THE AEGEAN WORLD IN THE BRONZE AGE
I. THE CYCLADES
A. ISLANDS IN THE AEGEAN
1. Fiddle idols
II. MINOAN CIVILIZATION
A. KNOSSOS ON CRETE
1. Sir Arthur Evans and the palace of Minos
a. Evans' reconstruction of the palace: modern archaeologists would not do what he did; the throne room
2. Greek Mythology
a. Theseus and the Minotaur in the Labyrinth: Minos, Pasiphae, and Ariadne; return to Athens; Aegeus and the sails
3. Writing
a. Linear A and B; also found at Pylos on the mainland during Blegen's excavations of that site
b. deciphered in early fifties by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick; it was an early form of Greek written in a syllabic script. For an excellent web site with the Linear B signs, click here.
c. nature of the texts: record keeping: business, military, palace maintenance; no poetry, alas
d. Homeric names found in the texts: a-ki-re-u (Achilles); a-i-wa (Aias=Ajax); e-ko-to (Hector); te-se-u (Theseus); o-re-ta (Orestes); a-ta-no (Antenor); pa-da-ro (Pandaraos)
III. TROY AND THE TROJAN WAR
A. WAS THE WAR HISTORICAL?
1. Traditional date: 1184 BC (Erastothenes) or 1250 BC (Herodotus)
a. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey our primary literary sources, but they are hundreds of year later than the traditional dating. For an excellent web site dedicated to Aegean bronze age history, click here.
b. Homer is studied in the section on Archaic Greece
2. Ancient pilgrims to the site near the Hellespont: Xerxes, the Persian king, in 480 BC; Alexander in 330 BC on way to conquer the Persian Empire; Julius Caesar in 48 BC.
a. the Hellenistic and Roman towns
3. Mehmet II on way to conquer Constantinople.
4. Lord Byron in early 19th century
B. TROY AS PART OF THE HITTITE EMPIRE
1. Hittites in the Bible
a. Solomon had Hittite wives and buys Egyptian horses for the Hittite king (2 Chron. 1.17; 1 Kings 11.7); Bethsheeba's husband murdered by David was a Hittite
2. Early travellers and archaeologists.
a. Charles Texier in 1834 measured the walls at Boghaz Koy in central Anatolia; two to three miles in length
b. Archibald Sayce and William Wright (ca. 1880) identified the ruins at Boghaz Koy with Hattusas, the capital of the Hittite Empire.
c. Identification with the Khatti, the enemies of Ramses at the battle of Kadesh (1275 BC
d. Amarna archives of Akhenaten show correspondence between the pharaoh and the Hittites mostly in cuneiform Akkadian (1887)
e. excavations begin in 1906 under Hugo Winckler and the royal archives are soon found; cuneiform (Akkadian and an unknown language)
3. Decipherment of Hittite
a. Bedrich Hrozny, a Czech scholar, during the first world war
b. Hittite was an Indo-European language: nu ninda-an ezzateni; watar-ma ekuteni 'now eat breat and drink water'
c. Indo-European cognates: pat, kenu, etmi, esmi, yukan, melit, watar, hwantes, pahhur, newa, etc.
4. Greeks and Trojans in Hittite records
a. Emil Forrer in 1934 asserted that Hittite Ahhiyawa is Homeric Achaea, Alaksandus is Alexander, and Pariyamuwa is Priam
b. The letter of Hattusilis III (ca. 1255-1230 BC) demanding the extradition of Tawagalawas, the brother of the king of Ahhiyawa. In Linear B there is a name Etewokleweios; this may be the well-known Eteocles from Greek mythology. He is staying at Millawanda. Is this Miletus on the coast of Asia Minor. Hattusilis refers to the Achaean king as his brother; are they both "great kings?"
c. The tablet of King Tudhalias (ca. 1440-1410 BC) refers to the subjugation of Assuwa (Asia?). Towns allied with Assuwa are Taruisa and Wilusiya (Troy and Ilion?)
d. Mutatallis (ca. 1296-1272) made a treaty with the King of Wilusiya, Alaksandus (Alexander?). The gods of Wilusiya include Appaliunas (Apollo? He fought on the Trojan side during the Trojan War)
e. In Ramses II's account of the battle of Kadesh, the drdny are allies of the Hittites. . Homer often calls the Trojans Dardanoi.
f. In a Luwian fragment of poetry, we find 'when they came to steep Wilusa. Homer calls Troy aipu 'steep.'
g. Conclusion: Troy was part of the Hittite empire in the west
IV. CAREER OF HENRY SCHLIEMANN
A. EARLY CAREER
1. Father: disgrace; the gift of the book, Jerrer's Universal History (his letter)
2. Leaves for Venezuela: shipwreck; Holland and a job as a clerk in an importing company.
3. Moves to Russia: success as importer; marriage.
4. California during the gold rush.
5. Back to Russia and more wealth.
6. Retirement and a new career as an archaeologist.
B, FIRST EXCAVATIONS AT TROY (1870)
1. The Turkish firman: pay all expenses; destroy no structures; split all profits.
2. Frank Calvert, the American consul, advises him to dig at Hissarlik not Bunarbashi.
a. Schliemann's ingratitude: the Helios metope (125, 49, 4000); no credit in his autobiography
b. Calvert and the British Museum
3. Schliemann's methods.
a. stratigraphy; dug deep into the hill thinking that Homer's Troy had to be the furtherst down ; destroyed walls which were most likely from Homer's Troy
1. May 31, 1873.
a. Sophie present as he says in his autobiography? No.
2. Treasures smuggled out of the Ottoman Empire to Berlin.
a. lawsuit; loses; still permitted to return after he doubles the fine
3. Fate of the treasures.
a. Berlin museum until the second world war; lost for fifty years; resurfaced in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow
D. EXCAVATIONS IN GREECE
1. Mycenae
a. followed Pausanias' guide book
b. the Lion Gate entrance; the circle graves and rich treasures including gold death masks (Agamemnon? No!)
c. not from time of Trojan War but around 300 years earlier
2. Orchomenos
a. gray minyan ware subsequently found in Troy
3. Tiryns
a. associated with Heracles; Mycenaean palace
E. BACK TO TROY
1. Joined by Wilhelm Dorpfeld, an archaeologist and architect (1881)
a. Troy VI declared to be the Troy of Homer
F. DEATH AND BURIAL
1. Dies in Naples in 1891; buried in Athens.
V. FURTHER EXCAVATIONS
A. DORPFELD IN 1893-4
B. CARL BLEGEN FROM 1932-38
1. Believes Troy VIIa to be the Troy of Homer.
C. MANFRED KORFMANN TODAY (from 1988)
1. Digging outside the hill of Hissarlik in the "lower city."
a. a defensive ditch and palisade
b. orientation toward Asia: the gate stele and the cult of Apollo; seal in hieroglyphic Luwian