petersen told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. "I thought, it's as if nothing has changed in 3 000 years. People are still using deceit to engage in wars of vengeance." While stressing that he "did not make this film with the intention of making an anti-American statement", Petersen said the parallels between the Trojan war and the Iraq war became more apparent daily during the filming. "Just as King Agamemnon waged what was essentially a war of conquest on the ruse of...

The headline read, "Pitt Says Men May Start Wearing Skirts After 'Troy.'" I thought, "Well, I know the University of Pittsburgh has been having a big brouhaha over benefits for gay and lesbian couples, but it sounds as if they've gone a bit overboard. And who's this guy Troy anyway?"

BERLIN (Reuters) - Actor Brad Pitt said Sunday that fashion-conscious men may be wearing Greek-style skirts soon after his big-budget film about the Trojan War opens this week.At a news conference before the Berlin world premiere of the Hollywood epic ``Troy,'' Pitt said he was happy to launch the sword-and-sandals saga in Germany rather than at home in order to pay tribute to its German director Wolfgang Petersen.``Actors are loyal to their directors and Wolfgang is at the top of the bunch,'' he said. ``It means a lot to him to bring the film home and I'm happy to be...

The abuse allegations by Randy Sweringen first came to light last November in Troy. Sweringen said while he was a member of a fraternity at RPI in the 1980s, he was abused by Father Charles Celeste. At the time, Celeste was the fraternity chaplain and lived in the nearby rectory of St. Paul the Apostle Church. Sweringen said, "He asked me to stroke his arm on the bottom side, and then we ended up, over time, he kissed me and we would kiss for longer periods of time." Sweringen said the abuse culminated in a more serious sexual act just...

<p>DEARBORN — Ball-playing on the blacktop, a sacred suburban tradition to some and an outright nuisance to others, may soon become a crime in Dearborn.</p> <p>Echoing safety concerns throughout Metro Detroit about kids playing in streets, Dearborn is weighing a proposal that would make it illegal to set up hoops, hockey nets or other recreational equipment on public streets.</p>

Some Catholics prayed for their church, but spoke out against their leader, Bishop Howard Hubbard. He was in Troy to receive the Humanitarian of the Year award presented by the Sunnyside Center -- an agency focused on helping children in need. Alleged clergy sex abuse victim Edmund Zampier said, "I feel very offended that today he is getting this award for helping young people. I was a young person. I was hurt. I was damaged. Here I am at age 62, still trying to get this matter settled." Alleged victims of clergy sex abuse and members of the Coalition of...

TROY - Members of the Coalition of Concerned Catholics will gather with victims of alleged clergy sex abuse cases Sunday to protest Bishop Howard Hubbard receiving a "Humanitarian of the Year" award. Hubbard, leader of the Albany Diocese, will be honored by the Sunnyside Center in Troy for his many years of commitment to helping provide financial support for the organization's children's programs. The event will be held at the Sunset Banquet House on Fifth Avenue beginning at 11 a.m. Concerned Catholics' members say they are "troubled" by the decision to honor Hubbard only a short time after he publicly...

The truth about an epic tale of love, war and greed (Filed: 24/03/2004) The legend of Troy has an enduring grip on the imagination. Aidan Laverty talks to the scientists who say they have proved that a siege really took place It's one of the greatest stories ever; the tale of a war fought over the love of Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world. Now as Hollywood breathes fresh life into the myth, archaeologists have uncovered new evidence from the site of Troy that brings us closer than ever to the truth behind this ancient legend. City scan:...

Introducing Troy Hurtubise. He's Canadian. He's a character. He's got a full-on Canadian accent. And he thinks he knows "aboot" grizzly bears. "Project Grizzly" chronicles Hurtubise's quest to build a grizzly bear-proof suit and conduct "close-quarter grizzly research." But after listening to his crazy-talk, you begin to wonder if he really knows anything at all about bears. To understand his misguided passion, you must go back to 1984. That's when this scrap-metal business owner had a run-in with a grizzly that he refers to as "the old man." While hiking in the woods he came nose-to-snout with the big beast....

<p>QUINCY -- William J. Quarterone did not go back to sleep yesterday morning, too troubled after watching a bleeding man collapse in front of his home in the early hours. Minutes before, police said, the man had stolen some Play Station 2 video games, and was fatally wounded as he fled.</p>

A 25-year-old paratrooper hailed as a hero died Wednesday of injuries he suffered in an explosion Saturday while working crowd control in Baghdad. nie Gibson, the mother of Sgt. Troy Jenkins, said Thursday she walked onto her porch to feed her cats just before 8 a.m. and an officer from Fort Rucker pulled into her yard to tell her that her son had died. "I wouldn't wish this on anyone," Gibson said, a button bearing her son's photograph and yellow ribbons still clipped to her blouse. "He said Troy passed away en route to Germany yesterday. I'm throwing all my...

Friday, 7 February, 2003, 11:42 GMT Geologists investigate Trojan battlefield The Greeks armies would have attacked from the west Homer's description of the Trojan battlefield in his classic poem the Iliad is accurate, say scientists. The subject of the story - the Greeks' 10-year siege of Troy and the wooden horse they used to bring it to an end - may have been a myth, but its geography was not. It was right in front of Troy that we were drilling a hole and seashells came out Chris Kraft The researchers drilled sediments in northwest Turkey to map how the...

Was Troy a Metropolis? Homer Isn't Talking By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD new Trojan War has broken out. In the warrior roles of Achilles and Hector are two respected professors on the same German university faculty who could not differ more fully and vehemently over what to make of the ruins at the presumed site in western Turkey of the legendary siege in the 13th century B.C. immortalized by Homer. One adversary, an archaeologist who has directed excavations there since 1988, contends that he has found telling evidence of Troy as a much larger and more important city than previously thought....

The Climax of a Turbulent Millennium: Evidence for Major Impact Events in the late Third Millennium BC Timo Niroma, Helsinki, Finland The First Intermediate PeriodThe Curse of AkkadTroy IIgThird Millennium BC Climate Change and Old World CollapseNatural Catastrophes during Bronze Age Civilisations Two separate cataclysmsSodom and GomorrahWhere did the impacts occur? The First Intermediate Period Selections from "The Egyptians" by C. Aldred (London 1987). "At this distance of time, the overthrow of the Old Kingdom at the end of the Sixth Dynasty has all the appearance of being sudden and complete. "Recent research has attributed the abrupt nature of...