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Thread: Was Troy in Baltic Sea? (a weird theory)

  1. #41

    Default Re: Was Troy in Baltic Sea? (a weird theory)

    The linear-B texts containing some form of a Greek dialect are from the fifteenth century. I have read somewhere. They are from Creta and some other places so they are a bit more in the South and may not be representative for other places. These things have not much to do with the troian war. The Balitic things looks to me as a recycling of older ideas about how certain indo-european languages may originated once. Recycling of old ideas is a good indication for a missunderstanding. Missunderstandings are in itselves interesting though. We can learn a lot from them. This has also been the intention of the OP.
    Last edited by My Favorite Martian; July 27, 2009 at 02:38 PM.
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  2. #42
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    Default Re: Was Troy in Baltic Sea? (a weird theory)

    Quote Originally Posted by KingOfTheIsles View Post
    Really? I was under the impression that greek-speaking peoples only entered the area in around 1500bc.
    No.
    Seeing as the Trojan War is popularly dated t0 1300bc, that isn't really that long in my eyes.
    1180s BC apparently, ATM. Anyways, pretty long shot from the Baltic already given the time required for such long-distance migrations.
    Or perhaps the legend was indeed a story about tribal squabbling, but put in a new context as the greek invaders arrived in the more populous lands of the south. Stories can always be embellished, changed and adapted to a new location.
    Well, sure. But one is wont to suspect the memory of the wars and battles fought along the way, and when they arrived in their new haunts, would be rather more fresh and intense in the narrative memory no ? The North Europeans were quite illiterate back then (and for a long time afterwards), remember; their record of the past relied on oral tradition, which is notoriously unreliable particularly in times of rapid change.

    Also around the Baltic the most anyone was going to besiege was a friggin' hill-fort or fortified village - both of which were largely impossible to capture with the methods available, the whole point why they were used.
    Who said there has to be a major population shift? The current model of the spread of IE postulates a series of invasions and subsequent occupations by a warrior elite, who wouldn't leave an archaeological or genetic trace. Which I find suspect, but is currently mainstream and acceptable so that argument isn't necessarily valid.
    The problem here being that Late Bronze Age mainland Europe was *full* of warrior elites armed to the teeth and based on more or less fortified settlements. Good luck fighting your way through all the rich princedoms along the Amber Road with just small warrior bands without getting totally absorbed by the cultures and languages encountered along the way, or doing it even reasonably rapidly. (For the record the Baltic region was relatively late even reaching its Bronze Age simply due to its remoteness from the cradle of bronzeworking...)

    Also, the change of the ruling elite *is* wont to leave notable archeological traces, most notably in material culture and burial customs. Not in the least as the "elite" burials were invariably the richest in grave-goods and religious symbolism. As well as linguistical ones and whatever, as the commoners have always been wont to imitate their bosses in the interests of prestige and social climbing.

    And following the proposed theory you'd then expect to find some linguistical relationship (aside from the universal IE traits) between Greek and for example the Baltic languages, which are apparently thought to have been spoken in their current haunts already in the Bronze Age, or some other IE linguistic group salient to the Baltic region...

  3. #43

    Default Re: Was Troy in Baltic Sea? (a weird theory)

    I would say:

    a) Illias = poetry with a history of composition and traditions
    b) Hisarlik = a hill with a stratigraphy reaching from the Early Bronze Age to the Byzantine Period
    c) Balitic Troia = illustration of an idea about the origins of a family of languages

    All three are related but they are only indirectly related.

    We have the dates for b).
    We have assumptions of a vaguely date for a)
    We have assumptions based on assumptions for c)
    Last edited by My Favorite Martian; July 27, 2009 at 02:53 PM.
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  4. #44
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    Default Re: Was Troy in Baltic Sea? (a weird theory)

    Mycenaean is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, spoken on the Greek mainland and on Crete in the 16th to 11th centuries BC,
    Um, isn't that 1500 bc?
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  5. #45

    Default Re: Was Troy in Baltic Sea? (a weird theory)

    We need to be aware that Mycenaean is a systematic term in this case which may have or may not have anything to do with the historic Mycenaeans. The linear-B findings are afaik not from the mainland or the Peloponnes.
    Last edited by My Favorite Martian; July 27, 2009 at 03:07 PM.
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  6. #46
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    Default Re: Was Troy in Baltic Sea? (a weird theory)

    Quote Originally Posted by KingOfTheIsles View Post
    Um, isn't that 1500 bc?
    The point being that around that time the (early) Greek-speaking Myceneans were already getting established in Hellas proper; it kind of follows that their proto-Doric or whatever cousins and future nemeses in the northern wilderness were there already, too, and the whole bunch had presumably wandered to the area rather earlier before moving southwards.
    On a similar note, the Thracians - also mentioned in the Iliad - were there already too, and are apparently thought to have been there since quite a while earlier to boot.

    Anyway, the whole point seems a bit moot. Or are you trying to argue that some obscure Baltic group would have waged a meaningful war in its original haunts around something like 1800s BC (which would be around when the Baltics finally got onto the bronze bandwagon), wandered southwards into the northern Balkans over the next few centuries, eventually taken over Hellas and written a bunch of ancient legends down as the Iliad sometime during the first half of the 1st millenium BC - all the while retaining the memory of that long gone conflict but no Baltic linguistic traces whatsoever ?

    Ummmm, yeaaaaahhhhh. How about no ?

  7. #47

    Default Re: Was Troy in Baltic Sea? (a weird theory)

    Quote Originally Posted by davide.cool View Post
    Let us now look for the region of Troy. In the Iliad it is located along the Hellespont Sea, which is systematically described as being “wide” or even “boundless.” We can, therefore, exclude the fact that it refers to the Strait of the Dardanelles, where the city found by Heinrich Schliemann lies. The identification of this city with Homer’s Troy still raises strong doubts: we only have to think of Finley’s criticism in the World of Odysseus. In fact, it coincides with the location of the Greco-Roman Troy, but Strabo plainly claims that the latter does not coincide with the Homeric city: “This is not the site of the ancient Ilium.” He also claims that this plain was under the sea in Homeric times (this was confirmed by a drilling made in 1977). On the other hand, the Danish medieval historian Saxo Grammaticus, in his Gesta Danorum, often mentions a people known as “Hellespontians” and a region called Hellespont, which, strangely enough, seems to be located in the east of the Baltic Sea. Could it be Homer’s Hellespont? We can further identify it with the Gulf of Finland, which is the geographic counterpart of the Dardanelles (as both of them lie northeast of their respective basins). Since Troy, according to the Iliad, lay northeast of the sea (another reason to dispute Schliemann’s location), then it seems reasonable, for the purpose of this research, to look at a region of southern Finland, where the Gulf of Finland joins the Baltic Sea. In this area, west of Helsinki, we find a number of place-names which astonishingly resemble those mentioned in the Iliad and, in particular, the names of the allies of the Trojans: Askainen (Ascanius), Reso (Rhesus), Karjaa (Caria), Nästi (Nastes, the chief of the Carians), Lyökki (Lycia), Tenala (Tenedos), Kiila (Cilla), Kiikoinen (Ciconians), etc. There is also a Padva, which reminds us of Italian Padua, which was founded, according to tradition, by the Trojan Antenor and lies in Veneto. (The “Eneti” or “Veneti” were allies of the Trojans.) What is more, the place-names Tanttala and Sipilä (the mythical King Tantalus, famous for his torment, was buried on Mount Sipylus) indicate that this matter is not only limited to Homeric geography, but seems to extend to the whole world of Greek mythology.
    These place-names do not have recent origins, but it is very dif?cult to establish just how old they are. Unfortunately, all written Finnish and Scandinavian documents, including the most ancient, are relatively too close to our own time, since they do not date back before the year 1000 A.D. Before this date, unlike the Mediterranean world, there is no written evidence available for reconstructing the evolution of place-names. However, they are significant when they are found in clusters, which make cases of accidental resemblance very unlikely, or when they can be linked to geographic, morphologic, and mythological entities. This theory uses place-names mainly as traces or clues, but it is essentially based on the amazing geographic, morphologic, descriptive, and climatic parallels between the Homeric world and the Baltic one, on which Plutarch has given us a lead.
    What about Troy? Right in the middle of this area, halfway between Helsinki and Turku, we discover that King Priam’s city has survived the Achaean sack and ?re. Its characteristics correspond exactly to those Homer handed down to us: the hilly area that dominates the valley with its two rivers, the plain that slopes down towards the coast, and the highlands in the background. It has even maintained its own name almost unchanged throughout all this time. Today, “Toija” is a peaceful Finnish village, unaware of its glorious and tragic past.
    Various trips to these places from July 11, 1992, onward have confirmed the extraordinary correspondence between the Iliad’s descriptions and the area surrounding Toija. What is more, there we come across many significant traces of the Bronze Age. Incredibly, toward the sea we find a place called Aijala, which recalls the “beach” (“aigialós”), where, according to Homer, the Achaeans beached their ships. Besides, the name of the Halikonjoki, the “Haliko River,” which runs 20 km from Toija, is identical to the ancient Greek name “Halikos” of the Platani River in southwestern Sicily, which flows into the sea in an area extremely rich in archaeological remains and mythical records of ancient Greece.
    In short, apart from the morphological features of this area, the geographic position of the Finnish Troas fits the mythological directions like a glove. This explains why a “thick fog” often fell on those fighting on the Trojan plain, and Ulysses’ sea is never as bright as that of the Greek islands, but always “grey” and “misty.” Everywhere in the two poems the weather–with its fog, wind, rain, cold temperatures, and snow that falls on the plains and even out to sea–has little in common with the Mediterranean climate; moreover, the Sun and warm temperatures are hardly ever mentioned. In a word, most of the time the weather is unsettled, so much so that the bronze-clad fighting warriors invoke a cloudless sky during the battle. We are far away from the torrid Anatolian lowlands. The way in which Homer’s characters are dressed is in perfect keeping with this kind of climate. They wear tunics and “thick, heavy cloaks” which they never remove, not even during banquets. This attire corresponds exactly to the remains of clothing found in Bronze Age Danish graves, down to such details as the metal brooch that pinned the cloak at the shoulder.




    http://www.centrostudilaruna.it/feli...ionoftroy.html



    HOMER IN THE BALTIC

    Ever since ancient times, Homeric geography has given rise to problems and uncertainty. The conformity of towns, countries and islands, which the poet often describes with a wealth of detail, with the traditional Mediterranean places is usually only partial or even non-existent. We find various cases in Strabo (Greek geographer and historian, 63 B.C.-23 A.D.), who, for example, cannot understand why the island of Pharos, situated right in front of the port of Alexandria, in the Odyssey unexplainably appears to lie a day's sail from Egypt. There is also the question of the location of Ithaca, which, according to very precise Odyssey's indications, is the westernmost in an archipelago which includes three main islands, Dulichium, Same and Zacynthus. This does not correspond to the geographical reality of the Greek Ithaca in the Ionian Sea, located north of Zacynthus, east of Cephalonia and south of Leucas. And then, what of Peloponnese which is described in both poems as being a plain?
    In other words, Homeric geography refers to a context with a toponymy with which we are quite familiar, but which, if compared with the actual physical layout of the Greek world, reveals glaring anomalies, which are hard to explain, also considering their consistency throughout the two poems. For example, that "strange" Peloponnese appears to be a plain not sporadically but regularly, and Dulichium, the "Long Island" (in Greek "dolichòs" means "long"), which is located by the Odyssey in the vicinity of Ithaca, is repeatedly mentioned also in the Iliad, but cannot be found in the Mediterranean. Thus we are confronted with a world which appears actually closed and inaccessible, apart from some occasional convergence, although the names are familiar (which, however, tend to be more misleading than helpful in solving the problem).
    A possible key to finally penetrating this puzzling world is provided by Plutarch (Greek author, 46-120 A.D.). In his work De facie quae in orbe lunae apparet ("The face that appears in the moon circle"), chap. 26, he makes a surprising statement: the island of Ogygia, (where Calypso held Ulysses back for a long time before allowing him to return to Ithaca) is located in the North Atlantic Ocean, "five days by ship from Britain".
    Plutarch's indications allow us to identify Ogygia with one of the Faroe Islands (where we also come across an island with a curiously Greek-sounding name: Mykines) and, starting from here, the route eastwards, which Ulysses follows (Book V of the Odyssey) in his voyage from Ogygia to Scheria allows us to locate the latter, i.e. the land of the Phaeacians, on the southern coast of Norway, in an area perfectly fitting the account of his arrival, where archaeological traces of the Bronze Age are plentiful. In addition, on the one hand in Old Norse "sker" means a "sea rock", on the other in the narrative of Ulysses's landing Homer introduces the reversal of the river current, which is unknown in the Mediterranean world but is typical of the Atlantic estuaries during flood tide.
    From here the Phaeacians took Ulysses to Ithaca, located on the far side of an archipelago, which Homer talks about in great detail. At this point, a series of precise parallels makes it possible to identify a group of Danish islands, in the south of the Baltic Sea, which correspond exactly to all Homer's indications. Actually, the South-Fyn Archipelago includes three main islands: Langeland (the "Long Island"; which finally unveils the puzzle of the mysterious island of Dulichium), Aerø (which corresponds perfectly to Homeric Same) and Tåsinge (ancient Zacynthus). The last island in the archipelago, located westwards, "facing the night", is Ulysses's Ithaca, now known as Lyø. It is astonishing how greatly it coincides with the indications of the poet, not only as far as its position is concerned, but also its topographical and morphological characteristics: for example, one can identify the ancient "Phorcys's Harbour" and the "Crow's Rock" (which corresponds to a Neolithic dolmen standing in the west of the island). And here, amongst this group of islands, we can even identify the little island "in the strait between Ithaca and Same", where the Penelope's suitors tried to waylay Telemachus.
    Moreover, the Elis, i.e. one of the regions of Peloponnese, is described as lying to the east of Ithaca and in front of Dulichium. It is easily identifiable with a part of the large Danish island of Zealand. Therefore, the latter is the original "Peloponnese", i.e. "Pelops's Island", in the real meaning of the word "island" ("nêsos" in Greek)! On the other hand, the Greek Peloponnese (which is located in a similar position in the Aegean Sea, i.e. in its southwestern side) is not an island despite its denomination. This contradiction, which is inexplicable unless we suppose a transposition of the name, is very significant. Furthermore, the details reported in the Odyssey regarding both Telemachus's quick journey by chariot from Pylos to Lacedaemon, along "a wheat-producing plain", and the development of the war between Pylians and Epeans, as narrated by Nestor in Book XI of the Iliad, have always been considered inconsistent with Greece's uneven orography. They fit in perfectly, however, with the reality of the flat Danish island.
    Now let us turn to the region of Troy. In the Iliad it is located along Hellespont which is systematically described as being a "wide" or even "boundless" sea. We can, therefore, exclude the fact that it refers to the Dardanelles, where the city found by Schliemann lies. The identification of this city with Homer's Troy continues to raise strong doubts: we only have to think of Finley's criticism in the World of Odysseus. On the other hand, the Danish Medieval historian Saxo Grammaticus in his Gesta Danorum often mentions a population known as "Hellespontians" and a region called Hellespont, which, strangely enough, seems to be located in the east of the Baltic Sea. Could it be Homer's Hellespont? We can identify it with the Gulf of Finland, which is the "geographic counterpart" of the Dardanelles (as a matter of fact, both of them lie to the Northeast in their respective seas). Since Troy, according to the Iliad, was situated Northeast of the sea (here is another reason to dispute Schliemann's location), then it seems reasonable, for the purpose of this research, to go over a region of southern Finland, where the Gulf of Finland joins the Baltic Sea. In this area, west of Helsinki, we find lots of name-places which astonishingly resemble those mentioned in the Iliad and, in particular, those given to the allies of the Trojans: Askainen (Ascanius), Reso (Rhesus), Karjaa (Caria), Nästi (Nastes, the chief of the Carians), Lyökki (Lycia), Tenala (Tenedos), Kiila (Cilla), Kiikoinen (Ciconians) etc. There is also a Padva, which reminds us of Italian Padua, which was founded, according to tradition, by the Trojan Antenor and lies in the region of Veneto (the "Eneti" or "Veneti" were allies of the Trojans). What is more, the place-names Tanttala and Sipilä (the mythical King Tantalus, famous for his torment, was buried on Mount Sipylus) indicate that this matter is not only limited to Homeric geography, but seems to extend to the whole world of Greek mythology.
    What about Troy? Right in the middle of this area, half way between Helsinki and Turku, we discover that King Priam's city has survived the Achaean sack and fire. Its characteristics correspond exactly to those given to us by Homer, i.e. the hilly area which dominates the valley with its two rivers, the plain which slopes down towards the coast and the highlands in the background. It has even maintained its own name nearby unchanged throughout all this time. Today, "Toija" is a peaceful Finnish village, unaware of its glorious and tragic past.
    Various trips to these places from July 11, 1992 onwards, have confirmed the extraordinary correspondence between the Iliad's descriptions and the area surrounding Toija. What is more, there we come across many significant traces of the Bronze Age. Incredibly, towards the sea we find a place called Aijala, which recalls the "beach" ("aigialòs"), where, according to Homer, the Achaeans beached their ships (Il. XIV, 34). The correspondence extends as far as the neighbouring areas. Along the Swedish coast, for example, in front of Toija, 70 km north of Stockholm, the long and relatively narrow Bay of Norrtälje recalls Homeric Aulis, from where the Achaean fleet set sail for Troy. Nowadays, ferries leave here for Finland, following the same ancient course. They pass off the island of Lemland, whose name reminds us of ancient Lemnos, where the Achaeans stopped and abandoned the hero Philoctetes. Nearby, there is also Åland, the largest island of the homonymous archipelago, which probably coincides with Samothrace, the mythical site of the metalworking mysteries. The adjacent Gulf of Bothnia is easily identifiable with Homer's Thracian Sea, and the ancient Thrace, which the poet places to the northwest of Troy on the opposite side of the sea, probably lay along the northern Swedish coast and its hinterland (it is remarkable that a Norse saga identifies Thrace with the home of the god Thor). Further south, outside the Gulf of Finland, the island of Hiiumaa, situated opposite the Esthonian coast, corresponds exactly to Homer's Chios, which the Odyssey places on the return course of the Achaean fleet after the war.
    In short, apart from the morphological characteristics of this area, the geographic position of this Finnish Troas fits the mythological directions like a glove. We finally come to understand why a "thick fog" often fell on those fighting on the Trojan plain and why Ulysses's sea was never as bright as that of the Greek islands, but always "grey" and "misty". As we travel through Homer's world, we experience the harsh weather which is typical of the Nordic world. The weather described throughout has little to do with the Mediterranean climate, with its fog, wind, rain, cold temperatures and snow (which falls on the plains and even out to sea) whilst the sun and warm temperatures are mentioned hardly ever. Most of the time we find unsettled weather, to the point that the bronze-clad fighting warriors invoke cloudless sky during the battle! We are far away from the torrid Anatolian lowlands. The way in which Homer's characters are dressed is in perfect keeping with this kind of climate. They wear tunics and "thick, heavy cloaks" which they never remove, not even during banquettes. This attire corresponds exactly to the remains of clothing found in Bronze Age Danish graves, down to details as the metal brooch which pined the cloak on the shoulder.
    This northern collocation also explains the huge anomaly of the great battle which takes up the central books of the Iliad. The battle continues for two days (XI, 86; XVI, 777) and one night (XVI, 567). The fact that the darkness does not put a stop to the fighting is incomprehensible in the Mediterranean world. Instead, the faint night light, which is typical of high latitudes during the summer solstice, allows Patroclus's fresh troops to carry on fighting through to the following day, without a break. This interpretation - which is confirmed by the overflowing of the Scamander during the following battle, given that in the northern regions these phenomena occur just in that period owing to the thaw - allows us to reconstruct the whole battle in a coherent and logical manner, dispelling the present-day perplexities and strained interpretations. Furthermore, we even manage to pick out from a passage in the Iliad the Greek word used to denominate the faintly lit nights characteristic of the regions located near the Arctic Circle: the "amphilyke nyx" (VII, 433) is a real "linguistic fossil" which, thanks to the Homeric epos, has survived the transfer of the Achaeans to Southern Europe.
    It is also important to note that the Trojan walls, as described by Homer, were alike to rustic fences made of wood and stone. They resemble the archaic Nordic wooden enclosures (such as the Kremlin Walls up to the XV century) much more than the mighty strongholds of the Mediterranean civilizations.
    Let us now examine the so-called Catalogue of Ships from Book II of the Iliad, which lists the twenty-nine Achaean fleets participating in the Trojan War together with names of their captains and places of origin. This list unwinds in an anticlockwise direction, starting from Central Sweden, travelling along the Baltic coasts and finishing in Finland. If we combine this with the directions contained in the two poems, as well as in the rest of Greek mythology, we get to completely reconstruct the Achaean world around the Baltic Sea, where, as attested by the archaeology, a thriving Bronze Age was flourishing in the second millennium B.C., favoured by a warmer climate than today's.
    In this new geographical context, the entire universe belonging to Homer and Greek mythology finally discloses itself with its astonishing consistency. For example, by following the Catalogue's sequence, we immediately locate Boeotia (corresponding to Stockholm's region), where it is possible to identify Oedipus's Thebes and the mythical Mount Nysa (which was never found in the Greek world) where baby Dionysus was nursed by the Hyads. Homer's Euboea coincides with the modern day island of Öland, located off the Swedish coast in a similar position to that of its Mediterranean correspondent. Mythological Athens, Theseus's native land, lay in the present day area of Karlskrona in southern Sweden. This explains why Plato referred to it as being a rolling plain full of rivers in his dialogue Critias, which is totally alien to Greece's rough morphology. Nevertheless, the features of other Achaean cities, such as Mycenae or Calydon, as described by Homer also appear completely different from those of their namesakes on Greek soil; in particular, Mycenae lay in the site of today's Copenhagen, where the island of Amager possibly recalls its ancient name and explains why the latter was in the plural.
    We rediscover Agamemnon's and Menelaus's kingdoms and Arcadia on the flat island of Zealand (i.e. Homeric "Peloponnese"), where we also find the River Alpheus and King Nestor's Pylos, whose location were held to be a mystery even by the ancient Greeks. By setting Homer's poems in the Baltic, also this age-old puzzle is solved at once! Here the Catalogue links up with Ithaca's archipelago, which we had already identified by making use of directions supplied by the Odyssey. We are thus able to verify the consistency of the information contained in the two poems as well as their congruity with the Baltic geography (here it is easy to solve also the problem of the strange border between Argolis and Pylos, which is attested in the Iliad but is "impossible" in the Greek world).
    After Ithaca, the list continues with the Aetolians, who recall the ancient Jutes. They gave their name to Jutland, which actually lies near the South-Fyn Islands. Homer mentions Pylene in the Aetolian cities, which corresponds to today's Plön, in North Germany, not far from Jutland. Opposite this area, in the North Sea, the name of Heligoland, one of the North Frisian Islands, reminds Helike, a sanctuary of the god Poseidon mentioned in the Iliad.
    What about Crete, the "vast land" with "a hundred cities" and many rivers, which is never referred to as an island by Homer? As a matter of fact, it corresponds to present Pomeranian region in the southern Baltic area, which stretches from the German coast to the Polish one. This explains why in the rich pictorial productions of the Minoan civilisation, which flourished in Aegean Crete, we do not find any hint at Greek mythology and ships are so scantily represented. It would also be tempting to assume a relationship between the name "Polska" and the Pelasgians, the inhabitants of Homeric Crete. At this point, it is also easy to identify Naxos (where Theseus left Ariadne on his return journey from Crete to Athens) with the island of Bornholm, situated between Poland and Sweden, where the town of Neksø still recalls the ancient name. Likewise, we discover that the Odyssey's "River Egypt" probably coincides with the present-day Vistula, thus revealing the real origin of the name given by the Greeks to Pharaohs' land, known as "Kem" in local language. This explains the incongruous position of the Homeric Egyptian Thebes, which, according to the Odyssey, is queerly located near the sea. Evidently the Egyptian capital, which on the contrary lies hundreds of kilometres from the Nile delta and was originally known as Wò'se, was renamed by the Achaeans with the name of Baltic city, once they moved down to the Mediterranean. On the other hand, Homer's Thebes probably corresponds to the present-day Tczew, on the Vistula delta. To the north of the latter, in the centre of the Baltic Sea, the island of Fårö reminds the Homeric Pharos, which according to the Odyssey lay in the middle of the sea at a day's sail from "Egypt" (whereas Mediterranean Pharos is not even a mile's distance rom the port of Alexandria). Thus we solve another of the problems that tormented poor Strabo.
    The Catalogue of Ships now touches the Baltic Republics. Hellas lay on the coast of present-day Esthonia, therefore, next to Homeric Hellespont (i.e. the "Helle Sea"), the present Gulf of Finland. In this area, scholars have come across legends which present interesting parallels with Greek mythology. Phthia, Achilles's homeland, lay on the fertile hills of southeastern Esthonia, along the border with Latvia and Russia, stretching as far as the Russian river Velikaja and the lake of Pskov. Myrmidons and Phthians lived there, ruled by Achilles and Protesilaus (the first Achaean captain who fell in the Trojan War) respectively.
    Next, proceeding with the sequence, we reach the Finnish coast, facing the Gulf of Bothnia, where we find Jolkka, which reminds us of Iolcus, Jason's mythical city. Further north, we are also able to identify the region of Olympus, Styx and Pieria in the Finnish Lapland (which in turn recalls the Homeric Lapithae, i.e. the sworn enemies of the Centaurs who also lived in this area). This location of Pieria north of the Arctic Circle is confirmed by an apparent astronomical anomaly, linked to the moon cycles, which is found in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes: it can only be explained by high latitude. The "Home of Hades" was even further northwards, on the icy coasts of Russian Karelia: here Ulysses arrived, whose journeys represent the last vestige of prehistoric routes in an era which was characterised by a very warmer climate than today's.
    In conclusion, from this review of the Baltic world, we find its astonishing consistency with the Catalogue of Ships as well as the entire Greek mythology (Tab. 1). It is very unlikely that this immense set of geographical, climatic, toponymical and morphological parallels is to be ascribed to mere chance, apart from considering the glaring contradictions arising in the Mediterranean setting.
    Therefore, here is the "secret" which has been hidden inside Homer's poems up to now and explains all oddities of Homeric geography: the Trojan War and other events handed down by Greek mythology were not set in the Mediterranean, but in the Baltic area, i.e. the primitive home of the blond "long-haired" Achaeans. On this subject, the distinguished Swedish scholar, Professor Martin P. Nilsson, in his works (Homer and Mycenae and The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion and its Survival in Greek Religion) reports a series of pieces of archaeological evidence uncovered in the Mycenaean sites in Greece, supporting the fact that the Achaean population came from the North. Some examples are: the existence of a large quantity of baltic amber in the most ancient Mycenaean tombs in Greece (which is not to be ascribed to trade, because the amber is very scarce in later graves as well as in the coeval Minoan tombs in Crete); the typically Nordic features of their architecture (the Mycenaean megaron "is identical to the hall of the ancient Scandinavian Kings"); the "striking similarity" of two stone slabs found in a tomb in Dendra "with the menhirs known from the Bronze Age of Central Europe"; the Nordic-type skulls found in the necropolis of Kalkani, etc. A remarkable affinity between Aegean art and some Scandinavian remains dating back to the Bronze Age has also been noted, with particular regard to the figures engraved on Kivik's tomb in Sweden, to the point that a scholar in the nineteenth century suggested that this monument was built by the Phoenicians!
    Another sign of the Achaean presence in the Nordic world in a very distant past is a Mycenaean graffito found in the megalithic complex of Stonehenge in Southern England. Other remains revealing the Mycenaean influence were found in the same area ("Wessex culture"), which date back to a period preceding the Mycenaean civilisation in Greece. A trace of this sort of contact can be found also in the Odyssey, whichmentions a bronze market placed overseas, in a foreign country, named "Temese", never found in the Mediterranean area. Since bronze is an alloy of copper and tin, which in the North is only found in Cornwall, it's very likely that the mysterious Temese corresponds to the Thames, named "Tamesis" or "Tamensim" in ancient times. So, following the Odyssey, we learn that, during the Bronze Age, the ancient Scandinavians used to sail to Temese/Thames - "placed overseas, in a foreign country" (Od. I, 183-184) - to supply themselves with bronze.
    And what about Odysseus's trips, after the Trojan War? When he is about to reach Ithaca, a storm takes him away from his world; so he has many adventures in fabulous localities until he reaches Ogygia, that's Faroe. They are located out of the Baltic, in the North Atlantic (he also meets the "Ocean River", that's the Gulf Stream). For example, the Eolian island, where there is the "King of the winds", "son of the Knight", is one of the Shetlands (maybe Yell), where there are strong winds and ponies. Cyclops lived in the coast of Norway (near Tosenfjorden: the name of their mother is Toosa): they coincide with the Trolls of the Norwegian folklore. The land of Lestrigonians was in the same coast, towards the North; Homer says that there the days are very long (actually, the famous scholar Robert Graves places the Lestrigonians in the North of Norway! In that area we find the island Lamøj, the homeric Lamos). The island of sorceress Circe, where there are the midnight sun and the rotating dawns ("the dancing of the Dawn", as Homer says), is Jan Mayen (at that time the climate was quite different). The strange "wandering rocks" are icebergs. Charybdis is the well-known whirlpool named Maelström, near Lofoten. South of Charybdis Odysseus meets the island Thrinakia, that means "trident": really, near the Maelström Vaerøy, three-tip island, lies. Sirens are very dangerous shoals for sailors, who are attracted by the misleading noise of the backwash (the "Sirens' song" is a metaphor similar to Norse "kennings") and deceive themselves that landing is at hand, instead, if they get near, are bound to shipwreck on the reefs. So, these adventures, presumably taken from tales of ancient seamen and elaborated again by the Poet's fantasy, represent the last memory of the oceanic routes followed by the ancient navigators of the Nordic Bronze Age, but they became unrecognizable because of their transposition into a totally different context. Besides, we can find remarkable parallels between Greek and Norse mythology: for example, Ulysses is similar to Ull, archer and warrior of Norse mythology, the sea giant Aegaeon (who gave his name to the Aegean Sea) is the counterpart of the Norse sea god Aegir.
    We can even try to link directly Homeric and Norse mythology: actually, the latter states that Odin came from Troy (the Finnish location of Homeric Troy, of course, makes this piece of news more credible). He maybe was a successor of King Priam on the throne of Troy, and lived at the time of the terrible Ragnarok, i.e. a climatic upsetting probably aroused by the explosion of the volcano of Thera, in Eastern Mediterranean Sea, in 1630 B.C.. This phenomenon affected the whole planet and probably triggered the Mycenaean migration (which happened just in those years) towards the South. Afterwards Odin was deified, taking some features of goddess Athene (whose he is almost homonymous: Othin = Athene): they are both gods of war and wisdom, with a spear and a bird (the rook and the little owl respectively). Also his strange horse with eight legs possibly is a vestige of the Bronze Age, when the knights did not ride but used a chariot with two horses (here are the eight legs, that probably were inspired by some ancient image).
    The period in which Homer's poems are set is close to the end of an exceptionally hot climate that had lasted several thousands of years, the "post-glacial climatic optimum". It corresponds to the "Atlantic phase" of the Holocene, when temperatures in northern Europe were much higher than today (at that time the broad-leaved forests reached the Arctic Circle and the tundra disappeared even from the northernmost areas of Europe). It reached its climax around 2500 B.C. and began to drop around 2000 B.C. ("subboreal phase"), until it came to an end some centuries later.
    Therefore, it is highly likely that this was the cause that obliged the Achaeans to move down to the Mediterranean for this reason. They probably followed the Dnieper river down to the Black Sea, as the Vikings (whose culture is, in many ways, quite similar) did many centuries later. The Mycenaean civilisation, not native of Greece, was thus born and went on to flourish from the XVII or XVI century B.C., soon after the change in North European climate.
    Incidentally, this is the same age as the arising of Aryan, Hyksos, Hittite and Cassite settlements in India, Egypt, Anatolia and Mesopotamia respectively. In a word, this theory can explain the cause of the contemporary migrations of other Indo-European populations (following a recent research carried on by Prof. Jahanshah Derakhshani of Teheran University, the Hyksos very likely belong to the Indo-European family). In a word, the original homeland of the Indo-Europeans was most likely located in the furthest North of Europe, when the climate was much warmer than today's. However, on the one hand G.B. Tilak in The Arctic home of the Vedas claims the Arctic origin of the Aryans, "cousins" of the Achaeans, on the other both Iranian and Norse mythology (Avesta and Edda respectively) remember that the original homeland was destroyed by cold and ice. It is also remarkable that, following Tilak (The Orion), the original Aryan civilization flourished in the "Orionic period", when the Spring equinox was rising in the Orion constellation. It actually happened in the period from 4000 up to 2500 B.C., i.e. during the "climatic optimum". We also note the presence of a population known as the Thocarians in the Tarim Basin (northwest China) from the beginning of the II millennium B.C. They spoke an Indo-European language and were tall, blond with Caucasian features. This dating provides us with yet another confirmation of the close relationship between the decline of the "climatic optimum" and the Indo-European Diaspora from Scandinavia and other Northern regions. In this picture, it is amazing that the Bronze Age starts in China just between the XVIII and the XVI century B.C. (Shang dynasty). We should note that the Chinese pictograph indicating the king is called "wang", which is very similar to the Homeric term "anax", i.e. "the king" (corresponding to "wanax" in Mycenaean Linear B tablets). On the other hand, the terms "Yin" and "Yang" (which express two complementary principles of Chinese philosophy: Yin is feminine, Yang masculine) could be compared with the Greek roots "gyn-" and "andr-" respectively, which also refer to the "woman" and the "man" ("anér edé gyné", "man and woman", Od. VI, 184). In this picture we could dare to insert the Olmecs, too, who seem to have reached the southern Gulf Coast of Mexico about in the same period; if this will be confirmed, one could infer that they were a population who formerly lived in some region in the farthest north of America, where they could have been connected with the Scandinavian Proto-Indo-European civilization through the Arctic Ocean, which during the "climatic optimum" was free from ice. Then they moved to Mexico when the climate collapsed (this, of course, could help to explain certain similarities with the Old World, apart from other possible contacts).
    Returning to Homer, this reconstruction* does not only explain the extraordinary consistency between the Baltic-Scandinavian context and Homer's world, but also clarifies why the latter was decidedly more archaic than the Mycenaean civilisation. Evidently, the contact with the refined Mediterranean cultures favoured its rapid evolution, also considering their marked inclination for trade and seafaring, which pervades not only the Homeric poems, but also all Greek mythology. This is hard to explain with the hypotheses in vogue about the continental origin of the Indo-Europeans, whereas the remains found in England fit in very well with the idea of a previous seaboard homeland (by matching this with the typically northern features of their architecture, as the scholars assert, we remove any doubt as to their place of origin).
    On the other hand, Stuart Piggott, famous scholar and archaeologist, states: "The nobility of the [Homeric] hexameters shouldn't deceive us inducing us to believe that the Iliad and the Odyssey are something different from the poems of the largely barbaric Europe during the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age". Soon afterwards he quotes an extremely significant statement of Rhys Carpenter: "No Minoic or Asian blood runs in the veins of the Greek Muses: they are far away from the Cretan-mycenaean world. Rather they are in contact with the European elements of Greek culture and language... behind Mycenaean Greece... Europe lies" (Ancient Europe, chap. IV).
    It was, therefore, along the Baltic coast that Homer's events took place, presumably about the beginning of the second millennium B.C., when the "climatic optimum" collapsed, before the Achaean migration towards the Mediterranean and the consequent rise of the Mycenaean civilisation in Greece (this explains why any reliable information regarding the author, or authors, of the poems had already been lost before the classical times). The migrants took their epos and geography along with them and attributed the same names they had left behind in their lost homeland to the various places where they eventually settled. This heritage was immortalized by Homer's poems and Greek mythology, which on the one hand has a lot of similarities with the Nordic one, on the other seems to have lost the memory of the great migration from the North (this probably happened after the collapse of the Mycenaean civilisation, around the XII century B.C.). Moreover, they went as far as renaming other Mediterranean regions with corresponding Baltic names, such as Libya, Crete and Egypt, thus creating an enormous "geographical misunderstanding" which has lasted till now.
    These transpositions were encouraged, if not suggested, by a certain similarity between the geography of the Baltic and that of the Aegean. We only have to think about the analogy between Öland and Euboea or between Zealand and Peloponnese (where, as we have already seen, they forced the concept of island in order to maintain the original layout). This phenomenon was then consolidated over the centuries by the increasing presence of Greek-speaking populations in the Mediterranean basin, from the time of the Mycenaean civilisation to the Hellenistic-Roman period.


    http://itis.volta.alessandria.it/episteme/ep2vinc2.htm
    This theory is so old and thoroughly disreputed it doesn't bare commenting on.

  8. #48
    Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: Was Troy in Baltic Sea? (a weird theory)

    ...hey waittasec. I finally actually read more of that TL;DR wall of text than the opening paragraphs (which were quite enough to brand it full of AIDS and fail) - is this that "fennophile" faggotry, born of Medieval and later Scandinavians' inferiority complex which drove them to try to "locate" assorted locales and events of Classical Antiquity in their neck of woods, again ? Christ. That garbage got junked even over here like a century ago among respectable historians...

    I'm actually genuinely surprised this particular brand of the bizarre still lives on outside some severely fringe Finnish and maybe Swedish nationalist circles.

    Also seems to contain traces of Nordicist asshattery, but I'm not going to torment my eyes with that junk in detail.

  9. #49

    Default Re: Was Troy in Baltic Sea? (a weird theory)

    Interesting.. but it's far fetched the thing though.

    However, the whole river/lake system from Fennoscandia to east Mediterranean would be the natural route in ancient times connecting the north and the south of Europe. The Alps was a huge physical barrier. The Atlantic coast may have been too big and scary given to the technologies of navigation of the time.. But the whole northeast/southeast European area was easily navigated waterways and populated by different peoples eager to do business.

  10. #50

    Default Re: Was Troy in Baltic Sea? (a weird theory)

    Quote Originally Posted by Watchman View Post
    I'm actually genuinely surprised this particular brand of the bizarre still lives on outside some severely fringe Finnish and maybe Swedish nationalist circles.

    Also seems to contain traces of Nordicist asshattery, but I'm not going to torment my eyes with that junk in detail.
    Lfmao the guy who wrote it was an Italian (Felice Vinci)

    And I have no idea how he developed this theory and I doubt that is taken up seriously in academic circles, in fact what I always found it interesting, is how the ancient Greeks described the ancient Dorians.

  11. #51
    Jaketh's Avatar Praeses
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    Default Re: Was Troy in Baltic Sea? (a weird theory)

    double post with a side of necro

  12. #52
    Manuel I Komnenos's Avatar Rex Regum
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    Default Re: Was Troy in Baltic Sea? (a weird theory)

    As I remember, the archaeologists have found cities in Asia Minor, exactly where they thought Troy would be (in fact many cities built in the same place at different times)..
    Troy III, Troy IV, etc (number meaning which city was younger)
    Under the patronage of Emperor Maximinus Thrax
    "Steps to be taken in case Russia should be forced out of war considered. Various movements [of ] troops to and from different fronts necessary to meeting possible contingencies discussed. Conference also weighed political, economic, and moral effect both upon Central and Allied powers under most unfavorable aspect from Allied point of view. General conclusions reached were necessity for adoption of purely defensive attitude on all secondary fronts and withdrawing surplus troops for duty on western front. By thus strengthening western front [those attending] believed Allies could hold until American forces arrive in numbers sufficient to gain ascendancy."
    ~General Pershing, report to Washington, 26 July 1917

  13. #53

    Default Re: Was Troy in Baltic Sea? (a weird theory)

    Yeah the site of Troy is the first fortified settlement we know of that far west. It is exceptionally ancient and includes dozens of cities built on top of one another from the Neolithic to the Roman era. Hittite documents also hint to this being the candidate for Homeric Troy.

  14. #54

    Default Re: Was Troy in Baltic Sea? (a weird theory)

    I know it is a near 10 year old abandoned thread, but it is a theory that fascinates, disturbs and annoys me .So I will comment on it.
    While I do not accept it. However it does has some points. While it is full of contradictions and problems ,I sense that in its core may has some elements of truth. In any case it is worth debating.

    First of all, I will sum up what the author of the theory proposes,cause a lot of people misunderstand him;
    He supports that; All the scandinavian and baltic coast and quite some hinderland were populated by a greek-or partially greek speaking- population between 2500-1600bc. The area had mediteranean type climate and was prosperous ,with trade ,states and so on. Climate change and accompanying social turbulense led to the exit of the elites down to the south, using the existing river trade network.
    They descended to greek peninsula were they dominated at least partially the local population.They were not greeks at that time in Greece but other people.The newcomer "Greeks" kept their traditions and poems ,and renamed their new land with names of their lost homeland.
    So Illiad and odyssey are remnants of their traditions ,that took place in the baltic.

    Now they are many many problems in that theory ,obvious at first glance. Baltic people at greece? How they moved there? How they knew? How they conquered the existing population?

    Now this theory sounds absolutelly ridiculous. Let's examine it first by examining the chances.

    1.Is it possible at all? Is physically possible a baltic elite to migrate to mediterranean?
    It is . Centuries later small germanic populations technologically inferior than their opponents,the Roman empire,will move from north germany to spain; Some will move to North Africa.
    Celts will move from central -western europe ,to asia minor. In medieval times, catalans will move from central spain to Attica and form a state there.
    In bronze age ,Mittani -at least their elite- will move from India to the shores of the mediteranean.
    During Alexander era, Greeks will move from souther greece to North india and by historical set conditions will make a new state.

    2.How they moved to greece? They used the existing river trade network.They knew exactly where to go and knew the route through trade and probable mercenary service.centuries later Rus will do roughly the same trip from Sweden to the pontic steppe and finally to the mediteranean.
    Greek excavated settlements of the era show repeated layers of destruction. The inhabitants were warlike and probably rich. Hiring mercenaries from afar north would not be unusual.

    3.While the author suggests the technological level of the northern invaders was inferior to the invaded ones,that in war does not mean a lot. Inferior but highly motivated troops can curve their way through theoretically superior military enemies,if their enemies are in unrest ,civil war or facing other more powerfull combatants.

    So, at least theoretically the theory could happen. Now lets examine the arguments for it ;
    1.A large number of geographical incosistencies between Homer's descriptions of Troy's world ,with the classical and the world we know.
    Dillichium the large island near Ithaca was never found. Pelloponesus is decribed as a flat big plain,while it is a rough rugged area,almost an island.
    In many cases the distances of Homer's described world and the classical world do not match. Hellespont os decribed as big and wide,while this is not the case.Ogygia is roughly placed by classical greek authors in the atlantic above britain.This does not make sense at all.
    2.The climate of Illiad and Oddysey is far away to be decribed as mediterannean. Nights are bright. Cold is omnipresent.The sea is always rough and dangerous. Sun almost never shines. People light fires and wear heavy clothing even in summer. Ships are described to be heavily built to withstand rough seas.
    3.The war scenes description looks far more archaic and primitive.Masses of men watching their leaders duel. Men that do not fight on chariots but step out of them to duel.
    4.The architecture of the palaces and buildings looks akin to viking warlords than to mediteranean sophisticated rulers and kings. Big open long wooden halls. Wood structures everywhere.
    5.Amber is present as a luxurious good in both epics and in greece at the time.While it is a baltic mainly product. As time passes by amber quantity in greece will shrink dramatically.
    6.A distrurbingly high number of similar hearing names in baltic region and mycenean greece.This involves not only geographical names but also ethnonyms and so on.


    Are there counter arguments?Endless.For every argumnent of his. He does not have archaelogy to back him up.Yet he makes a compelling case. While he does not convince ,he makes me think.
    It is not his theory per se, but the questionmarks that exist in the early greek history that this theory wakes them up.
    Dorians vs Achaians, dark ages of greece,Pelasgians, Hyperboreans,mycenean collapse,greek ethnogenesis.
    The theory can be used with a lot of imagination to give some theoretical and totally subjective answers.
    Where and when Greeks as a nation was formed? Why the century persisted deep hatred between "Dorians" and "Achaians/ionians"? How and why Mycenean greece collpased? Why the population was so drastically reduced if it was as suggested just some trade and social collapse? Who were the Pelasgians,why the ancient greek authors were so comfused about them.Same authors categorizing them as greeks and in another instance as barbarians. How the totally out of place idea, about some friendly nation in deep north that had ancient roots with the greeks? And how that links were kept alive for centuries untill finally at 5th century bc? (when the last two priestesses made it to Greece and lived and died of old age in Delos)

    What I can totaly subjective and with out facts hypothesize,with out believing it .Here is my crazy theory ,just for the sake of formulating it:
    A small population of elites came or returned from the baltic region. They knew greece through trade and mercenary work. They found local population in a crisis. They managed to subdue the most rich areas. The native population was reduced to second rate or slave status citizens. The new comers were seafarers and warriors.They got involvent in exploration and wars. After a while ,when they were in a weak point the subdued population rebelled and nearly genosized the newcomers ,burning with hate their capital and cities. From the fuse of the newcomers language and customs and history , with the natives ,the Greek nation was born. It was neither native or newcomer it was something new.
    Most of the newcomer population was eliminated and the rest was fused with the natives. The tribes that were created ,were in basis of how less newcomer/invader cultural elements and traits inherited and adopted;
    Pelasgians ,almost none. Aiolians ,less.Dorians some to a lot. Achaeans/Ionians a lot.
    Centuries after the catastrophic events ,and after natural disasters and intermingled civil strife the facts were totally forgotten. When civilization and literacy rose again the traces were gone. And the ancient greeks were left bewildered by the questions of their origin.

    Edit;In that pretext , the Macedonian invitation to Bastarnae,to cross the dangerous thracian lands and resettle in their teritorry ,seems a bit odd. If manpower was the case ,why not to settle noumerous warlike thracian tribes? They were theoretically far more close to the greek civilization than some roaming baltic tribe.Why bother so....

    Anyway there were my crazy and totally unsupported thoughts concerning the matter. If you exhale in frustration by the historic fiction shenanigans ,I totally understand you!!
    Last edited by PanDemon; June 03, 2020 at 09:24 PM.

  15. #55
    Miles
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    Default Re: Was Troy in Baltic Sea? (a weird theory)

    I see a lot of people pointing out how the Baltic Sea being so far away from Greece (sea wise) as evidence against Troy being in the Baltics.

    I reckon the long sea voyage makes only makes it more likely that Troy was in the Baltics. It means that all those crazy misadventures spoken of in the Oddesy to be more probable. No one has ever claimed that the journey from Troy to Greece was an easy one.

  16. #56

    Default Re: Was Troy in Baltic Sea? (a weird theory)

    Q, Was Troy in Baltic Sea?


    A, No. Archology tells us where it was and roughly when it was.

    Why was this drivel resurrected?, is thread necromancy allowed?.
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  17. #57
    Lord Oda Nobunaga's Avatar 大信皇帝
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    Default Re: Was Troy in Baltic Sea? (a weird theory)

    No...

    To be honest it has never been confirmed. It isn't like they found a plaque or a book or tablet that says "here is Troy". But there is no reason to say that Schliemann's discovery was not the Troy of legend. Now whether the Trojan War happened is a different question altogether.

    Now, what I find interesting is why Troy was located in the Troad/Hellespont area. Homer describes it as a very rich city which the Greeks wanted to sack. If this is the case, I mean it probably is seeing as there was a city there to begin with, then this could indicate that the area had a significant amount of trade. Something which is very odd because Troy is far from major civilizations and trade routes such as Egypt and Mesopotamia. Greece in those days was very backwater compared to the Near East but they apparently had something to trade if their wares were discovered across Anatolia. There have also been finds of Levantine and Egyptian materials in Greece which demonstrates the establishment of trade. The Hittites for their part were wealthier than the Greeks but their biggest sources of trade and revenues came from Mesopotamia and Syria. It is likely that the Trojans were getting some of this "trickle down" from the Hittites. But the position of Troy probably also suggests the establishment of trade routes in that part of the world. There were also ports and cities in the Pontus region along the Black Sea. So the question is did the Trojans and others have a significant trade with the Black Sea and the Aegean (including Europe, Russia, Pontus, and the Caucasus)?

    By extension does this mean that trade routes in the Eastern Mediterranean extended all the way to the Troad/Hellespont? Or were the Trojans dependent on trade with the Hittites and other Anatolians? If the former then it shows the scale of international trade even during the Bronze Age. If the latter, then it does give us a perspective of the Hittite economy and trade, but also leads to further questions about how rich the Hittites were and what did the Hittites produce that could not simply be acquired in the Troad? For context some of the major goods available to the Hittites included wood from the Anatolian highlands, sheep and wool, horses from the Anatolian plateau and the Upper Euphrates regions, and precious metals (such as copper from Cyprus). Presumably the Hittites also mined copper and tin somewhere in Anatolia, but the source for the vast quantities of tin and copper extracted during the Bronze Age have never fully been discovered. One suggestion is that tin was imported from Europe, if that is the case it could explain the strategic and economic importance of the Troad during this time. It also leads me to wonder whether the Greeks benefited from this proximity, if indeed tin and rare metals were brought from Europe. But there is something which the Hittites never seemed to lack and that is metal to fuel their war machine. My assumption is that copper and tin were mined locally in Anatolia, also imported copper from Cyprus. But there is also the possibility that the Hittites acquired tin and copper from trade with the far off corners of the world, like in Europe or Central Asia. It is worth asking, however for them to have the sheer volume in Bronze working and eventually Iron working, they likely would need a local production of these metals. Theoretically the mountains of Anatolia should provide these ores but the actual mines have never been discovered.
    Last edited by Lord Oda Nobunaga; June 15, 2020 at 09:20 AM.

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  18. #58
    Beorn's Avatar Praepositus
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    Default Re: Was Troy in Baltic Sea? (a weird theory)

    How much amber and gold was discovered in Troy?
    Its geographical position, controlling the entrance of the Straits of Dardanelles makes a lot of sense because of its proximity to the Caucasus sealanes and the Amber Route, with Amber coming south from the Baltics through the Vistula/Daugava/Neman rivers and ending up in the black sea in ways of Danube, Dnieper and their tributaries.

  19. #59

    Default Re: Was Troy in Baltic Sea? (a weird theory)

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Oda Nobunaga View Post
    No...

    To be honest it has never been confirmed. It isn't like they found a plaque or a book or tablet that says "here is Troy". But there is no reason to say that Schliemann's discovery was not the Troy of legend. Now whether the Trojan War happened is a different question altogether.

    Now, what I find interesting is why Troy was located in the Troad/Hellespont area. Homer describes it as a very reach city which the Greeks wanted to sack. If this is the case, I mean it probably is seeing as there was a city there to begin with, then this could indicate that the area had a significant amount of trade. Something which is very odd because Troy is far from major civilizations and trade routes such as Egypt and Mesopotamia. Greece in those days was very backwater compared to the Near East but they apparently had something to trade if their wares were discovered across Anatolia. There have also been finds of Levantine and Egyptian materials in Greece. The Hittites for their part were wealthier than the Greeks but their biggest sources of trade and revenues came from Mesopotamia and Syria. It is likely that the Trojans were getting some of this "trickle down" from the Hittites. But the position of Troy probably also suggests the establishment of trade routes in that part of the world. There were also ports and cities in the Pontus region along the Black Sea. So the question is did the Trojans and others have a significant trade with the Black Sea and the Aegean (including Europe, Russia, Pontus, and the Caucasus)?

    By extension does this mean that trade routes in the Eastern Mediterranean extended all the way to the Troad/Hellespont? Or were the Trojans dependent on trade with the Hittites and other Anatolians? If the former then it shows the scale of international trade even during the Bronze Age. If the latter, then it does give us a perspective of the Hittite economy and trade, but also leads to further questions about how rich the Hittites were and what did the Hittites produce that they could not simply acquire in the Troad? For context some of the major goods available to the Hittites included wood from the Anatolian highlands, sheep and wool, horses from the Anatolian plateau and the Upper Euphrates regions, and precious metals (such as copper from Cyprus). Presumably the Hittites also mined copper and tin somewhere in Anatolia, but the source for the vast quantities of tin and copper extracted during the Bronze Age have never fully been discovered. One suggestion is that tin was imported from Europe, if that is the case it could explain the strategic and economic importance of the Troad during this time. It also leads me to wonder whether the Greeks benefited from this proximity, if indeed tin and rare metals were brought from Europe.
    https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/400...c614511d930f70
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  20. #60
    Lord Oda Nobunaga's Avatar 大信皇帝
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    Default Re: Was Troy in Baltic Sea? (a weird theory)

    That is an enticing source, I will take a look at it. Hopefully soon.

    "Famous general without peer in any age, most superior in valor and inspired by the Way of Heaven; since the provinces are now subject to your will it is certain that you will increasingly mount in victory." - Ōgimachi-tennō

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