The Dark Age Of Greece: The Allies of Priam by Immanuel VelikovskyPhrygians are named as allies of Priam; also Ethiopians are counted among his allies... It seems that in one of the earliest waves of the eighth century migrations the Phrygians moved from Thrace over the Hellespont to Asia Minor... The son of Gordias, Midas... according to the chronicle of Hieronymus, reigned from -742 to -696. Soon the Phrygians came into conflict with the Assyrians who opposed the penetration of newcomers into central Asia Minor; and Sargon II (-726 to -705), the conqueror of Samaria and of the Israelite tribes, moved westward to stop the penetration of the Phrygians. Altogether the Phrygian kingdom in Asia Minor had a short duration... the royal mounds (kurgans) only three could be dated before the Cimmerian invasion of the early seventh century which put an end to the Phrygian kingdom, and probably the number of royal successions did not exceed this number. Little is known of its history besides the fact that ca. -687 Gordion was overrun by the Cimmerians... While the displaced Phrygians may have continued to live for a time in the western confines of Asia Minor, the year -687 saw the end of their kingdom... -687 (or possibly -701) was also the year that Sennacherib met his famous debacle as described in the books of Isaiah, II Kings, and II Chronicles, while threatening Jerusalem with capture and its population with eviction and exile. Phrygians as allies of Priam, in the hinterland of the Troad, in conflict with the Cimmerians, themselves pursued by the Scythians, would limit the period of the Trojan War to the years between -720 and -687... Lydia was ruled by Gyges, a great king who played a conspicuous role in the politics of the Near East. He was on friendly terms with Assurbanipal, grandson of Sennacherib, king of Assyria; then, feeling the threat of the growing Assyrian empire, he supported Egypt's rise to independence: he sent Ionian and Carian detachments to Psammetichus, king of Egypt, which enabled that country to free itself from the supremacy of Assyria. The Homeric epics were created on the Asia shore of Asia Minor; it is most probable that Homer was a contemporary of Gyges, king of Lydia... The allies of Priam also included Ethiopians under Memnon; the Ethiopian allies of Priam... were actually Sudanese: in Egyptian history the Ethiopian Dynasty and their most glorious period is dated from ca. -712 to -663, when Ashurbanipal pursued Tirhaka to Thebes, occupied it, and expelled the Ethiopian from Egypt proper. The tradition concerning Memnon, the Ethiopian warrior who came to the help of Troy, would reasonably limit the time of the conflict also to the end of the eighth and the beginning of the seventh century.
New Light on the Dark Age of Greece: The Trojans and their Allies by Jan Sammer"The Phrygian kingdom was thus at the apex of its power toward the end of the eighth century, when it apparently extended as far southeast as the Taurus and was in contact with Assyria. This period of power was apparently the time of the adornment and fortification of its capital city." In 1953 a team from the University of Pennsylvania led by Rodney Young, in the course of their work at Gordion, exposed to view a large double gateway with a central courtyard, belonging to the Phrygian period. Its date, like that of most of the Phrygian constructions at Gordion, was put sometime in the eighth century. The manner of construction of the walls of the gateway reminded the excavators of the fortifications at another Anatolian site: the walls of the sixth city at Troy appeared to be nearly duplicated in those of the Phrygian Gate at Gordion. In his report of the discovery. Young wrote:"In their batter as well as their masonry construction the walls of the Phrygian Gate at Gordion find their closest parallel in the wall of the sixth city of Troy . . . Though separated in time by five hundred years or thereabouts, the two fortifications may well represent a common tradition of construction in north-western Anatolia; if so, intermediate examples have vet to be found."The search for intermediate examples is bound to be fruitless since the time gap between Troy VI and Gordion is unreal, a phantom construct of historians. Whereas the Trojans had a long tradition building in stone, the Phrygian gateway appears as if out of nowhere, without any visible antecedents; yet at the same time it displays technical skills that speak of a long period of development. This apparent contradiction is also noted by Young:" . . . The planning of the [Phrygian] gateway and the execution of its masonry imply a familiarity with contemporary military architecture and long practice in the handling of stone for masonry. The masonry, in fact, with its sloping batter and its more or less regular coursing recalls neither the cyclopean Hittite masonry of the Anatolian plateau in earlier times, nor the commonly prevalent contemporary construction of crude brick. The closest parallel is the masonry of the walls of Troy VI, admittedly very much earlier. If any links exist to fill this time-gap, they must lie in west Anatolia rather than on the plateau."The Trojan fortifications belong according to the revised chronology, in the eighth century, and thus were roughly contemporary with the Phrygian.