Incredible, Epic Genes: Dating The Iliad

The Iliad, an epic poem describing the heroes and events of Trojan war, is one of the oldest extant pieces of Western literature. But just how old is it? A new study uses linguistic genetic relationships to compare the vocabulary used in The Iliad with Modern Greek and an earlier (and distantly related) Hittite lexicon. The study dates the text to around 762 B.C.E.—supporting the traditional, but often debated, eighth century B.C.E. date. The epic refers to events at the end of the Late Bronze Age, several centuries before the poem was composed, and it was considered an early literary achievement by classical Greeks centuries after its composition. The Iliad likely began as a diverse group of poems passed down by oral poets over a long period before reaching its present form. Traditionally attributed to the enigmatic bard Homer, the new study decontextualizes the epic—as we know it today—from its murky origins by relying entirely on statistical analysis.

The Historic Homer in the BAS Library

Thomas, Carol G. “Homer & Troy: Searching for the Historical Homer.” Archaeology Odyssey, Winter 1998, 26-33, 70.

Griffin, Jasper. “Homer & Troy: Reading Homer After 2,800 Years.” Archaeology Odyssey, Winter 1998, 34-37, 39.

“Is Homer Historical? An Archaeology Odyssey Interview.” Archaeology Odyssey, May/Jun 2004, 26-35, 62-63.

Leith, Mary Joan Winn. “Biblical Views: Yahweh as Achilles.” Biblical Archaeology Review, Jan/Feb 2008, 24, 81.

Ping.

Dating The Iliad

What's next, Iliad Marriage? :-)

What the hay is linguistic genetics? Is that some kind of joke, or merely a misleading metaphor? And why would you use the term “decontextualize”? I’m pretty sure exactly what they’re trying to do is put it into wider context.

LOL!


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Thanks houeto, and IBT regurgitated remarks about BCE vs BC. A new study uses linguistic genetic relationships to compare the vocabulary used in The Iliad with Modern Greek and an earlier (and distantly related) Hittite lexicon. The study dates the text to around 762 B.C.E. -- supporting the traditional, but often debated, eighth century B.C.E. date. related links: The Allies of Priam from The Dark Age Of Greece by Immanuel Velikovsky The Trojans and their Allies from New Light On The Dark Age Of Greece by Jan Sammer Mycenae, the Danube and Homeric Troy from New Light On The Dark Age Of Greece by Jan Sammer Keyword: trojanwar Google Trojan War site:freerepublic.com Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

You guessed it, one of *those* topics.

The Dark Age Of Greece: Celestial Events in the Iliad by Immanuel Velikovsky
...It appears, however, that in the Iliad Homer telescoped into a few weeks events that took place in the space of several decades. At least some of the events may be placed in a chronological order with the help of ancient Israelite sources: namely, on the day when King Ahaz was interred the motion of the Earth was disturbed so that the Sun set before its appointed time; ...In Greek legendary tradition the first event took place in the days of the two brothers, Atreus and Thyestes, contesting the throne of Mycenae... The fixing of the event to the early spring of -687 is made on the strength of the information from Hebrew sources that the event took place on the night of Passover, during the second campaign of Sennacherib against Judah, the ninth campaign of his reign. The exact date for the last of this series of catastrophes is provided by the records of the astronomical observations of the Chinese... in the year -687, on the 23rd of March... Romulus was a contemporary of Hezekiah; and the 23rd of March was the most important day in the Roman cult of Mars... The siege of Troy under Agamemnon followed by less than one generation the natural disturbances of the days of his father Atreus, when this king of Mycenae competed with his brother Thyestes for the crown of the realm and the Sun was disrupted in its motion. Atreus and Thyestes, being contemporaries of Ahaz and Hezekiah, and Agamemnon, son of Atreus, a contemporary of the latter king of Jerusalem, it seems that the time in which the drama of the Iliad was set was the second half of the eighth century, and not later than -687; yet the poet condensed the events separated by decades into the tenth year of the Trojan siege, the time of the Iliad's action. Thus we come to realize that it was a rather late time; clearly Homer could not have lived before the events he described; and therefore Homer's time cannot be any earlier than the end of the eighth century. But more probably he wrote several decades after the Trojan War...

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I just copied text from the article, conceptualize?