Did the Trojan War really happen?

Kaficek said:

If I'm reading a very old article on Egyptology, and it refers to something taking place during the early 18th dynasty, a quick check on Wikipedia would satisfy my curiosity as to what time period the author was referring to.

If, however, the author had followed your advice and given the estimated year instead, I would be misled, since while "18th dynasty" has remained unchanged in meaning, being an arbitrary label of convenience, estimates as to when the 18th dynasty actually ruled Egypt have evolved over the years. The jargon here is a useful aid to understanding, precisely because it is unambiguous.

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The Duke of Hull said:

When cross refencing records a universal term - like a date - is very useful.

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Olleus said:

But, in this case, it introduces errors! At the very least, the potential for errors. The dynasty is what we know directly (ie, some inscription dedicated to some Pharaoh), the date is the inference - and therefore is quite likely to be inaccurate. I also really don't see how using "Mycenaean Greek" is clear, unambiguous language while "Old Kingdom" is obfuscating jargon. If you think that "21st century BC Egypt" is clearest, least ambiguous, lest jargonny way of describing something, than you also ought to prefer "14th Century BC Greece" over "Mycenaean"! Don't get me wrong, I think that all 4 are perfectly fine in the right context, but you're being woefully inconsistent in preferring one thing for Greece and another for Egypt.

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The Duke of Hull said:

I totally respect your opinion on this, I'm just saying I disagree that using 'Greek' is clear, because I see that as confusing.

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Calebxy said:

In what meaningful way are the Greeks of the Mycenaean era different from the Greeks of the Archaic era?

Would you be able to argue for differences that are more meaningful than the differences between, say, the Greeks of the Archaic era and those of the Hellenistic era, both of whom are unambiguously Greek despite their profound differences?

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cwnyth said:

But just why do you call them Hittite when they call themselves something else? Also, ever hear of 'Native Americans'? In the case of Mycenaean Greeks, this objection holds even less water, because the Greeks don't call themselves Greek, nor do they call their land "Greece." Again, when talking about it from a scholarship point, we use an exonym for categorical purposes, just like we say "Ubaid period" or "Uruk period" in Iraq (and yes, they use Iraq!) or talk about ancient India or ancient China.

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Calebxy said:

@Lee Pappas Although I don't agree at all with how you've arrived at that conclusion, based on the reason given by @Linschoten, I coincidentally agree almost exactly with your dates for the Trojan War. I place it in 705-695 BCE.

I also use the Olympics to help me arrive at that date, but in a very different and much simpler way to how you've done it.

The earliest source for the origin of the Olympics (Pindar) says that they were established by Heracles. He lived about two generations prior to the Trojan War, and the Olympics were believed to have been founded in 776 BCE.

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Calebxy said:

Mycenaean Greeks did not, on the whole, have different gods to the Archaic Greeks (there were some differences, but then the later Greeks had some different gods to the earlier Archaic Greeks too).

We do indeed see a gradual transition of culture and art from the Mycenaean era through to the Archaic era. The fact that the Mycenaean power centres collapsed doesn't mean that the whole culture disappeared.

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Calebxy said:

Contrary to popular belief, there is no evidence that the nation we call the Hittites had anything to do with the Hittites of the Bible.

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Teslatron said:

Mycenaean era Greeks had different culture, writing system, art, and worshipped different gods.

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Teslatron said:

Archaic era Greeks started out having blocky art very similar to contemporary Egyptian art, which smoothly transitioned into Hellenistic era realistic art that Romans so admired. We actually have continuity and evolution from Archaic to Hellenistic period. There is no such continuity between Myceneans and Archaic periods, as the Mycenean civilization fell during the Bronze Age collapse, along with Hittites and others, with most of their cities either destroyed or being in permanent decline and fallen to obscurity.

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Teslatron said:

Hellenic era Greeks didn't even know about the important large Mycenean cities and cultural centers. We still don't know all of their cities even today, since they fell into obscurity and were unknown to the Hellenistic period Greek written sources we have access to.
There is of course *some* cultural continuity between Myceneans and Archaic Greeks, but so is between Romans and Italians, but we don't confuse the two simply because we know a lot more details about the Romans and can see the differences more clearly. In my opinion, culturally, Myceneans were actually more different from Iron Age Greeks than Christian Romans to Italians.

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Calebxy said:

What are some examples of cities mentioned in those poems which didn't exist in 700 BCE?

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Teslatron said:

I do not believe so. Provide sources.

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cwnyth said:

This has all been addressed in the previous posts. But this also doesn't make much sense. Did Lithuanians become a different people when they adopted Christianity? Are the Choctaw no longer having adopted literacy and Christianity? English art, language, writing, and religion changed radically from the 15th century to the 20th. Is one English and the other not?



Archaeology says otherwise. We have continuous burials in Euboea throughout the Mycenaean collapse, such as at Lefkandi. Mycenaean cities also survived just fine. Not every city collapsed, just the palatial administrative systems. While their cities went into decline, they weren't depopulated. Athens, Argos, and even smaller sites survived through the period.

The idea that there is a stark division between the Mycenaean and Archaic periods has long been roundly rejected: Lantzas relegated the idea to pre-90s, but bemoaned its continued effects felt in academia. Her study on the Argolid however shows growth even over the period in question (Katie Lantzas 2012, Settlement and Social Trends in the Argolid and the Methana Peninsula, 1200-900 BC). (Lantzas' approach is more nuanced, in that it contextualizes "continuities" and "discontinuities" in terms of "ideological shifts" that occur with the population after the palatial collapse, but following archaeology, she takes it for granted there was a population left over!)

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cwnyth said:

I find it wild you're comparing 1000+ year difference and 200+ year difference in the same place. "Roman" and "Italy" are also political designations, whereas "Greek" in this context isn't.

But as a counterpoint, the Romans of 400 BCE and the Romans of 400 CE show an even greater divergence in every criterion you listed above for the Greeks, yet no objection is made to calling both Roman. Why do you single the Greeks out but not the pre-Medieval Romans or Chinese?

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Calebxy said:

The problem is that we do not actually know precisely where Homer's Pylos actually was. There were several places by that name. The idea that it was the Mycenaean Pylos depends on the conclusion that Homer was talking about the Mycenaean era.

Using that city to prove that the poems must have been set in that era is therefore circular logic.

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Teslatron said:

Starting a war over women/weapons/material goods as opposed to conquering land suggests that at the time land was cheap and wasn't worth fighting over. Fighting over land doesn't even occur to Homer as a possibility. That means the population had already declined and there was plenty of arable land to go around and it wasn't worth fighting over.

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Calebxy said:

The problem is that we do not actually know precisely where Homer's Pylos actually was. There were several places by that name. The idea that it was the Mycenaean Pylos depends on the conclusion that Homer was talking about the Mycenaean era.

Using that city to prove that the poems must have been set in that era is therefore circular logic.

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Teslatron said:

No one argues that there was absolutely no continuity. Clearly Myceneans are progenitors of Greeks, just like Romans are of Italians. There is a lot of continuities between both.

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Teslatron said:

For one, they called themselves Romans. AFAIK, Myceneans never called themselves Greeks.

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Teslatron said:

Also, if you believe the Trojan War happened in 700 BCE, you should probably refer to "Archaic Greeks", since "Mycenean Greeks" were long gone by then. That is also one of the reasons why simply referring to both as "Greeks" is not sufficient and simply confusing in this discussion. Especially if your dates for the war are not "mainstream".

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cwnyth said:

Can you go back and check the context of the original statement? The person I originally objected to did indeed argue that there was no continuity.



Well, the Greeks didn't call themselves 'Greek' either. Nor did the Mycenaeans call themselves Mycenaean! This has all been discussed in detail in the previous posts.

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cwnyth said:

The "Trojan War" is a mythical war that perhaps has its origins in the destruction of Troy at the end of the Bronze Age. That's different from the Homeric epics, which likely composed in the 8th century BCE.

This is absolutely within the mainstream. No confusion is necessary. I think you just missed the context of what this conversation is about. No one is arguing that 5th century Athenians were the same politically as 12th century Argives. But the changes were incremental, and there was not a sharp break in population or habitation, as was earlier argued in this very thread.

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cwnyth said:

The "Trojan War" is a mythical war that perhaps has its origins in the destruction of Troy at the end of the Bronze Age. That's different from the Homeric epics, which likely composed in the 8th century BCE.

This is absolutely within the mainstream. No confusion is necessary. I think you just missed the context of what this conversation is about. No one is arguing that 5th century Athenians were the same politically as 12th century Argives. But the changes were incremental, and there was not a sharp break in population or habitation, as was earlier argued in this very thread.

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