Floaty BirbFeb 3

I'm wondering if there were multiple Trojan Wars, the tales of which later got lumped together.

Like maybe the Greeks burned down Troy during the bronze age collapse (accounting for the 1180BCE destruction layer of Troy), when it seems like they were part of the Sea Peoples raiding places as far as Egypt.

But then they later grouped tales of that conflict with earlier bronze age battles in Anatolia, explaining the Bronze Age details in the Iliad.

Show threadFloaty BirbFeb 4
This is of course speculation but the historicity of the Trojan War is a topic limited to speculation anyway, so... well um... "maybe?" is the best I can do.
Show threadFloaty Birb
The most popular historical source is the Iliad, which seems to be historical fiction with a mix of late bronze age elements (bronze armor, chariots, Mycenaean town locations) with dark age elements (a very decentralized social structure of horny pirates doing violence for booty).
Feb 4 at 12:05amWeb
Show threadFloaty BirbFeb 4
A difficulty with setting it in the Bronze Age is that one date we have for Troy VIIa being destroyed (~1180BCE) is actually after a lot of Mycenaean palaces themselves were sacked (~1250BCE), so it seems weird that the late Bronze Age Greeks would have a huge coalition attacking a city on another continent while their houses are on fire.
Show threadFloaty BirbFeb 4

We could move it back in time - like maybe Troy VI was actually taken by the Greeks in 1300BCE, leaving less destructive evidence.

Or we could move it forward in time, maybe the version of Troy burned around 950BCE was another source of the stories.

Or maybe nothing like the Trojan War ever happened, but then we have to wonder why the Iliad has so many specific details in it that seem to match the geography and epoch it's set in.

Show threadFloaty BirbFeb 4

Homer clearly sets the Iliad in the Bronze Age, and ancient readers understood that he was arming his heroes with swords and spears of antiquated bronze.

And the Bronze Age Greeks (who we now often called "Mycenaeans" after one of their cities) seem rather militaristic from archaeology, and were known (from Hittite letters) to be involved in quarrels in western Anatolia.

So a Bronze Age setting fits - we just don't have a (confirmed) destruction layer on Troy that makes sense.

Show threadFloaty BirbFeb 4

But a later setting also kind of fits, since Troy burned down at least once then and historians think the Greeks were part of the ocean-borne raiders who were rowing around attacking places.

I haven't read the Odyssey, but I read that it has an anecdote about a failed Greek attack on Egypt - which sort of fits the Egyptian reports of a failed Sea People attack on Egypt.

Show threadFloaty BirbFeb 4

Thinking more about this thread after I posted it, maybe the 1180BCE date also makes sense - like maybe a few decades after the bronze-age-collapse-era-Greeks finished sacking their own cities, they decided to do a big coalition war on somebody else's city?

If we want to keep with a bronze age war then I think 1300BCE might be slightly more feasible (maybe the city was just captured and not destroyed), but again it's all kind of guesswork here.

#TrojanWar #BronzeAge #Speculation

Show threadMedea Vanamonde 🏳️‍⚧️Feb 4

@floatybirb

And the Aeneid?

Show threadFloaty BirbFeb 4

@MedeaVanamonde I haven't read the Aeneid either and don't know much about it, but I thought that it was written a while after Homer and heard that it was kind of the Romans trying to fit themselves into the Trojan War mythos.

(wiki tells me the Aeneid was written between 29 and 19 BCE; the Iliad was written down around 520 BCE but seems to pull from an earlier oral tradition - I'm not sure if that's the case for the Aeneid)

Show threadMedea Vanamonde 🏳️‍⚧️Feb 4
@floatybirb mostly accurate