Was Troy a Metropolis? Homer Isn't Talking

New York Times ^ | October 22, 2002 | John Noble Wilford

[LostTribe]

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. Surveys and excavations, he says, disclose the outlines of a densely settled town reaching 1,300 feet south of the hilltop citadel.

This greater Troy, with an estimated population of up to 10,000, sizable for the time, is now being portrayed as a thriving center of Late Bronze Age commerce at a strategic point in shipping between the Aegean and Black Seas. It seemed to have been a place worth fighting over (if indeed there is any historical basis to Homer's "Iliad").

Where is the proof, the other combatant, an ancient historian, demands to know. Accusing the Troy archaeologist of "willful deceit," he argues that excavations have turned up no firm evidence of such a large town outside the acropolis. At best, he insists, Troy in that period was only a princely seat, a castle and little else of consequence.

The argument between the two professors at the University of Tübingen, Dr. Manfred Korfmann, the archaeologist, and Dr. Frank Kolb, the historian of ancient times, may have little direct bearing on some of the more hoary questions about Troy. Was Homer's Trojan War part history or all poetry? Was there ever a woman like Helen, whose face, however beautiful, could have launched a thousand ships?

The dispute is an unsettling reminder to archaeologists that lapses sometimes occur in the proper practice of their field, where evidence can be ambiguous and the temptation can be great to overinterpret piecemeal findings to burnish their significance. Whether that has occurred now is the issue.

Controversy, though, is nothing new in Troy research.

Heinrich Schliemann, the gifted amateur who was the first to conduct extensive excavations there, in the 1870's, had a habit of mixing fantasy with reality in his reports. Finding a lode of gold and jewelry, he announced it to be the treasure of Priam, king of Homer's Troy. Later, it was proved to be from a much earlier period.

[LostTribe]

The controversy over this famous proto-Celtic site continues...

[LostTribe]

Bump to all Amateur Archeologists, in fond memory of Heinrich Schliemann. He did it HIS way, and proved all the shiny-butt, stale lecture note, tight-a$$, library "researcher", Bible thumping, faculty lounge "experts" wrong.

[Mare Tranquilitatus]

Thank You for the bump. There are numerous books on Schleimann, many of them critical, written by competitors and other losers. However there is one especially good book, I wish I could recall the title. The vague title does not contain his name.

[PaulKersey]

That sounds like "The Greek Treasure" by Irving Stone. It is an excellent book on the life and times of Henry and Sophia Schliemann.

[PaulKersey]

The book is out of print and a little hard to find. Here is a photo and description. The Greek Treasure.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Dittos. Talk about a fascinating life! Schliemann set the curve.

The dumbasses were claiming the whole thing was a myth and he just took Homer and followed his description of where Troy was and found it. Then he did the same thing with the tomb of Agamemmnon.

[MoGalahad]

Please define what you mean by 'Bible thumping'.

[LostTribe]

>Please define what you mean by 'Bible thumping'.

Oh, me. I suspected that would wake someone up. {ggg}

As I recall the story of Schliemanns life he was not only accosted intellectually by every academic who didn't share his ambition and insight, but by asst clergy who opposed all digging and searching and anything scientific that might turn up something contrary to church policy. (As in maybe the earth is not the center of the universe and maybe it isn't really flat.) Schliemann fought a great variety of "established and settled facts" as well as "establishments" as he brought the science of Archeology into being.

[LostTribe]

>Dittos. Talk about a fascinating life! Schliemann set the curve. The dumbasses were claiming the whole thing was a myth and he just took Homer and followed his description of where Troy was and found it. Then he did the same thing with the tomb of Agamemmnon.

Schliemann made lots of enemies, even the author of this NYT article takes his cheap shots. (OK, so just what did that author ever discover?) But Schliemann has to given his due. While the others sat on their fat shiny tenured posteriors and heckled he went out and became rich, became educated (PhD from somewhere) and put it all together in one place and discovered what wasn't supposed to be there!

We need Schliemann here today to help find The Lost Tribes of Israel. The evidence, helped by his "invention" of the Scientific field of Archeology is overwhelming, but the same shiny-butt, stale lecture note, tight-a$$, library "researcher", Bible thumping, faculty lounge "experts" are saying it is wrong.

PS I love your screen name!

[MoGalahad]

You did not really define what you meant by 'Bible thumping'. I am not familiar with Schliemann's life story but I am intimately familiar with the bias of academia and it is anything but pro-Christian, if that is what you mean by 'Bible thumping'. I would guess, with some degree of confidence, that both of these German academics are humanists in the strictist sense, even if they do disagree about an archeological dig. Secondly I would point out that clergy at one point in History insisted that the earth was flat even though the Bible clearly teaches otherwise. What is my point? Simply that just because academics or clergy say something is truth does not necessarily imply it is. Ideas must be time tested and the 'Bible' has stood the test of time. Problems evolve when men go off on tangents.

P.S. As I understand his findings, Schliemann was successful because he recognized that myth has some measure of truth in it.

[LostTribe]

>What is my point? Simply that just because academics or clergy say something is truth does not necessarily imply it is.

Yes, I wonder if that has always been true. Probably. In any case, it presents a sometimes powerful inertia against change or even consideration of new evidence inside both the academy and church. And their mindset teaches the next generation.

[PaulKersey]

We need Schliemann here today to help find The Lost Tribes of Israel.

A key difference between Schliemanns search for Troy and your search for The Lost Tribes is that his search was FOR physical evidence, but yours is a search OF the evidence. However, both of you have to fight the shiney butt types you mention, as well as many other people with vested interests who don't want to find them under any circumstance. That would require a massive revising of their positions, policies, strategies, sermons, and teaching notes.

[justshutupandtakeit]

While I rarely read links, I did read yours. This problem may be solved thru DNA evidence at some point but I don't believe it comparable to the problem of finding Troy. After all Heinrich had Homer as a guide. There is nothing comparable for the Lost Tribes since there is no single point to find. At best a trail through history could be determined (a fascinating trail it would be too.)

H.S. used the Iliad as a kind of oracle which he consulted for all manner of problem or question not just the location of Troy. Like the I Ching or Tarot cards. He also read a portion every day of his life.

[LostTribe]

>While I rarely read links, I did read yours.

Thanks for your comments.

>Heinrich had Homer as a guide. There is nothing comparable for the Lost Tribes ...

It is my contention that we have more than enough guides and maps to do the job. The most important guide is the Bible itself.  It is full of clues, feebly explained away over the years as meaning something else.  The next is the wealth of archeological evidence discovered since 1800.  The "clincher" is the finding of the

Assyrian Tablets in the British Museum.

They have been translated (thanks to the Rosetta Stone and the Behistun Rock) and talk about the Northern Kingdom Israelites (Lost Tribes of Israel) and give the many names they were called during their captivity.  These Israelites were never lost, they just changed License Plates!  Knowing those names, the rest of the trail gets easier.

The starting point for this search is to get our definitions straight. Unexplainably the fundamental definitions of Hebrew, Semite, Israelite and Jew have become terribly mixed up over the years.  Without making simple but critical distinctions between these words, the whole search becomes a jumbled (if politically correct) maze.  Fortunately, the Bible makes it easy to straighten out those definitions, as I have done in this simple Israelite History:

                 3-MINUTE HISTORY OF THE ISRAELITES

Four Thousand years ago, Abraham (a great-great grandson of Shem, a son of Noah) and a small group of Hebrews (of which there were & are many varieties) migrated from southern Iraq to Canaan (~Palestine). Several generations later, around 1853 BC, his Grandson Jacob (who was renamed Israel) and his 12 Sons and families moved to Egypt. As offspring of Shem, they were called "Shemites" or "Semites", as were his many other offspring.

~1453 BC, now as the 12 Tribes of the 12 Sons of Israel, and over 3 Million strong, these Semites bailed out of Egypt in the well-documented overland EXODUS and fled back to ~Palestine.  But the Tribes "couldn't all get along" there, so ~922 BC these 5 Million Israelites split into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms.

(In actual numbers, 5 Million people is about the same size as Ireland, Norway, Denmark or Israel today, and was 10% of the estimated 50 Million world population at that time. The world population is now ONE HUNDRED TIMES as large. Compared to todays 6 Billion people, the Israelites relative population would have been over twice as large as the United States of America!)

The very large Northern Kingdom of Israel was made up of 10 of the Tribes. Inheriting the Kingly names which applied to all 12 Tribes before the split, the Northern Kingdom (alone) becomes known as the Kingdom of Israel or House of Israel, (also House of Joseph, House of Ephriam, House of Isaac, and House of Omri), and is led by the northern Tribe of Ephraim.

Two hundred years later these Northern Israelites were taken into captivity by the Assyrians (~722 BC) and relocated to the northern Fertile Crescent area of Iraq/Iran. They were not diligent in updating their eMail addresses, thus were called, by some, the "Lost Tribes", or "Lost Sheep" or "Lost Children" of the Kingdom or House of Israel. (However at ~1/12 or more of the worlds population it seems unlikely they would actually disappear, or get "lost". The global population now ~75 Million.)

A hundred years later, this "lost" Northern Kingdom of Israel with now over 6 Million Israelites helped the Medes and Persians overthrow the Assyrians, then escaped north through the Caucasus Mountains and around the Black and Caspian Seas, to explode into history ~610 BC as The Celts. These Celts mixed with (and fought against) each other, and with other scattered Israelites (proto-Celts) who had escaped from Egypt by sea nearly a thousand years earlier, before the overland Exodus. Also, with other Israelites who migrated from Palestine after the overland Exodus but before the Assyrian captivity and who had already established numerous outposts in Europe and elsewhere.

These Millions of Celts grew to become Tens, then Hundreds of Millions as they migrated in waves westward and northwest to Galatia, Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonika, Phillipi, Collosse, to what is today Hallstatt, Austria and Neuchatel, Switzerland (where exist major Celtic digs and museums) and beyond, to totally dominate Northern and Western Europe. These Celts (also as Cimmerians, Scythians, Danaoi, Massagetae, Milesians, Masilia, Sarmatians, Germani, Goths, Franks, Gauls, Lombards, Belgae, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Vandals, Danes, Normans, and other assorted "Barbarians") are the rootstock of today's Europeans and Americans who became the backbone of global Christianity.

The much smaller Southern Kingdom was made up of the Tribe of Judah & a mix of Levites and Benjamites. It was also known as the Kingdom of Judah or House of Judah. These Southern Israelites (aka Judeans) were taken captive in ~587 BC and removed to Babylon. Only ~50,000 Judeans returned to Palestine ~70 years later. They and their offspring are called Jews.

From this point, the search becomes increasingly easier.

But the most important thing we have to do is get out of the faculty (and seminary) lounges and just follow the maps.  Like Homer, either they are right or they are wrong.  The location of The Lost Tribes of Israel was suspected and documented by scholars well over a hundred years ago, but now we have enough additional evidence to declare them found. Instead of being nowhere, they are everywhere!
 
-LT

[sphinx]

The dumbasses were claiming the whole thing was a myth and he just took Homer and followed his description of where Troy was and found it.

As I understand it, the site of Troy is perfectly obvious once you reconstruct the Bronze Age shoreline. It had become an obscure question only because the ancient harbor had silted in.

Schliemann, of course, did not have the advantage of modern geosciences.

[LostTribe]

> member of the Oriental Institute...

I would be interested in hearing about your membership in the Oriental Institute since you apparently live near there. Do you go there often, engage in activities, etc? I belonged to Friends of the Bodleian, Oxfords Main Library to maintain library privileges, but mostly out of sentiment for the time I spent there as a post-Doc student. Never made it back with sufficient time to take advantage of special events, etc.

[PaulKersey]

Unexplainably the fundamental definitions of Hebrew, Semite, Israelite and Jew have become terribly mixed up over the years.

Unexplainably??? Think about it. In whose interest would it be for these definitions to become vague and imprecise? And thereby more "manageable".

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

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