What problems have you identified in making connections between the world described in the Homeric poems and the archaeological evidence you have stud

What problems have you identified in making connections between the

world described in the Homeric poems and the archaeological evidence

you have studied? How far do you think it is possible to resolve these

problems?

In this essay I shall demonstrate that it is not currently possible to

resolve the problems I have identified in making connections, between

the world of the Homeric poems and the archaeological evidence I have

studied. This essay will deal with two specific areas, the first is

that of the problems associated with the citadel of Troy while the

second, will deal with the problems posed by, Homers descriptions of

the armour and the weapons used by the hero’s of the Iliad.

In book six of the Iliad Homer mentions a series of features in

relation to the citadel of Troy. These range from the description of

the hero’s houses, such as Hektor’s ‘well established dwelling’ in 370

and Paris’ ‘high house’ in 503, to the descriptions of the defences of

the city as found in lines 327 where he mentions ‘the steep wall’, and

in line 386 the ‘great bastions of Ilion’. When looking at the

archaeological evidence that remains at the site of Troy (known today

as Hissarlik), we find that there are several related problems which

make its interpretation and therefore its connection to the world

described by Homer in the Iliad difficult. The first problem

relates to the history of the site in terms of its habitation. First

settled in 3000BCE, evidence from archaeology suggests that there are

a total of 50 settlement layers that makeup the mound on which the

citadel was built, (These have subsequently been subdivided into nine

sect...

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...o be resolved there would need to be a discovery on the

site, of some form of textual evidence that explicitly refers to the

events as described by Homer in his poems (AC4, band 6). The issues

relating to the Armour and weapons of the Iliad are also difficult to

resolve in relation to the world created by Homer, as the

archaeological evidence clearly indicates that, the stories have

changed, being manipulated as they passed through centuries of oral

recitation. It is therefore my conclusion that it is not currently

possible to resolve the issues that have been dealt with within this

essay.

Bibliography

Homer (1961) The Iliad of Homer, tr. Richmond Lattimore, London, The

University of Chicago Press Ltd

Malcolm M. Willcock (1976) A companion to the Iliad, London, The

University of Chicago Press Ltd.