Page 7 of 7 FirstFirst 1234567
Results 121 to 136 of 136

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

  1. #121
    Roma_Victrix's Avatar Call me Ishmael
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    Virginia, USA
    Posts
    15,243

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

    Oops! My brain melted for a second there. Obviously he was Corsican.

  2. #122
    Lord Oda Nobunaga's Avatar 大信皇帝
    Patrician

    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Location
    Azuchi-jō Tenshu
    Posts
    23,463

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

    @Morticia: The Kozsyce example, I read the paper which sumskilz posted and there is nothing in there that I didn't already know. Much like I had said earlier they really do suggest it was part of the Corded Ware expansion. We also have no reason to doubt the genocidal segregationist tendencies of Indo-Aryans because we have plenty of examples of them doing exactly that in other places. Besides if it isn't true then how did steppe migrations cause such a dent in every population group, even the Basques which are some of the few surviving Neolithic cultures. So obviously at some point they adapted from "kill everything in sight" to "kill the men and kidnap the women". Every culture they ever created was also extremely militant, I mean you don't need chariots if your society is peaceful.

    @Roma: We could go into semantics, Napoleon actually only had 2 out of 8 Corsican great grandparents. The other 6 were from Tuscany, Genoa and Lombardy. However his Y-DNA is neither R1b, J2, or G, it is actually E1b1 (specifically E-M34).

    I'm sorry but there is just no way that the Sea People were members of the Nuragic culture. If there is no evidence at Kozsyce to say that it was part of the Corded Ware expansion, there is even less evidence that the Sea People were Nuragic. All evidence and clues point to the Sea People being Aegean and specifically Luwian in origin.

    Actually I looked up how that research team came to the conclusion that the Sea People were Nuragic. Their supporting evidence was that the Sea People had horned helmets. Also that they found Sardinian wares in a Bronze Age site in Greece.

    @Cyclops: Nice meme! But there is no reason to doubt the Aryan invasion of the Indian sub-continent at this point. It isn't just a matter of cultural or linguistic transmission to India. The Vedic Civilization which shows up during the Late Bronze has characteristics consistent with the Indo-Aryans, and are probably the descendants of the Andronovo Culture. I mean linguists have been showing this since at least the early 1800's. But not only do we have the material remains to prove this, more recently we also have genetic studies.

    "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

  3. #123
    Roma_Victrix's Avatar Call me Ishmael
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    Virginia, USA
    Posts
    15,243

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

    If the Luwians were the Sea Peoples, and the Luwians built Troy, and the Homeric figure Aeneas of Troy fled to Italy to help in the founding of Rome as the legendary ancestor of Romulus and Remus, that means the Romans were Sea Peoples!

    Thanks for explaining that, Oda. I had read a number of theories about the Sea Peoples and I thought that the Sardinian theory was still considered at least somewhat credible. Apparently I am not up to speed with the latest research on that, but then again the Bronze Age is not my forte. I am, however, at least well informed enough to know that Troy was not located in the Baltic Sea, and that the mythical Trojan War was most likely just a series of conflicts that got conflated into one giant naval landing by Mycenaean Greeks under the banner of Agamemnon. I've seen others here in this sub-forum also argue that the nebulous "Sea Peoples" were just an amalgamation of different marauders attacking at different times, although you'd probably be right to say the bulk of them were Luwians. Damn Luwians! They were just jealous of the Hittites.

  4. #124
    Lord Oda Nobunaga's Avatar 大信皇帝
    Patrician

    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Location
    Azuchi-jō Tenshu
    Posts
    23,463

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

    It probably is considered credible. But it is just a dumb theory with pretty much no evidence to back it up.
    In Turkey at least their Bronze Age departments in academia all accept that the Sea People were Luwian. The issue is that people are assuming that the migrations need to have originated outside of the known scope of civilization. For whatever reason people keep having the need to reach all the way to Sardinia, or Central Europe or whatever. But even then a lot of the names of these tribes can be identified as known Anatolian tribes.

    "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

  5. #125

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Oda Nobunaga View Post
    Apparently for some reason that I am just not able to fathom right now, it isn't popular to show sites that have been associated with intergroup violence.
    I think this might be an interesting case of the political narratives of the ultra-nationalist and the ultra-progressive (the "far right" and "far left", as it were) converging: one side because "my ancestors can do no wrong" (given the current poltical climate in Poland etc.), the other because they want to uphold the dogma that mass migrations are beneficial to the native populace. In either case, it's bad practice.


    Quote Originally Posted by sumskilz View Post
    This isn't even the most absurd hypothesis I've read along these lines. There is also the hypothesis that Yamanaya men arrived peacefully but were just so much more attractive to local women that the local men were bred out of existence.
    I wonder which political leanings are to be found among scholars who put forth such theories

  6. #126
    Praeses
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    8,355

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Oda Nobunaga View Post
    ...
    @Cyclops: Nice meme! But there is no reason to doubt the Aryan invasion of the Indian sub-continent at this point. It isn't just a matter of cultural or linguistic transmission to India. The Vedic Civilization which shows up during the Late Bronze has characteristics consistent with the Indo-Aryans, and are probably the descendants of the Andronovo Culture. I mean linguists have been showing this since at least the early 1800's. But not only do we have the material remains to prove this, more recently we also have genetic studies.
    Thx mate. I was agreeing with you entirely, (there' n doubt there was a movement of IE speakers into the Punjab and North India in Vedic era) just offering a simplistic caveat that language does not equal blood.

    I wonder at the way languages take hold. Aramaic was not the language of any major conqueror but it spread widely in the Near East as the administrative lingua franca of Assyrians and Persians. For some reason a West Germanic language took hold in Britannia (I think because foederati were settled there) displacing Latin and the indigenous languages until it bonded with a North Germanic dialect to make English (also bizarre because usually the Norse dropped their language at the border and became French or Slavic or whatnot). I suspect a relatively small elite or sub-elite can infect a population with a language especially if it brings a tech or social gain: i believe there are more English speakers in India now than under the Raj, as an example-thats because the tech gain is greater, even though the political impetus has gone. Likewise French was the lingua franca of Europe post 1640's when they achieved near hegemony under Luis XIV but remained long after their star waned post 1815.

    Maybe horse domestication/charioteering was a tech/social complex that carried with it the Aryan language?
    Jatte lambastes Calico Rat

  7. #127

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Roma_Victrix View Post

    Also, that's interesting about the Mycenaean Greeks. According to this study here the genetics of Greeks overall has changed relatively little from the Mycenaean period onward. However, it seems like the original wave of Indo-Europeans still made a hefty crack if 21% of the Mycenaean genetic code can be traced back to the chariot riders of the Pontic Steppe.
    How do we know the PIE came to Greece from the steppe and not from south of the Caucasus mountains?
    "Blessed is he who learns how to engage in inquiry, with no impulse to hurt his countrymen or to pursue wrongful actions, but perceives the order of the immortal and ageless nature, how it is structured."
    Euripides

    "This is the disease of curiosity. It is this which drives to try and discover the secrets of nature, those secrets which are beyond our understanding, which avails us nothing and which man should not wish to learn."
    Augustine

  8. #128
    Lord Oda Nobunaga's Avatar 大信皇帝
    Patrician

    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Location
    Azuchi-jō Tenshu
    Posts
    23,463

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Timoleon of Korinthos View Post
    Yes, that's what Drews also states, that they were Amorite princes from the Levant, maybe with some Hurrian speakers thrown into the mix.
    Were the Hyksos specifically Amorite? I guess by the 1600s BC when they established the 15th Dynasty, this seems likely.

    Quote Originally Posted by Timoleon of Korinthos View Post
    His argument is that the Indo-Europeans used the chariot to establish themselves as ruling aristocracies over conquered lands and thus spread the IE languages (so no mass migrations of nomadic pastoralists), but not that they were the only ones to do it. He does underline that a lot of other groups did the same thing as well. First came Labarna, already petty Anatolian king, who conquered the land of the Hatti with his warriors (mostly Proto-Anatolian speakers), took the name Hattusilis and established the Old Hittite kingdom. His son Mursilis raided deep into Babylonia. These guys demonstrated the possibilities opened up by chariot warfare to everybody else, so in the second quarter of the 2nd milenium BC various bands of charioteer warriors of varying provenance aspired to mimic them by taking over established kingdoms or conquering civilized lands, from Greece to India.
    That is basically what the Indo-Aryan peoples did. It is debated as to who Labarna is, but many suggest that Labarna is actually a title of Hattusili I. Later on many Hittite rulers take the title "Tabarna" which is likely the same term but this shows that it probably was a title. Prior to the establishment of the Hittite kingdom it is probable that the Hittites had split off into various kingdoms in Hatti and that the Labarna had unified these into one kingdom. The Hittites didn't so much just walk into Hatti and take over since their exposure to Hattian culture and language shows a long time presence. The accepted narrative is that the Hittites migrated into the Hattian states and served as mercenaries, until eventually they overthrew the Hattian states and decided to "civilize" themselves. But in all likelihood they had already been influenced by the local culture and were only "quasi-barbarous". For instance the terms "Hatti" and "Kingdom of Hatti" continued to be used by the Hittites.

    The Hittites were also heavily influenced by the Hurrian culture and Hurrian religion. The Hurrian language was used for ceremonial and religious purposes. Hurrian names were also used interchangeably with Hittite names by prominent individuals and Hurrian people also flourished in areas under Hittite control. The Hittites would have entered Hatti from the Caucasus region and Eastern Anatolia. That whole area of Eastern Anatolia, Armenia, and Upper Mesopotamia had been inhabited by the Hurrians since roughly the time of Hammurabi. Although it is interesting that the Hurrians do not coalesce into the Mitanni Kingdom until around the early to mid 1500's BC (under Kirta). A process which must have been very similar to the unification of the Hittites by the Labarna.

    Hattusili I was actually succeeded by his grandson Mursili I. For whatever reason Hattusili named his grandson as his successor rather than any sons he might have had. Mursili I inherited the throne while still a minor however when he came of age he conquered Aleppo (a powerful kingdom in those days, but which had been declining since the time of Hammurabi), and possibly conquered Carchemish. He marched down Mesopotamia and sacked Babylon, then marched back to Hatti with all of his spoils. This destabilized the ruling Amorite dynasty and led to the kingdom being conquered by the Kassite barbarians from the east. But there isn't much mention as to what was happening in Upper Mesopotamia, so presumably the Hurrian and Amorite cities had not unified into the Mitanni Empire just yet. But it is interesting that Mursili did not attempt to establish any sort of control over those cities in Upper Mesopotamia. Perhaps he bought their compliance because there is no mention of him having to fight his way across the Euphrates or Khabur rivers, and no mentions of threats to his line of retreat on his way to Babylon.

    Quote Originally Posted by Timoleon of Korinthos View Post
    In the case of Greece, he posits that an invasion of 75'000 Indo-European/Proto-Greek speakers would have been enough to conquer the native population of maybe 750'000, as this was the roughly the ratio of Spartans-to-Helots in classical times, who played out a similar dynamic of political hierarchy, in the way he pictures Mycenaean society.

    I have been listening to the History of Greece podcast lately, so I have some remarks on the subject.

    1) Tiryns was destroyed early in the Classical Period (470s or 460s) by the Argives and its people fled to Macedon, where king Alexander I welcomed them. Mycenae also existed during that era as a tiny city-state and even contributed 80 hoplites to the Peloponesian army that held the pass at Thermopylae (this I remember from Herodotus)!
    I can't really say how large the Indo-Aryan invasion was. But it was definitely one of the later invasion waves within Europe. To my knowledge the earlier waves completely bypassed Greece and went right through Eastern and Central Europe.

    Tiryns and Mycenae remained a shadow of their former selves after the Bronze Age Collapse. These two cities were in ruins and their populations probably struggled to feed themselves. A lot of the main buildings from the Bronze Age had already been destroyed. When Argos conquered these cities during the Classical Era they probably did not struggle to overcome these enemies. If the Argives destroyed the remains there probably was not a lot to finish off.

    Quote Originally Posted by Timoleon of Korinthos View Post
    2) In the linear B tables, "basileus" (the Bronge Age equivalent actually, pa-si-ru) was the title of the king's overseers in remote villages/settlements, further away from the citadel/seat of power. During the Dark Ages and by the Geometric Era, these guys had actually become local kings, since the palatial economy and control collapsed, in the way that later Greek uses the term basileus; so when the Dark Age settlements started to coalesce physically to form the early city-states, the local basileis formed the first aristocracies of the merged community. Later on, the office may have been preserved in its ceremonial/religious role, for example in Athens there was the "archon basileus", in Sparta they survived as hereditary generals basically, in Cyrene they wielded actual power as kings until the 6th century

    3) In the Iliad, written in the 8th century BC, only Agamemnon, the high king, is described as "anax", the Mycenean-era word for king. Every other (minor Achaean) king (Odysseus, Nestor, Diomedes etc) is a basileus, though I am not sure as to how was Priam described. I don't recall the archaic and classical Greeks ever using the word "anax" for kings (I may be mistaken though), but by the Hellenistic era the term that had come to denote king in the sense that we understand it is clearly "basileus", in text, in coins, in votive offerings and inscriptions, everywhere. In fact, in medieval and modern Greek the work "anax" has fallen out of use in favor of "basileus", except when used as a component in composite words. For example "anaktoron", literally the king's building, is the Greek world for palace.

    4) Tyrannos/tyrant denotes something different, it is a monarch that has come to power through illegitimate means. It is also a loanword from Lydian. Originally it did not have negative connotations and many tyrants were great rulers (Periander, Peisistratus, Gelon and Hiero), but by the second or third generation of tyranny the ruler had grown up as an entitled spoiled brat, so many of them were brutal and the people struggled to overthrow them. So the term started to get negative connotations during the end of the Achaic period. Basileus and anax were words used to denote legitimate kings.
    Although the question really is why this change in terminology. The thing is that the kings who ruled later in Greek history didn't simply stop calling themselves "Anax", they did not rule as an Anax would. A Basileios was significantly reduced in authority from an Anax and this is true even in Makedonia, where a monarchy was the norm (well feudalism was the norm but you get my point).

    Presumably the ruler of Mycenae was titled "Anax". But it would be interesting to know what the rulers of Athens and Thebes called themselves at their peak. Both strong cities, which were likely outside of the Mycenaean grasp (although Homer states that the Athenians took up Agamemnon's call to arms, Thebes did not). Thebes was powerful enough that it defeated Gla and Orchomenos, and drained Lake Kopais.

    Quote Originally Posted by Timoleon of Korinthos View Post
    5) It's difficult to explain how Pelasgians, Leleges and other non-Greek speakers of the historical era survived for like 1000 years after the invasion and conquests of the Proto-Greek speakers without being eventually subsumed into the Greek-speaking population. Maybe it has to do with the fact that that Greek mainland is mountainous, so many communities are isolated, and that there is a great number of islands in the Aegean. Even a large island like Samothrace was basically taken from the Thracians as late as the 7th century BC (btw the poet Archilochos who fought as mercenary in these wars remarked that all the wretches of Greece had gathered in Samothrace lmao). Corcyra/Corfu in the Ionian sea was also Hellenized by Corinthian colonists around 700BC! In eastern Crete, there had survived a group of people in classical times called Eteocretans, literally meaning true Cretans, who probably were Minoans that had been displaced by invading Mycenaeans and later Dorians!
    That seems very possible.
    Perhaps the Pelasgians were another Indo-European group that did not migrate into Greece. They could be related to the Greek Indo-Europeans but since they remained on the peripheries they were not assimilated.
    Anyway that is some good information you posted.

    Quote Originally Posted by Timoleon of Korinthos View Post
    In what book can one read about the Hittite-Achiyawan wars? Ryan Stitt had one podcast episode about them in the History of Ancient Greece and this is the first time I became aware of the existence of the letters you mention and of the existence of Hittite records about Achiyawans in general. We never learnt about any of this at school and, if I recall correctly, we were still being taught the problematic theory of 3-waves migration from the North, around 1900BC, 1600BC and 1200BC (I mean, until very recently I had always thought that the Ionians were the ones who entered Greece first, then Aeolians, then the Dorians, but it turns out that linguistic analysis suggests that all the classical dialects of Greek emerged IN Greece as local variations, the Ionian one being the last to be formed!). I have read Chadwick's book "The Mycenaean World" and I hated it, because all he was doing was discuss stupid boring entries about wool and olive oil in Linear B tablets, never providing an overarching narrative. Drews' books are much more entertaining and insightful, but they focus on explaining the birth and the destruction of the Mycenaean and Hittite kingdoms, glossing over the 4 centuries of trade and warfare that happened in between.
    I don't think that there is a book that covers the Hittite-Ahhiyawan Wars. I know of it because I read the correspondence between Muwatallis II and the "Great King of Ahhiyawa" (and his brother Tawagalawa). I posted what remains of that tablet about a page or so back. Also did some analysis on this letter and put into the broader context. But this conflict undoubtedly coincides with a Luwian uprising against the Hittites, as well as the Alaksandu of Wilusa treaty. In another letter about Wilusa, we can see that generally Wilusa had good relations with the Hittites. Then in the 1290s BC the ruler of Wilusa finally opted to seek Hittite protection and made the alliance with the Hittites. So we can infer that Wilusa had always been on the receiving end of other Luwian states and probably raiders from the Aegean. But this particular conflict was so bad that they decided to finally throw their lot in with the Hittites. There is also the statement that Alaksandu of Wilusa was not a relative of the previous king. Quite likely Alaksandu was trying to acquire recognition by the Hittite overlords. However the Ahhiyawans did not go to war over any reason involving Wilusa. They mention disputed islands in the Aegean which were seized by the Hittites, the requested extradition of the notorious pirate Piyama-Radu to the Hittites, and their support for the Luwian rulers that rebelled against their Hittite overlords.

    I will take a look at Drews and Chadwick. Generally I just say to read Trevor Bryce's books. Bryce doesn't have any revolutionary or wild theories or anything, but it is a decent read for understanding the Hittites and the Anatolians. I can't think of any better place to start.
    Last edited by Lord Oda Nobunaga; July 23, 2020 at 09:08 PM.

    "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

  9. #129

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Oda Nobunaga View Post
    Were the Hyksos specifically Amorite?
    Probably not in the way you’re thinking.

    The term Amorite gets used differently (and rather loosely) by different sources, both ancient and modern. For a lot of Mesopotamian sources, Amorites are any Northwest Semitic people and Amurru is anywhere west of the Euphrates. The biblical texts seem to use Amorite interchangeably with Canaanite. Although, maybe more so for people from northern modern Israel and Jordan. Not that this is much help, when they also use Canaanite as an exonym despite Hebrew being a Canaanite language or dialect (depending on your perspective).

    Linguistically, Amorite is a designation for a specific Northwestern Semitic language, which is very closely related to Canaanite. Although some consider it a dialect of Canaanite. In any case, it’s not well attested except at Ugarit. So Ugaritic is considered a dialect of Amorite, except for by those that consider Ugaritic to be a regional variation of the Amorite dialect of Canaanite. The Hyksos names don't show more or less affinity with any of these languages/dialects.

    There was also the Amorite Kingdom of course, which was in northern modern Lebanon and northwestern modern Syria. However, the closest parallels to Hyksos material culture were in southern modern Lebanon and northern modern Israel.

    I don’t know if Drews meant Amorite in the more general sense or the more specific sense, but I do know that book was published before the results of the excavations of the Hyksos capitol were published.
    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    You don't seem to be familiar with how the burden of proof works in when discussing social justice. It's not like science where it lies on the one making the claim. If someone claims to be oppressed, they don't have to prove it.


  10. #130
    Lord Oda Nobunaga's Avatar 大信皇帝
    Patrician

    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Location
    Azuchi-jō Tenshu
    Posts
    23,463

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

    So the Hyksos were Canaanites or something? Or... a group which migrated into Canaan and then moved into Egypt?

    With the Indo-European migrations into Greece, we just don't know if this happened via the Aegean or if they come down from the Danube. But since what we have recorded from Mycenaean Greek is so similar to Luwian, it is really hard not to draw a connection. Similarities in culture and religion are further evidence.

    What we do know is that the earlier migration of peoples to the Aegean isles, Crete and the Greek peninsula occurred from Anatolia by non-Indo-European peoples in the 2000s BC. Proto-Greek peoples are hypothesized as having migrated southwards from the Balkans-Danube area. It is quite possible that at the start of the Late Helladic period, there was an influx of two Indo-European groups, those from the north and those that crossed the Aegean. But supposedly Proto-Greek speakers were present in the Balkans around the Early Helladic Period.

    "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

  11. #131
    Flinn's Avatar His Dudeness of TWC
    Patrician Citizen Content Emeritus Administrator Emeritus Gaming Emeritus

    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Location
    Italy
    Posts
    20,306
    Blog Entries
    46

    Default Homer in the Baltic

    http://www.centrostudilaruna.it/home...c-summary.html

    Related to the historical background of the Trojan War.. I'm not sure whether this should be posted here or in the Arts (since the Iliad is in fact an epic poem), but the theories from Felice Vinci (sorry but I can't provide any page in English about the author) are related to the supposed historical collocation of the events that later gave birth to the epic poem from Homer, so I guess it might well stay here in the VV.

    However, an intriguing theory, here is an abstract from an AD to the book "The Baltic Origins Of Homer's Epic Tales: The Iliad, The Odyssey, And The Migration Of Myth":

    For years scholars have debated the incongruities in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, finding the author’s descriptions at odds with the geography he purportedly describes. Inspired by Plutarch’s remark that Calypso’s island home was only five days’ sail from Britain, Felice Vinci convincingly argues that Homer’s epic tales originated not in the Mediterranean, but in northern Europe’s Baltic Sea.

    Using meticulous geographical analysis, Vinci shows that many Homeric places, such as Troy and Ithaca, can be identified in the geographic landscape of the Baltic. He explains how the cool, foggy weather described by Ulysses matches that of northern climes rather than the sunny, warm Mediterranean and Aegean, and how battles lasting through the night would easily have been possible in the long days of the Baltic summer. Vinci’s meteorological analysis reveals how the “climatic optimum”--a long period of weather that resulted in a much milder northern Europe--declined and thus caused the blond seafarers of the Baltic to migrate south to warmer climates, where they rebuilt their original world in the Mediterranean. Through many generations the memory of the heroic age and the feats performed by their ancestors in their lost homeland was preserved and handed down, ultimately to be codified by Homer as the Iliad and the Odyssey.

    In The Baltic Origins of Homer’s Epic Tales, Felice Vinci offers a key to open many doors, allowing us to consider from a new perspective the age-old question of the Indo-European diaspora and the origin not only of Greek civilization, but of Western civilization as a whole.
    As a young Italian who had to study the Iliad and the Odyssey at the high school, I was always intrigued by the fact that teachers used to almost completely ignore the historical background of both and only focused on the moral teachings around which those poems where supposedly based and developed .. honestly I always found them to be an attempt to tell a story and not to teach lessons.. I suppose it was the same for Prof. Vinci

    Enjoy the reading, IMO it's an intriguing theory that's worth 15 minutes of your time
    Under the patronage of Finlander, patron of Lugotorix & Lifthrasir & joerock22 & Socrates1984 & Kilo11 & Vladyvid & Dick Cheney & phazer & Jake Armitage & webba 84 of the Imperial House of Hader

  12. #132
    conon394's Avatar hoi polloi
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Colfax WA, neat I have a barn and 49 acres - I have 2 horses, 15 chickens - but no more pigs
    Posts
    16,794

    Default Re: Homer in the Baltic

    First problem. Homer or the collective set of poets that resulted in the two epics were not professional students of Geography, nor navigators nor Bematists (professional step counters). It also almost certain they never referenced any such professionals in making their stories. So there is no particular reason to suppose there is any difficulty in a geographic description. You can be puzzled by an apparent discrepancy in Arrien. You can note a gaff in Thucydides like say the fact he was clearly mislead by his Spartan sources about the geography of Sphacteria and had not visited it himself. But they were professional soldiers and writing history.

    Second Occamas Razor. There is so much special pleading in that link that I am sorry its fun, and a lot effort was put into it. But sorry again, its nonsense or at least to be kind its as fanciful as Homer's world is in the first place.
    IN PATROCINIVM SVB Dromikaites

    'One day when I fly with my hands - up down the sky, like a bird'

    But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left.

    Hyperides of Athens: We know, replied he, that Antipater is good, but we (the Demos of Athens) have no need of a master at present, even a good one.

  13. #133

    Default Re: Homer in the Baltic

    I've read Illiad and Odyssey ages ago and I don't actually remember much of it, least of all the geography, so most of my knowledge about it is from secondary sources like Wikipedia. Yet the claims that the geography fits so precisely made me instantly suspicious. Geography in those times was far from exact. It couldn't be otherwise, with their level of technology. Even Strabo, who could travel extensively and had reliable written sources to use, all thanks to the extent of Roman Republic at the time, ended up with significant distortion and outright fabrications in his work. And yet, we're expected to believe that the geography itself and few select passages were transmitted orally with perfect fidelity over 800 years while the rest of the epos, as penned down by Homer, is obvious patchwork of mythology, traces of legends and anachronisms from various time periods and outright fabrication, while author admits that the origin of those passages was lost in time even before Homer.

    What most obviously show how much of this theory is wishful thinking and grasping for straws is this passage:
    We should note that many Homeric peoples, as the Danaans, Pelasgians, Dorians, Curetes, Lybians and Lapithae, whose traces are not found in the Mediterranean, probably still exist in the Baltic world: they find their present counterparts in the Danes, Poles, Thuringians, Kurlandians, Livonians and Lapps (this identification is supported by their respective geographic locations).
    I've bolded the two cases that really jumped on me. Poles are Slavic people, who lived in semi-nomadic lifestyle and obscurity around lower Dniepr and Dniestr until the Migration period when they were displaced and radiated to the central Europe and Balkans. Similar, Livonians are Finno-Ugric people who migrated into the area around 1000CE from their home in Siberia. And as I found during a little research, Lapps is an exonym for Sámi people, another Finno-Ugric group. Equating any of these with people from Homeric epos, whether it's supposed to take place in the Mediterranean or Baltic, is absolute nonsense and shows just how much research the author really did.

    Edit: okay, the migration of Sámi and Livonians is a bit more complicated and some theories put it as far back as ~1000 BCE or earlier, but it's still off...and Lapps as term for Sámi is no more than 1000 years old anyway.

    Overall, it looks like the author here just tried to make a splash with a grand, revolutionary theory and grasped at straws and ignored basic logic in order to make it appear to fit the evidence. But whenever there's talk of any historicity of the Homeric epos, one should remember that Homer, and all those who transmitted the story before him, were storytellers, and thus prone to exaggeration and outright fabrication in order to captivate the the public. If there is any historic background to it at all, it's most likely been distorted beyond recognition even before Homer penned it down.
    Last edited by Sar1n; September 30, 2020 at 11:21 AM.

  14. #134

    Default Re: Homer in the Baltic

    Quote Originally Posted by Sar1n View Post
    Edit: okay, the migration of Sámi and Livonians is a bit more complicated and some theories put it as far back as ~1000 BCE or earlier, but it's still off...and Lapps as term for Sámi is no more than 1000 years old anyway.
    Y-chromosome lineages of ancient samples from Estonia:


    Data source.

    That N3a3 is common in speakers of Uralic languages and first arrived along with some Siberian autosomal ancestry. Note the oldest is archeologically dated to 770 BCE at the very earliest. Not that it matters much to the thread, for reasons you've already mentioned.
    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    You don't seem to be familiar with how the burden of proof works in when discussing social justice. It's not like science where it lies on the one making the claim. If someone claims to be oppressed, they don't have to prove it.


  15. #135
    Praeses
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    8,355

    Default Re: Homer in the Baltic

    https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...-weird-theory)

    The various permutations of these silly theories aren't really interesting or worth 15 minutes of anyone's time.
    Jatte lambastes Calico Rat

  16. #136
    Flinn's Avatar His Dudeness of TWC
    Patrician Citizen Content Emeritus Administrator Emeritus Gaming Emeritus

    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Location
    Italy
    Posts
    20,306
    Blog Entries
    46

    Default Re: Homer in the Baltic

    Quote Originally Posted by Cyclops View Post
    https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...-weird-theory)

    The various permutations of these silly theories aren't really interesting or worth 15 minutes of anyone's time.
    lol I completely missed that other thread, my bad

    Threads merged
    Under the patronage of Finlander, patron of Lugotorix & Lifthrasir & joerock22 & Socrates1984 & Kilo11 & Vladyvid & Dick Cheney & phazer & Jake Armitage & webba 84 of the Imperial House of Hader

Page 7 of 7 FirstFirst 1234567

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •