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The Fall of Troy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Carl Nylander
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Extract

Nine superposed cities were uncovered at the mound of Hisarlik on the northwest coast of Asia Minor, where Heinrich Schliemann’s visionary search for the Homeric Troy had led him. Soon the interest of Homeric scholars concentrated upon the two cities labelled Troy VI and Troy VIIa as the most likely candidates for the Troy of Homer. Both cities yielded Mycenaean pottery, showing connexions with mainland Greece in the centuries from 1400-1200 B.C., when Mycenaean power was at its height. Both cities had been violently destroyed. However, the brilliant excavations by the University of Cincinnati under the distinguished leadership of Professor Carl W. Blegen have been able to prove that Troy VI was undoubtedly destroyed by a violent earthquake about 1300 or somewhat later.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 37 , Issue 145 , March 1963, pp. 6 - 11
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1963

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References

1 Blegen, Caskey, Rawson, Troy III (1953), 14 f., 331 f.

2 Blegen, Boulter, Caskey, Rawson, Troy IV (1958), 5.

3 Troy IV, 12. Blegen in CAH: Troy (1961), 14 (around 1250-1240).

4 Troy IV, 13.

5 E.g. Huxley, Inst. Cl. St. Univ. London, Bull. 3, 1956, 19 ff; Hittites and Achaeans, 1960. Parola del Passato, 15, 1960, 122ff.; Cassola, La Ionia nel mondo miceneo (1957). Page, History and the Homeric Iliad (1959). Severyns, Grèce et Proche-Orient avant Homère (1960). Bowra, JHS, 1960, 16 ff.

6 E.g. Heubeck, Cahiers du Groupe Fr. Thureau-Dangin I, 1960, 187; Gnomon, 2, 1961, 115.

7 The Mycenaean Pottery—Analysis and Classification; The Chronology of Mycenaean Pottery (1941).

8 Troy IV, 2, plates 242-248.

9 Troy IV, 9. The octopus (244, 5-7) could, according to Furumark, be Myc. IIIB but nothing prevents even a IIIC-date. 242, 8, is too vague to get a precise attribution. 248, 16, shows a local variation on the sacral ivy-chain (mot. 12) and nothing prevents a IIIC-attribution, 245, 11-19, are local variations belonging to Myc. IIIB-C.

10 Nos. 243, 1, 3, should preferably be attributed to Myc. IIIC; 243, 15, is typically IIIC; 243. 16-18, probably also IIIC; 244, 1, might be late IIIB but more likely IIIC; 244, 2, 3, undoubtedly IIIC (mot. 62); 246, 37, is a fragment of a false-necked jar of IIIC date.

11 Troy IV, 8.

12 Troy IV, 6 ff.; Antiquity, 1959, 25 ff.

13 Troy III, 16 f.

14 Furumark pointed out that there were comparatively few sherds of the Greek mainland type (e.g. nos. 243, 13; 244, 1; 247, 1, 17, 18).

15 Troy IV, 23, 24.

16 E. Townsend-Vermeule, ‘The Fall of the Mycenaean Empire’, Archaeology, 1, 1960, 66 ff.

17 E.g. Furumark, Op. Arch., III (AIRRS, X, 1944), 262 f.

18 Here reference must be made to the most important and useful Vienna dissertation by Per Olin: Das Ende der mykenischen Fundstätten auf dent Griechischen Festland (1961), which I have been able to consult thanks to the kindness of Professor Furumark. In this work, unfortunately still unpublished, the author has assembled and discussed the evidence from 297 Mycenaean settlements, thus arriving at important conclusions for the chronology and history of the late Mycenaean period. As Dr Olin will publish his work in a revised form and as I have not been able to get in touch with him, I will therefore in the following only make general references to some of his results without detailed quotations. For this period see also the very good account by E. Townsend-Vermeule, op. cit.

19 Olin, op. cit.; Townsend-Vermeule, op. cit.

20 Olin, op. cit. ; Bronneer, Hesperia, 8, 1939, 322 ff.

21 Olin, op. cit.; Tiryns HI, 115 ff.; BCH, 1937, 299 ff.; 1938, 110 ff.

22 Olin, op. cit.; Bronneer, Hesperia, 28, 1959, 298 ff., esp. 334, fn. 43.

23 Olin, op. cit.

24 Olin, op. cit.

25 Olin, op. cit.; Bronneer, Hesperia, 2, 1933, 351 ff.; 4, 1935, 109 ff.

26 Olin (op. cit.) gives a thorough and critical discussion of all the evidence, earlier differently interpreted. For newer evidence cf. JHS; 1960, Archaeological Reports, 1959-60, 9; BCH, 1961, 665 ff.

27 Olin, op. cit. ; BCH, 1958, 707. On the possibility that the strongly fortified acropolis of Midea at Dendrá was also burned at this time, cf. the forthcoming paper by R. Hägg, Research at Dendra 1961 (Opuscula Atheniensia, IV, 1962).

28 Olin, op. cit.; BSA, 1908-09, 109 ff.; 1909-10, 4 ff.; 1956, 170.

29 Blegen, AJA, 1939, 1953-60, esp. i960, 159. Professor Furumark, who has seen all the relevant material from Pylos, is of the opinion that the extremely few early Myc. IIIC vases must be considered as intrusive among the hundreds and hundreds of good and typical Myc. IIIB vases. Cf. also Chester Starr, The Origins of Greek Civilization, 1961, 64, n. 8.

30 E.g. Bengtsson, Griechische Geschichte (1960), 50. Milojčič, AA, 1948-49, 12 ff. Heubeck, Gnomon, 2, 1961, 115. Starr, op. cit., 66 f.

31 E.g. Bengtsson, op. cit., 49 ff. Goetze, Kleinasien, (1957), 184 ff. Milojčič, op. cit. Townsend-Vermeule, op. cit.

32 Goetze, op. cit., 185. Furumark, The Excavations at Sinda—Some Historical Results. (Arkeologiska Fortkningar och fynd, 1952); Fasti Archeologichi II, 1947, 163, no. 1312. Enkomi: Dikaios, Arch. Anz., (1962) 1. Kition: Karageorghis, Ill. London News, Dec. 22, 1962, 1012.

33 Tarsus II (1956), 63, 350. P. E. Pecorella, Sulla data della distruzione di Alalakh. (Accademia Toscana di Scienze e Lettere ‘La Colombaria’, Firenze, i960. Ref. by Prof. Furumark. Hazor II (1960), 157, 159-160. (Sea-Peoples or Israelite conquest?). Tell Abu Hawam: Hamilton: QDAP III, 1934, 74 ff.; IV, 1935, 1-69. In all Syria and Palestine no Mycenaean pottery later than Myc. IIIB seems to have been found (except, of course, the derivative so-called Philistine ware). Cp. Furumark, Chronology Myc. Pot., 42, 43 ff. ; Stubbings, Myc. Pottery from the Levant, (1951), 71 ff.

34 The possibility that Troy VIIa was destroyed by Mycenaean Greeks fleeing from the difficult conditions in their homeland is not very likely and could hardly explain the genesis of the heroic tale. Besides there are no traces of any Greek settlements in northern Asia Minor at this time, and Troy VIIb:1 shows a continuation in population from Troy VI and VIIa (Troy IV, 142 f.). The fact that ‘a late Mycenaean ware is found over the burned ruins’ can hardly be considered to prove ‘that Troy VIIa was the city destroyed by the Homeric heroes’ (Hanfmann, AJA, 1948, 143). The excavators mention an arrowhead from Troy VIIa with allegedly good parallels on the Greek mainland (Troy IV, 9, 13, pl. 219, 35-486). It is compared with a similar one from Pylos (AJA, 1955, pl. 25, 7). Yet the Trojan arrowhead seems to be tanged while the Pylian one has a socket. A much closer parallel was found in Alishar, having the same shape and the tang (Alishar II (1932), fig. 290: b2151). Mr Bo Gräslund informs me that a similar type is also known from Moldavia. (Holste: Hortfunde Südosteuropas (1951) Taf. 18:45).

35 Poseidon (1950), 189 ff.

36 P. Le Gentil, La Chanson de Roland, (1955), 17 ff.

37 I want to express my gratitude to Professor Arne Furumark who has most kindly discussed with me all the relevant Mycenaean material from Troy VI and Vila, thereby giving, by his profound knowledge and authority in these and related matters, an added weight and precision to the conclusions drawn. I want to thank also Dr S. Brunnsåker and Stig Forsberg, M.A., for stimulating and instructive discussions. Professor Bengt Hasselrot has given valuable information about La Chanson de Roland.