Troy and Homer: Towards a Solution of an Old Mystery
by Joachim Latacz
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Book Summary Information
Author: Joachim LataczTranslator: Kevin Windle
Translator: Rosh Ireland
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-02-03
ISBN: 0199263086
Number of pages: 362
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of Troy and Homer: Towards a Solution of an Old Mystery
Book Review: The Historicity of the Trojan War
Summary: 5 Stars
This book marshalls all of the arguments in favor of the view that the Trojan War, as reflected in the Homeric Iliad, was a real historical event. It presents both the most up-to-date archaeological developments in Anatolia, Greece and Egypt and the philological arguments based on studies of the Homeric poems that support this view. It is accessible to the general reader as well as the specialist.
Prof. Latacz's conclusion is that, in light of recent developments, it is now quite plausible that the Trojan War was a real historical event and that the Iliad preserves some memory of that event, even if this has not yet been proven.
The philological arguments purportedly show that, based on studies of the language and metrics of the Homeric poems, the oral tradition underlying the Homeric poems can be traced back to Mycenean times, i.e., the time period in which the Trojan War is supposed to have taken place, and that the oral tradition would be capable of preserving some factual material about the Trojan War if it did occur. I have some familiarity with these arguments and I have reservations about the certainty Prof. Latacz ascribes to them. Some of them are still controversial and have not achieved the scholarly consensus that Prof. Latacz suggests they enjoy. Nevertheless, I feel that the cumulative weight of the evidence supports his conclusion. Prof. Latacz presents these technical arguments in a manner that is accessible to non-specialists.
I am not in a position to assess the validity of the archaeological evidence, but I have no reason to think that Prof. Latacz's presentation of that evidence is in error. As described in this book, Prof. Korfmann's excavations during the last twelve years at the site in northwest Turkey that has traditionally been identified as "Troy" have shown that this site was a much more important community than had previously been thought. Prior to those most recent excavations, only the citadel at the site had been excavated, and Trojan War skeptics asked why the Mycenean Greeks would have mounted a huge expedition to capture what appeared to be a small community. Prof. Korfmann's excavations uncovered a large and wealthy Bronze-age city below the citadel, one that would be a rich prize for a power that was apparently in the process of extending its reach from Greece to Asia Minor during the period in question. In addition, the identification of the site with "Wilusa" mentioned in the Hittite records, and, hence with one of the Homeric names for Troy, (W)ilios, an identification which scholars have suspected since the 1920s, has been made more secure by Hittite specialists, and the important role of Troy in Bronze-age Anatolian trading patterns has been elucidated. Finally, Hittite and Egyptian records have been brought to light that attest to the importance of the "Mycenean" Greeks as a major power in the eastern Mediterranean world of the later second millenium BCE.
For anyone interested in Troy, Homer, or the Bronze Age in Greece and the eastern Mediterranean region, these are exciting developments, and this book brings all these developments together in a single narrative.
In my view, Prof. Latacz exaggerates the case for confidently situating "Homer" in 8th century BCE Ionia. There is considerable scholarly controversy on this point and on the question of when and how the Homeric poems came to be written down and to assume the shape in which they have been transmitted to us; in fact, there seems to be a growing consensus in favor of a later date for the reduction of the poems to writing--perhaps as late as the 6th century BCE or even later. In addition, Prof. Latacz's portrait of the social conditions in 8th century Greece that gave rise to the Homeric poems is less well established than he acknowledges. However, these issues are not essential to his conclusions about the ability of the oral tradition to preserve a memory of events in Mycenean times down to the era of alphabetic writing in Greece, which did in fact begin in the 8th century BCE.
The book contains a large number of useful maps and diagrams. The translation is not very elegant: it reads like a book translated from German.
Summary of Troy and Homer: Towards a Solution of an Old Mystery
In this book Joachim Latacz turns the spotlight of modern research on the much-debated question of whether the wealthy city of Troy described by Homer in the Iliad was a poetic fiction or a memory of historical reality.Earlier excavations at the hill of Hisarlik, in Turkey, on the Dardanelles, brought no answer, but in 1988 a new archaeological enterprise, under the direction of Manfred Korfmann, led to a radical shift in understanding. Latacz, one of Korfmann's closest collaborators, traces the course of these excavations, and the renewed investigation of the imperial Hittite archives they have inspired. As he demonstrates, it is now clear that the background against which the plot of the Iliad is acted out is the historical reality of the thirteenth century BC. The Troy story as a whole must have arisen in this period, and we can detect traces of it in Homer's great poem.
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