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Archaeology and Homer

Troy, site of the Trojan War:

Until Georges Schlieman (the father of archaeology), Europeans
believed that Homer's Greece with its powerful kings and great fleets
of vessels was a myth because the Greece of recorded history was not
powerful or highly cultured. Schlieman believed the Iliad was literal
and, in 1873, found Troy using Homer's Iliad as a guide.
Archaeologists have, in fact, found nine levels of Troy; in other
words, Troy was burned, destroyed, then rebuilt nine times (Ceram). 

As recently as 1988, a new team of archaeologists found an outer wall
"which presumably had encompassed a much larger more imposing Bronze
Age city of the 13th century B.C. This was the time of the supposed
events" (Wilford). The wall is more than 1300 feet beyond the
previously known inner city. The excavations also found traces of
buildings between the central fortress and this wall, 14 feet thick.
Preliminary studies indicate the wall and the buildings within were
destroyed by a fire, which is the legend of Troy. It looks as if
Schliemann's city was the acropolis, a citadel on a hill in which
stood the palace, temple and other buildings. The outer wall would
have protected the inhabitants of the general population, craftsmen,
merchants, etc. Incidentally, scholars today don't believe the Greeks
attacked the Trojans because of Helen, a kidnapped Greek queen. A more
probable reason for the Greeks' attack was the "promise of rich booty.
Situated at the Dardanelles, Troy had grown in wealth by controlling
that narrow shipping lane, exacting heavy tolls, and otherwise
interfering with Greek trade. Real evidence of such a war is still
needed, such as the discovery of remnants of the Greek camp outside
the city" (Wilford).

Mycenae, home of the heroes of the Trojan War:

Schliemann later excavated Mycenae, the home of Agamemnon, a king in
the Iliad. Mycenae was an outpost of the great Minoan-Mycenaean
culture which was a powerful empire in the Mediterranean and Aegean
seas from 3000-1250 B.C. Mycenae borrowed culturally and artistically
from the Minoans. These Mycenaean manlanders were war-like and
protected their cities with walls. (Ceram)

Mycenae's relationship with Knossos on Crete:

The Minoan Culture on Crete, was centered on Knossos. Excavated by Sir
Arthur Evans, an Englishman. The palace was as large as Buckingham
palace in London. People of Knossis reveled in riches and lived lives
of elegant debauchery.
Home of King Minos, his Minotaur and Labyrinth. Unknown what the bull
represents, though images of bulls and young men leaping over bulls
are prevalent. Religious ritual? Game? (Ceram)
Crete-Knossis, extended empire to Thera (Santorini) and other islands.
It was this civilization in the Aegaean from which the greatest art of
Greece sprang.
Knossis on Crete was devastated suddenly around 1400 B.C. By
earthquake? Or by barbarian invasions?
Knossos was never rebuilt on the same scale. (Ceram)
Crete and Thera had open cities, no fortifications, but they were
guarded by a superior naval fleet. Theory: this fleet was knocked out
by tidal wave after a terrific volcanic explosion of near-by Thera.
Then Mycneaeans conquered Crete and moved into Knossos. (Knossos was
destroyed three times, once or twice by earthquake.)

Language

Linear A was the language found on Crete, but there were also other
tablets found called Linear B which proved to be Greek, not the Minoan
language of Linear A (still largely untranslated). "Because the Linear
B tablets from Crete date from before the final destruction of the
Knossos palace in about 1370 B.C. they meant that the palace
administration had for some time been keeeping its records in a
foreign language -- Greek -- rather than in Cretan. Presumably this
change in the language used for official record keeping means that
Greek-speaking Mycenaeans from the mainland had come to dominate the
palaces of Crete, but whether by violent invasion or some kind of
peaceful accomodation remains unknown. Certainly the Linear B tablets
imply that the mainland had not long, if ever, remained a scondary
power to Minoan Crete" (Martin 28).

The Mycenaean Empire and Homer:

"The artifacts of the shaft graves point to a warrior culture
organized in independent settlements ruled by powerful commanders, who
enriched themselves by conducting raiding expeditions near and far, as
well as by dominating local farmers. The retrospective story of the
Trojan War that the Iliad tells symbolizes the aims of this society as
reflected in the literature of a later age. The pugnacious heroes of
Homer's poem sail far from their homes in Greece to attack the citadel
of the Trojans in western Anatolia. Their announced mission is to
rescue Helen, the Greek queen whom the son of the king of Troy had
lured away from her husband, but they always seem intensely interested
in gathering booty by sacking Troy and other places in the
neighborhood. The precious objects and symbols of wealth and power
found in the graves dating long before the Trojan War show that the
society of warriors with goals similar to those of the male heroes of
the Iliad was in place four centuries earlier than the setting of
poem's story" (Martin 27).

The Iliad and the Odyssey reflect the time of turmoil in the Aegaean
when the great point of Cretan-Mycenaean culture began to be
demolished, the cities destroyed, the palaces burned.

Works Cited

Ceran, C.W. Gods,Graves,and Scholars, 1978.

Martin, Thomas. Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times.
New Haven: Yale UP, 1996.

Wilford, John Noble. "Discovering a Clue to the Splendor That Was
Troy." New York Times, 1993.

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