PUBLISHED 21 February 2020
LSA Classical Association, 20th February, 2020
On 20th February we welcomed another packed audience into our Senior School Hall for the Lytham St Annes Classical Association lecture with Michael Wood (Historian, prolific broadcaster and author), “The Trojan War: myth or history?” which is pertinent given it's currently featured in an exhibition at The British Museum (running until 8th March).
Michael’s talk took us on a journey of discovery, exploring the relationship between history, archaeology, geography and poetry as Homer’s Iliad was key to unpicking the truth. Michael opened his talk by noting he found the British Museum’s conclusion that its impossible to make a connection between Homer and the Trojan War dissatisfying, as he proceeded to recount the fascinating account of how Troy was indeed found. This is even more remarkable as it is only recently been uncovered. Michael highlighted this by referring to his own broadcast made in 1985 in which even he believed the Trojan War to be a myth.
Troy has of course permeated generations of literature, from Shakespeare, Chaucer to Star Trek and Dr Who, however fact has only been deciphered from fiction due to three recent discoveries. These include: the excavation of Troy; Homer’s text; and discoveries in the diplomatic texts on the tablets sent between the rulers of the era which give the potential rationale for a war.
Whilst the detailed references to the landscape (‘crossing two rivers’; ‘climbing the citadel wall’) in the Iliad give a reference point to help unpick the location of the events in the Bronze Age, Homer wrote in c.700BC, drawing from oral stories, so the information it contained was both helpful and confusing. During the Eighteenth Century the obsession grew to find the location of Troy, a challenge drawing even the likes of Lord Byron.
Whilst the citadel of Troy was confirmed in the 1860s by Calvert and Schliemann (the latter of whom gained the glory associated with the find), it took until only recently to realise the full scale of the city and where the famous battles took place.
When Calvert and Schliemann began to excavate, archaeology was a new science at that time and as Schliemann was convinced that Troy would be deep within the Bronze Age layers in the mound at Hissarlik, he employed Turkish labourers to slash through the mound, destroying much of what was later found to be the very walls of Troy. By 1873, Schliemann, the self-publicist and oft-criticised fantasist claimed, “I found the jewels of Helen” and other finds which were reminiscent of Homer’s tale.
However, Dörpfeld who worked with Schliemann and continued after his death drew from his background as an architect to create drawings to show the many cities of Troy in the layers of rock. He proposed that Troy VI, not Troy II, was the city immortalised in Homer’s epic. He at last felt confident that he’d worked out where the battle took place.
Even more recently, it has been uncovered that Troy didn’t stand over a great plain as originally believed, but a bay. This discovery completely changed the experts’ opinion of where the battles must have taken place. A map of the area has now been re-drawn to shift the focus of where the Greeks were camped, from the north to the south. Subsequently, tablets from 1265 were discovered which includes a letter between the Hittites and Greeks referencing a war fought between them.
Michael explained that the confused chronology in the Iliad has both helped and hindered our understanding of what really happened was a result of the stories being passed down through generations and via multi-lingual travelling bards by oral history. This resulted in some of the references being from earlier periods than Homer realised. Michael’s talk colourfully brought to life how the Trojan War was indeed history.
Many thanks to Michael and the LSA Classical Association for this illuminating evening.
If you are not currently a member of the LSA Classical Association, you can join now by visiting their website. Events take place throughout the year in our Senior School Hall and as the largest Classical Association in the UK, they are able to draw the most prominent Classicists to Lytham.
Find out more from Michael in his box set available now.