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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (45718)	2/27/2006 11:56:07 AM
From: ManyMoose	Respond to of 90947

No doubt most ancient stories have some basis in fact. For example, there really WAS a gunfight at the OK Corral. Western movies a the modern analogy for The Iliad, Genesis, and so forth. I started to say "equivalence," but that certainly would not suffice.

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (45718)	2/27/2006 10:25:51 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

Did he prove that? How? They found a few arrowheads in Troy. A few arrowheads is a war? That's not even a good hunt! It is known that the "Jewels of Helen" shown in the photograph of Schliemann's wife. Sophie, came from Troy II and were much to early for the Trojan War. And it is believed that they were planted by Scliemann anyway. There was a transition from large open rooms, probably palatial residences in Troy VI to small subdivided rooms ("shanties") in Troy VII. But there are a hundred things that could cause that change. Blegen, an archaeologist after Schliemann, chose to interpret this as meaning a city under siege. But did it? Why? Why not a city losing economic viability? Troy was also at odds with the Hittite Empire at its height. Why not a war and sacking by them? Blegen also disagreed with Schliemann as to whether Troy VI or Troy VII was the Troy of the Trojan War. Blegen thought VII; Schliemann thought VI. There was evidence of a fire. But towns burn all the time. The archaeologists who want the Trojan war say this proves Troy was sacked as Homer said. But it proves no such thing. Homer gives the impression of a large fine city under attack. Yet Troy is a small town. Homer said the war lasted 10 years. Now there might have been a larger population of farmers outside the walls that took refuge behind those walls once the war started- -but you couldn't store enough food in there to keep much of a population alive for 10 years, much less still fighting. Whether or not the Trojan War actually happened and how much it resembles Homer's depiction is very much open. Homer was a poet, not a historian. And he lived 800 years after that war. He saw not one bit of it nor talked to anyone who was involved in it.

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (45718)	2/28/2006 8:59:10 AM
From: DMaA	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

It is known that the ancients used to collect gold from rivers by staking a sheep skin in a river. The gold flakes would collect in the fleece - the Golden Fleece.

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (45718)	2/28/2006 12:31:12 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

No question part of it is based on historical. That's well short of all, though. Or do you believe the Olympian gods interfered in that war? He refers to "Tiryns of the great walls". THose walls were there when he was alive. They are still partly there. He also refers to Mycenae and the Lion Gates. The gates were there in his time and still exist. A good deal of what he refers to existed at the time he was alive. If he was. There is speculation there was no single "Homer" and the 2 books attributed to him were actually ballads collected from numerous people. But no matter how nuch you wish the Trojan War to have happened, you cannot prove it did at his point.