Troy = Tyre?

[docoflove1974]

Sorry if this is discussed elsewhere...but a couple of questions popped into my head (which, by the way, is always dangerous when I'm cranially battered-and-deep-fried as I am right now):

 

1) Do we know (or have a fair estimation) as to where Troy was?

 

2) Is the later city of Tyre in any way related to Troy?

 

As the secondary title suggests, my knowledge in this area is lacking...so excuse the ignorance!

[FLavius Valerius Constantinus]

I believe Tyre is where Alexander the Great tried and successfully besieged and plundered the port city, in which all the survivors were burned/killed because they all were seeking refuge in a temple(?/name).

 

As for Troy, oh it does exist, some German rich guy found it, but it turns out that the city was really much smaller than exagerrated in the story. Oh, it was found in Asia Minor. My teacher says the population most likely was at least 3,000 inhabitants. Oh those Greeks sure love hyperboles of Troia.

 

If you search online, you will most likely find sources and info.

[Moonlapse]

Sorry if this is discussed elsewhere...but a couple of questions popped into my head (which, by the way, is always dangerous when I'm cranially battered-and-deep-fried as I am right now):

 

1) Do we know (or have a fair estimation) as to where Troy was?

 

2) Is the later city of Tyre in any way related to Troy?

 

As the secondary title suggests, my knowledge in this area is lacking...so excuse the ignorance!

 

1) It was in a region of Mysia called Troas (or the Troad), in the northwest of modern Turkey, just south of where the Hellespontus meets the Aegean. It's been called Ilium, Ilion and Troia but the site is now called Hisarlik. It was resettled by Aeolian Greeks at about 700 BC and rebuilt by Sulla after being sacked in the First Mithridatic War.

 

2) Tyre (Tyrus) was the coastal Phoenician city that spawned Carthage, located in the south of what became the province of Syria (modern Lebanon). The only relevance I can think of is that the Romans supposedly descended from Troy and the Carthaginians descended from Tyre.

[phil25]

I don't think that there is now much doubt that the site we know of as Troy - at Hissarlik in north-east Turkey - is the genuine site. It fits perfectly with dates etc, was a proud and wealthy city in the right time-frame and was already ancient (the mound has multiple layers covering thousands of years of history.

 

If there is a question it is over precisely which of those layers - or sub-layers - is the City of the Trojan war made famous by Homer. There are two main candidates.

 

Tyre too wasalso a proud city, a Phoenician trading port as I recall, in the Levant - but I have NEVER seen any suggestion of a link with Troy - either as the site of the war, or as a settlement by Trojans.

 

Rome itself claimed to have been founded by descendents of Aeneas, a Trojan hero. And I have seen london (UK) alleged as the site of the war in a book some years ago.

 

I have visited Troy in Turkey and it is an amazing experience to look down from those wind-swept walls to the plains where - maybe - Achilles and Hector once fought.

 

Phil

[miguel]

I don't think that there is now much doubt that the site we know of as Troy - at Hissarlik in north-east Turkey - is the genuine site. It fits perfectly with dates etc, was a proud and wealthy city in the right time-frame and was already ancient (the mound has multiple layers covering thousands of years of history.

 

If there is a question it is over precisely which of those layers - or sub-layers - is the City of the Trojan war made famous by Homer. There are two main candidates.

 

Tyre too wasalso a proud city, a Phoenician trading port as I recall, in the Levant - but I have NEVER seen any suggestion of a link with Troy - either as the site of the war, or as a settlement by Trojans.

 

Rome itself claimed to have been founded by descendents of Aeneas, a Trojan hero. And I have seen london (UK) alleged as the site of the war in a book some years ago.

 

I have visited Troy in Turkey and it is an amazing experience to look down from those wind-swept walls to the plains where - maybe - Achilles and Hector once fought.

 

Phil

 

As far as I know the Trojan War was a real event. But I doubt the story by Homer is just a myth or true. Only the Achilles' heel mystery was too unreal to believe.

 

I am not sure if Tyre is related to Troy. Does anyone find source on this? Anyway somehow the two cities should be related in some ways. My knowledge is limited.

[spittle]

I watched a UK History Channel documentary that asserted Hissarlik in N-W Turkey (Not North East) was certainly the actual location. However the Helen of Troy story was propoganda or 'spin'.

 

The area was of massive strategic importance due to being between the Mycanean (? Agamemnon et al) and the Persian superpowers. Whoever controlled this piece of realestate would monopolise access to vast deposits of a certain metal (Bronze, Tin ?)

 

The details are forgotten and I'm sure many will kindly correct them (Mycanean, Persian, Tin, Bronze) but the concept of using the personal touch (Helen) to 'spin' justification for what was essentially a land grab is virtually the same as HUMAN RIGHTS being the modern excuse to invade for OIL and, I'm sure someone will be able to name specifics, RELIGION being a medieval 'cause' for GOLD.

[WotWotius]

If my memory serves, it is speculated that the site of Troy may have been a Hittite city.

 

Could anybody expand on this?

[Pantagathus]

If my memory serves, it is speculated that the site of Troy may have been a Hittite city.

 

Could anybody expand on this?

 

There is evidence that they were probably a client state and fought on the Hittite side against the Egyptians, but Troy wasn't a Hittite city in the strict sense.

[Julius Ratus]

My teacher says the population most likely was at least 3,000 inhabitants. Oh those Greeks sure love hyperboles of Troia.

 

How big do you think the force of PanAchaians was? It probobly wasn't that big of a war, more of a prolonged raid.

 

My professor suggested that it wasn't Helen's golden curls they were fighting over, but the golden fields of grain in the Crimea on the Black Sea.

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

If my memory serves, it is speculated that the site of Troy may have been a Hittite city.

 

Could anybody expand on this?

 

There is evidence that they were probably a client state and fought on the Hittite side against the Egyptians, but Troy wasn't a Hittite city in the strict sense.

 

 

In the 1920s the Swiss scholar Emil Forrer claimed that placenames found in Hittite texts

[phil25]

As far as I know the Trojan War was a real event. But I doubt the story by Homer is just a myth or true. Only the Achilles' heel mystery was too unreal to believe.

 

I am not sure if Tyre is related to Troy. Does anyone find source on this? Anyway somehow the two cities should be related in some ways. My knowledge is limited.

 

I find this sort of post very difficult. Do I ignore it? Or do I say something to be helpful...?

 

There is absolutely no PROOF that the trojan War was a real historic event, but excavation since Schliemann (1870s on) and other historical research among the Hittite archive (clay tablets) suggest that it is not impossible or unlikely that a similar event took place around the traditional date of the Trojan War (c1250BC).

 

That "Troy" might be the right site is made more likely to the fact that Homer gives two names to the city - Troy and Illios/Illium. In early Greek Illios would have been rendered Wilios - exceedingly close to the "Wilusa" of the Hittite archive.

 

But there is no agreement on which level of the City was involved, if such a war did indeed take place. How does the archaeological record differentiate a seige or sack from destruction caused by an earthquake?

 

But I doubt the story by Homer is just a myth or true.

 

I'm afraid I can't even begin to understand this sentence - it seems to cover every option?

 

I am not sure if Tyre is related to Troy. Does anyone find source on this?

 

I have never seen one. Why should Troy and Tyre be linked in any way? They are not located nearby each other. They have different origins (the Phoenicians had nothing to do with Troy so far as I know). What could link them - that both cities have names in English beginning with "T" and then followed by three other letters?

 

Anyway somehow the two cities should be related in some ways.

 

How?

 

Anything linking two places COULD be true. A future historian might assume that Paris, Texas, was founded by Frenchmen from Paris, France. But would that be true? Many US and Uk town names are identical but have no link except of the vaguest kind, if that. I admit some have - the US and UK Plymouths mark a genuine Pilgrim Father link - but surely those are exceptions. New York was originally New Amsterdam was it not?

 

As for Helen - a documentary series by Michael Wood in the 90s (available in the UK as an updated dvd) found evidence of "Trojan women" slaves working at Pylos on the greek mainland in the right timeframe. So perhaps Mycenaeans did raid asia Minor and troy for captives including women. And vice versa. I see nothing particularly impossible about kidnapping a Greek queen as a casus belli in the period. The traditional date of the war also seems to match the commencement of the decline and fall of Mycenaean power. The Oddessy and other related legends suggest the Trojan adventure was the last great event of the Mycenaean world and that many of the royal houses went into decline thereafter.

 

I believe that, in the Illiad, we may have an account, albeit distotred by time and initially oral transmission, and maybe in part re-written to reflect later styles of warfare, but which is essentially true.

 

Phil

[docoflove1974]

In the 1920s the Swiss scholar Emil Forrer claimed that placenames found in Hittite texts

[DecimusCaesar]

I read in Michael Wood's book 'In Search of the Trojan war' that a tablet had been found in the Hittite capital , it was a letter sent to the Hittite King. Some Scholars were suggesting that the letter might have been written by the historical Paris son of Priam. Seeing as the book was made in the 80s has anyone heard if this idea has been disproved or not?

[Moonlapse]

A bronze seal has been discovered (search for Donald Easton) that ties the city to the Hittites in some way. Some scholars postulate that Hisarlik was the royal seat of a vassal kigdom of the Hittites.

[Andrew Dalby]

I read in Michael Wood's book 'In Search of the Trojan war' that a tablet had been found in the Hittite capital , it was a letter sent to the Hittite King. Some Scholars were suggesting that the letter might have been written by the historical Paris son of Priam. Seeing as the book was made in the 80s has anyone heard if this idea has been disproved or not?

 

The name in the Hittite records is Alaksandu, which is really fascinating because it corresponds to Paris's "other name" in the Iliad, Alexandros. But Alaksandu was a king of Wilusa=Troy (Paris never was king according to the Iliad story) and adopted his successor (whereas Paris, according to Greek legend, was himself a foundling, but later "adopted" back into the royal family). In /Rediscovering Homer/ I use this as one example of many to show how the legends resulting in the Iliad must have come out of various historical events at different periods.

 

Alexander, as a name in the Macedonian royal family of later times, was borrowed from the Troy story and the "other name" of Paris. So the Hittite record is actually the earliest evidence of anyone bearing this name, which became so much more famous later!