Helen Of Troy Existed?

The Discovery Channel ^ | 10-18-2005 | Jennifer Viegas

[blam]

GGG Ping.

[MineralMan]

And here she is. I'm certain she's old enough, and matches the description, sorta: ===========================

[SlowBoat407]

It was all the Greeks' fault.

[Graymatter]

"Women were mothers at twelve, grandmothers at twenty-four, dead before they were thirty," she wrote.

That's very misleading.

[flashbunny]

you beat me to it.

[Clemenza]

"Women were mothers at twelve, grandmothers at twenty-four, dead before they were thirty," she wrote.

Sounds like Detroit.

[Styria]

The Greeks had fairer hair previously.

[Tijeras_Slim]

"Women were mothers at twelve, grandmothers at twenty-four, dead before they were thirty," she wrote.

Scott Ritter gains a sudden interest in the Classics.

[proxy_user]

"While Greeks generally have dark hair, frescoes dating to Helen's era around 3,500 years ago reveal at least one woman with "tawny red hair and blue eyes."

But Homer describes Menelaos as 'xanthos', admittedly as a poetic formula, while not mentioning Helen's hair coloring at all.

[wideawake]

"Women were mothers at twelve, grandmothers at twenty-four, dead before they were thirty," she wrote.

I hate this ahistorical crap.

Women in ancient Greece were not dead by thirty. What these idiots fail to realize is that low life expectancy back then was due to high infant/child mortality.

Out of every ten people born in those times, three or four would die before they made it to age 3.

If you survived childhood diseases and lived to adulthood in ancient Greece, you would generally live to 65-70.

There were nonagenarians and centenarians in ancient Greece.

Also most Greek women, given the state of nutrition back then, would not have been able to become mothers at 12. Women were generally married off as soon as they could have children and in ancient Greece that was generally 15-16.

[socal_parrot]

the shimmer came from linen clothing soaked in perfumed olive oil

Hey, that's pretty slick.

[OpusatFR]

You mean like the epic on one of the cable channels this year?

We called it, "Malibu Barbie of Troy."

It just stunk....

[Paradox]

It is unclear what happened at the site, but Hughes thinks Helen's life was short, since the average lifespan for Mycenaean females was 28 years.

I hate it when they say things like this. Average lifespan includes the child mortality rate, which was terribly high "back in the day". Once you got out of childhood, you could live to a relatively ripe old age.

[jpsb]

"That's very misleading."

More like flat out wrong.

[wideawake]

I'm not aware of Homer describing Helen as "shimmering" and the ancient Greeks were not physically identical to modern Greeks.

The Greeks of Homer's world were descendants of several waves of Northern invasions. Blondism and green and blue eyes were quite common among ancient Greeks.

Greeks today are descendants of a variety of nationalities - urban Greece in the 1st century AD was the rough equivalent of NYC today - a broad mixture of ethnicities.

[SunkenCiv]

BTDT. ;')

Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore
PRNewswire | Sep. 14, 2005 | Melanie Pope of Renault Communications
Posted on 10/09/2005 8:29:26 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1499699/posts

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam.

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[chesley]

Come on. I just ate. Let's have a moratorium on Helen of Thomas pictures, unless preceeded by a BARF!!! alert.

[SedVictaCatoni]

Women in ancient Greece were not dead by thirty. What these idiots fail to realize is that low life expectancy back then was due to high infant/child mortality.

I think also they're confusing life SPAN with life EXPECTANCY. Human lifespan probably hasn't changed in hundreds of thousands of years.