From the description:

This study examines the historical value of the Iliad and Odyssey by asking not whether the Trojan War happened exactly as Homer describes, but how much genuine historical memory survives within the Homeric tradition. Drawing on archaeology, Hittite texts, Linear B tablets, comparative epic literature, and recent Homeric scholarship, it argues that the poems preserve overlapping memories of the Late Bronze Age, the Early Iron Age, and the mythic world of Greek epic.

Topics include the identification of Ahhiyawa and Wilusa in Hittite sources, the archaeology of Troy, oral-formulaic composition, the Homeric Question, Mycenaean political institutions, Bronze Age weaponry and elite culture, Early Iron Age funerary practices, the Catalogue of Ships, and the influence of Anatolian and Near Eastern literary traditions. Particular attention is given to how historical realities were transformed through centuries of oral transmission before reaching their extant form.

Rather than treating Homer as either a reliable historian or a creator of pure fiction, we suggest the Iliad and Odyssey are more like repositories of cultural memory, preserving authentic details from multiple historical periods while reshaping them into one of history’s greatest epic traditions. The result is a synthesis of archaeology, ancient history, philology, and literary criticism that offers a new perspective on the relationship between myth, memory, and history in the ancient eastern Mediterranean.

  • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
    2·
    2 hours ago

    This reminds me Huxley’s The Genius and the Goddess. At the start, two characters discuss fiction versus reality, with one saying “the trouble with fiction is that it makes too much sense. Reality never makes sense.”

    I think this applies to the epics. Even if the historical events depicted in both were completely true, they’re still “fiction”, as the events are “glued” together, as part of a narrative of valor, struggle, fate, heroism. So IMO the hypothesis of the Trojan War they depict being a bunch of smaller conflicts fictionalised into a single one seems fairly reasonable.

    Specially given that the Anatolian coast was a clusterfuck of peoples. Around the Late Bronze Age the Hittites would know it as Arzawa, and associate it with either a kingdom or a loose confederation, that included Wilusa/Ilion/Troy. The presence of Luwian speakers there seems safe, but I think there were other Anatolian peoples, plus Pre-Indo-Europeans; their main connection was simply “let’s gang up so we don’t end conquered by either the Hittites or the Achaeans”.

    Pariya-muwas and Pari-zitis

    For reference:

    • Priam: 𒉺𒊑𒀀𒈬𒀀 pa.ri.a.mu.a, Πρῐ́ᾰμος Prĭ́ămos. It’s being translated as “exceptionally brave”, but I think “thoroughly brave” is a bit more accurate; more on that later. Note the Greek nominative -ς -s is pervasive to masculine names being borrowed.
    • Paris: 𒉺𒊑𒍣𒋾𒅖 pa.ri.zi.ti.iš, Πᾰ́ρῐς Pắrĭs. That ⟨z⟩ is probably [ts], given how commonly it surfaces as a reflex of PIE *tʰ, and Anatolian languages (like Luwian and Hittite) typically lacking voicing contrast AFAWK.

    In both you have the root 𒉺𒊑 pa.ri. I’m tempted to interpret it as coming from PIE *peri “in crossing, in passing”, the locative of *per “before, in front”. The “thoroughly” vs. “in front, first” semantic scope is a mess but that mess is fairly common in IE languages.