Where Troy Once Stood

"NOW THERE ARE FIELDS WHERE TROY ONCE STOOD"-OVID During the great migrations of the second millennium BC, peoples from Western Europe-known as Achaeans or Sea Peoples-arrived in the Mediterranean region, either to settle there peacefully or to plunder and raze the land. They brought about the downfall of numerous civilizations, particularly the palace cultures of Greece. Herodotus recounts that, long before his time, the Pelasgians (another name for the Sea Peoples) had settled in Greece, renaming many places and, among other things, founding Athens. With the Achaeans came their gods and their oral traditions in verse-including the Iliad and the Odyssey-which were eventually committed to writing around 750 BC in the common tongue: Greek. Over the preceding centuries, these newcomers had bestowed upon local cities, rivers, and mountains the names familiar to them from their ancient homeland. This gave the Greeks the impression that Homer's tales had unfolded within their own region, that the Achaeans had been Greeks themselves, and that Troy, too, must therefore be located within this same territory. Thus, the true origins of the Trojans and Greeks faded into oblivion, and the world lying behind Homer's texts was lost. The aim of this book is to rediscover that lost world-the world of Homer's epic tales. This book is also available from Echo Point Books in paperback (ISBN 1648375170 ).