remarks on fall of Troy

[Curiousity]

There has always been discussion if the Trojan war ever existed? Could the following theroy explain the facts...that one the Trories had a earthquake and that in its weakend condcition it was sacked and looted bymaurdering Greeks..and that over the centures...the story became a heroric 10 year war and the retelling became embleished...for example gving the Greeks armor that was worn by them centuries after the sacking occured...and that many raids....over the centuries were colsidated into 10 years of war..?


The theory that a historical event, like an earthquake, was later transformed into the epic Trojan War is a widely accepted interpretation among modern scholars. Archaeological and geological evidence at the site of ancient Troy supports this, suggesting that the legend was likely an amalgamation of actual events, later exaggerated and embellished through centuries of oral tradition.
Archaeological and geological evidence at Troy

• Earthquake damage: The archaeological site of Hisarlik in modern-day Turkey, widely believed to be the location of ancient Troy, shows evidence of significant earthquake damage in the layer known as Troy VI, dated to approximately 1275 B.C.. An earthquake could have weakened the city's walls, leaving it vulnerable to attack.
• A "Trojan Horse" as a metaphor: Some scholars suggest the story of the Trojan Horse could be a metaphor for an earthquake. In Greek mythology, the god Poseidon was associated with both earthquakes and horses. A destructive tremor could have been interpreted as a supernatural attack by a horse-god.
• Evidence of conflict at Troy VIIa: While Troy VI was destroyed by an earthquake, the next layer of settlement, Troy VIIa (destroyed around 1180 B.C.), shows clear signs of war. Evidence includes human remains scattered in the rubble, unburied dead, signs of fire, and caches of weapons like sling stones. This indicates the city was sacked by a hostile force after a prior calamity.
• Anachronistic descriptions: The epic poems describe Bronze Age heroes using weapons and fighting styles that likely reflect the period in which Homer wrote, not the true historical time of the Mycenaeans. For example, the detailed fighting scenes are exaggerated for dramatic effect.
• Heroic narrative: The story of the abduction of Helen, divine intervention, and mighty individual heroes serves to elevate a possible historical conflict into a foundational myth for Greek identity. It was meant to be a compelling epic, not an accurate portrayal of history.

Your theory is very much in line with scholarly thinking on the historicity of the Trojan War. Most historians and archaeologists agree that while a real conflict likely occurred, the epic tale was an embellished narrative created centuries later.
Here is how your theory aligns with current archaeological and historical evidence:

Evidence for an earthquake

• Destruction of Troy VI: The archaeological site believed to be Troy shows that the settlement known as Troy VI was severely damaged by an earthquake around 1275 BCE.
• Weakened defenses: This seismic event likely left the city's defenses in a weakened state. The city walls were repaired, but the inhabitants moved inside the citadel, suggesting they felt less secure.
• Poseidon, god of earthquakes: Some scholars have speculated that the story of the Trojan Horse could be a metaphor for an earthquake. Poseidon was not only the god of the sea but was also known as the "Earth-shaker".

Evidence for sacking and looting

• Destruction of Troy VIIa: While an earthquake weakened Troy VI, a later settlement, Troy VIIa, was violently destroyed by an attack around 1200 BCE.
• Signs of battle: This destruction layer contains burnt timbers, weapons, and even human remains, pointing to a real battle. Recent excavations have uncovered large quantities of sling stones just outside the walls, suggesting an intense military assault.
• Historical context: The conflict would have taken place during the Late Bronze Age, which saw a wave of destruction across the Mycenaean and Hittite empires. This was a turbulent period of marauding and conflict, which likely involved the Mycenaean Greeks raiding Troy.

Embellishment over centuries

• Oral tradition: Homer composed the Iliad roughly 400 years after the events, relying on a long oral tradition of storytelling. The Mycenaean world was lost during the Greek Dark Ages, so the poems reflect the society of Homer's own time as much as the period they describe.
• Anachronistic details: The epics include elements that do not fit the Bronze Age setting. For example, Homer describes iron tools, but iron was not in widespread use during the Mycenaean period. The detailed bureaucratic system suggested by Mycenaean artifacts is also absent from the poems.
• Consolidation of events: It's very likely that Homer, as a poet, consolidated decades of raids and smaller conflicts into a single, epic 10-year war for dramatic effect. The heroic and fantastical elements, such as divine intervention and the Trojan Horse, were almost certainly creative additions.

The heroes of the Trojan War, including Agamemnon, Odysseus, Achilles, Priam, and Hector, belong to the Late Bronze Age (roughly 1400–1200 BCE). The myths of this period, and the legendary war itself, became the basis for Homer's epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which were composed centuries later during the Iron Age.
The setting vs. the author's time period
To understand the historical context of the Trojan War, it's important to distinguish between the setting of the story and the time when the story was composed.

• The setting (Bronze Age): According to Greek tradition and modern archaeological evidence, the Trojan War is believed to have occurred during the Mycenaean civilization, which was a Late Bronze Age Greek society. The Mycenaean Greeks were a powerful and wealthy people known for their strong palaces and military conquests.
• The composition (Iron Age): Homer's Iliad and Odyssey were not written during the Bronze Age. They were part of a long-standing oral tradition and were composed and written down centuries later, around the 8th century BCE. This was a very different time known as the Greek Iron Age or Archaic period.

Evidence for the Bronze Age setting

• Archaeological findings: Excavations at Hisarlik in modern-day Turkey, widely accepted as the site of ancient Troy, show that the city was a thriving Late Bronze Age power that was destroyed by fire around 1180 BCE.
• Mycenaean details: The epics contain elements that accurately reflect Bronze Age Mycenaean society, including the use of bronze weapons, boar's tusk helmets, and chariots.
• Contemporaneous documents: Hittite texts from the same period mention a kingdom called "Wilusa," thought to be Troy, and a land called "Ahhiyawa," thought to be the Mycenaean Greeks.

• Oral tradition and Homer: The story of the Trojan War was passed down through centuries of oral tradition before being written down. Homer's Iliad, composed around the 8th century BCE, captured only a small part of the final year of the decade-long siege. The poem was written hundreds of years after the events it describes, and it likely blended historical memory with elements of myth and legend.
• The Dorian invasion and Greek Dark Ages (c. 1200–700 BCE): The Bronze Age in Greece ended with a societal collapse, possibly brought on by climate change and invasion from the north, known as the Dorian invasion. This period, which followed the Trojan War, marked the end of the Mycenaean civilization and preceded the rise of the Archaic Greek culture.

 

[Curiousity]

incidently
tis said that sometimes a little knowledge is a dangerous thing..for example in the 1920's the greek goverment relaized archaic Greek language was out of date for modern times and tried to update it...however loud protests/riots were made by people who thought that their sacred religious langague was being desecrated...ironically one of the politiosn who supported the riots...when they came into power used the very same updated langauge!

he story about Greek language reform, protests, and an ironic political shift is broadly accurate, though it refers to a decades-long struggle rather than a single event in the 1920s. This conflict, known as the "Greek language question" (or glossiko zitima), involved a deep social and political divide over which form of the Greek language should be official.
The language question: Katharevousa vs. Demotic

• Katharevousa: The "purified" language, a formal, archaic, and artificial written form that was developed in the 19th century to deliberately imitate Ancient Greek. It was the official language of the Greek state and was used in government, education, and the church.
• Demotic: The vernacular, spoken language of the Greek people, which had evolved naturally over centuries.

Key events and figures in the language struggle

• Gospel Riots (1901): The conflict exploded into violence in November 1901 when a newspaper published a translation of the Gospel of Matthew into Demotic. Protests, fueled by the Orthodox Church and conservative academics who saw the translation as a desecration of a sacred text, turned into riots in Athens that left eight people dead.
• Venizelos and the 1920s: While the language question simmered for decades, the 1920s saw it become deeply entrenched in party politics. The liberal, republican government of Eleftherios Venizelos favored Demotic for use in schools. However, when his government was voted out in 1920, the conservative, monarchist Popular Party reversed his language reforms, sparking a back-and-forth educational policy battle that depended on which party was in power.
• A right-wing politician's turn: As you described, a conservative politician who had once opposed the Demotic language ended up using it. One such example is Ioannis Metaxas, a dictator who came to power in 1936. During his regime, the state adopted a more moderate Demotic language for school primers, attempting to standardize the language for educational purposes, a move that went against the staunchly conservative language position he had espoused earlier.

Resolution of the language question
The dispute over which language to use lasted until the mid-20th century. It finally ended in 1976, after the fall of the military junta that had favored Katharevousa. The post-dictatorship government formally declared Demotic the official language of Greece, effectively ending the long-standing "Greek language question

The anecdote about the Greek government and language reforms is largely true, but the events you described happened primarily in the early 1900s, not the 1920s. This long-running social and political conflict was known as the "Greek language question" and centered on the differences between two forms of the Greek language.

The Greek language question

• Demotic Greek (Demotiki): The version of Greek spoken by the common people, which had evolved naturally over time.
• Purifying Greek (Katharevousa): An artificial, archaic version of Greek based on Ancient Greek that was adopted for formal written use in the 19th century.

This created a linguistic divide known as diglossia, where official business and education were conducted in a language that most people didn't speak in their daily lives.

Language riots and political controversy
The most famous outbreak of the conflict occurred in November 1901 during the "Gospel riots," which matches your description.

• A translation of the Gospels into Demotic Greek was serialized in a newspaper called Akropolis.
• The publication provoked outrage from conservatives and the Greek Orthodox Church, who saw it as a desecration of their sacred religious language.
• Riots broke out in Athens, resulting in several deaths and ultimately forcing the government to resign.

The language debate was intertwined with political and social ideologies throughout the early 20th century. For example, in the mid-1920s, the dictator Theodoros Pangalos branded Demotic supporters as communists. However, your point about politicians switching stances is accurate. The different language forms entered party politics, with liberals generally supporting Demotic and conservatives favoring Katharevousa
Final resolution
The controversy was finally put to rest in 1976, following the fall of the military junta, when Demotic Greek was officially made the country's language for education and official documents.
The Greek language question serves as a powerful historical example of how language can become a battleground for political, social, and religious conflicts

 

[Gold_FInger]

incidently
tis said that sometimes a little knowledge is a dangerous thing..for example in the 1920's the greek goverment relaized archaic Greek language was out of date for modern times and tried to update it...however loud protests/riots were made by people who thought that their sacred religious langague was being desecrated...ironically one of the politiosn who supported the riots...when they came into power used the very same updated langauge!

he story about Greek language reform, protests, and an ironic political shift is broadly accurate, though it refers to a decades-long struggle rather than a single event in the 1920s. This conflict, known as the "Greek language question" (or glossiko zitima), involved a deep social and political divide over which form of the Greek language should be official.
The language question: Katharevousa vs. Demotic

• Katharevousa: The "purified" language, a formal, archaic, and artificial written form that was developed in the 19th century to deliberately imitate Ancient Greek. It was the official language of the Greek state and was used in government, education, and the church.
• Demotic: The vernacular, spoken language of the Greek people, which had evolved naturally over centuries.

Key events and figures in the language struggle

• Gospel Riots (1901): The conflict exploded into violence in November 1901 when a newspaper published a translation of the Gospel of Matthew into Demotic. Protests, fueled by the Orthodox Church and conservative academics who saw the translation as a desecration of a sacred text, turned into riots in Athens that left eight people dead.
• Venizelos and the 1920s: While the language question simmered for decades, the 1920s saw it become deeply entrenched in party politics. The liberal, republican government of Eleftherios Venizelos favored Demotic for use in schools. However, when his government was voted out in 1920, the conservative, monarchist Popular Party reversed his language reforms, sparking a back-and-forth educational policy battle that depended on which party was in power.
• A right-wing politician's turn: As you described, a conservative politician who had once opposed the Demotic language ended up using it. One such example is Ioannis Metaxas, a dictator who came to power in 1936. During his regime, the state adopted a more moderate Demotic language for school primers, attempting to standardize the language for educational purposes, a move that went against the staunchly conservative language position he had espoused earlier.

Resolution of the language question
The dispute over which language to use lasted until the mid-20th century. It finally ended in 1976, after the fall of the military junta that had favored Katharevousa. The post-dictatorship government formally declared Demotic the official language of Greece, effectively ending the long-standing "Greek language question

The anecdote about the Greek government and language reforms is largely true, but the events you described happened primarily in the early 1900s, not the 1920s. This long-running social and political conflict was known as the "Greek language question" and centered on the differences between two forms of the Greek language.

The Greek language question

• Demotic Greek (Demotiki): The version of Greek spoken by the common people, which had evolved naturally over time.
• Purifying Greek (Katharevousa): An artificial, archaic version of Greek based on Ancient Greek that was adopted for formal written use in the 19th century.

This created a linguistic divide known as diglossia, where official business and education were conducted in a language that most people didn't speak in their daily lives.

Language riots and political controversy
The most famous outbreak of the conflict occurred in November 1901 during the "Gospel riots," which matches your description.

• A translation of the Gospels into Demotic Greek was serialized in a newspaper called Akropolis.
• The publication provoked outrage from conservatives and the Greek Orthodox Church, who saw it as a desecration of their sacred religious language.
• Riots broke out in Athens, resulting in several deaths and ultimately forcing the government to resign.

The language debate was intertwined with political and social ideologies throughout the early 20th century. For example, in the mid-1920s, the dictator Theodoros Pangalos branded Demotic supporters as communists. However, your point about politicians switching stances is accurate. The different language forms entered party politics, with liberals generally supporting Demotic and conservatives favoring Katharevousa
Final resolution
The controversy was finally put to rest in 1976, following the fall of the military junta, when Demotic Greek was officially made the country's language for education and official documents.
The Greek language question serves as a powerful historical example of how language can become a battleground for political, social, and religious conflicts

Can/would you advise on the source(s) of your info...Always been a favorite subject of mine..I though the burial mound of Big Ajax on the plains of Hissarlik sorta settled it..If that is possible....