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Did
the Trojan War Take Place?
Much
scholarly water has flowed under the bridge since, in
the 1950s, Carl Blegen and Denys Page argued for the
essential historicity of the Trojan War. This lecture
explores the current state of the question by examining
the three relevant classes of evidence: the literary
tradition, the contemporary historical sources and the
archaeology of the site itself. And there is a new
suggestion as to the origins of the Trojan Horse. Short
bibliography and/or website on lecture topic (for lay
reader): David Traill, Schliemann of Troy: Treasure and
Deceit (John Murray, 1995) I. Antonova, V. Tolstikov, M.
Treister (ed. D.F. Easton) The Gold Of Troy: Searching
for Homer’s fabled City, (Thames and Hudson 1996) Carl
W. Blegen, Troy and the Trojans, (Thames and Hudson,
1962) Michael Wood, In Search of the Trojan War, (BBC
1985)
Priam's
Gold: The Straightforward Story of a Controversial
Treasure
Schliemann’s
Troy Treasures, including the famous “Priam’s
Treasure”, disappeared from the Berlin Museums at the
end of World War II. For decades there was total mystery
as to what had become of them until, in 1993, the
Russians admitted to having had them ever since 1945.
This lecture unravels the extraordinary story of this
collection, addressing in the process the two
controversial questions: who do the treasures now
properly belong to, and were they ever authentic in the
first place? The lecturer is one of the few scholars to
have handled the material in modern times.
Troy:
New Reflections on an Old Site
Since
1988 there have been new excavations under the
leadership of Professor Manfred Korfmann (late of the
University of Tübingen) which in some respects have
revolutionized our picture of Troy in the Late Bronze
Age. Drawing on their findings and on other recent
studies this lecture asks what we now know about the
archaeology of this famous site, how it fits into the
history of the surrounding area, and what (if anything)
it can tell us about the historicity of the Trojan War. |
