The Trojan War (29 page)

The excavators have written a guide to the site, available in English. See Manfred Korfmann, Dietrich Mannsperger, and Rüstem Aslan,
Troia/Wilusa—Overview and Official Tour
(Istanbul: Ege Yayinlari, 2005); it is still hard to find outside of Turkey. In German, there is a highly readable and reliable introduction, with beautiful color photos and remarkable, if hypothetical, reconstructions by Birgit Brandau, Hartmut Schickert, and Peter Jablonka,
Troia wie es wirklich Aussah
(Munich: Piper, 2004). One of the more innovative (and controversial) aspects of Project Troia is the use of computer models to create hypothetical reconstructions of the various ancient cities of Troy. For an introduction on the Internet, see http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/troia/vr/index_en.html. The lavishly illustrated catalog to a 2001 museum exhibit contains fine introductory essays (in German) by leading scholars on a wide range of topics concerning Troy: Manfred Korfmann et al.,
Troia: Traum und Wirklichkeit
(Stuttgart: Theiss Verlag, 2001). Two important statements of the Anatolian character of Troy are Manfred Korfmann, “Troia, An Ancient Anatolian Palatial and Trading Center,”
Classical World
91.5 (1998): 369–85 and F. Starke, “Troia im Kontext des historisch-politischen und sprachlichen Umfeldes Kleinasiens im 2. Jahrtausend,”
Studia Troica
7 (1997): 447–87.

On the biconvex hieroglyphic seal found at Troy, see J. David Hawkins and Donald F. Easton, “A Hieroglyphic Seal from Troy,”
Studia Troica
6 (1996): 111–18. On the bronze figurine, see Manfred Korfmann, “Ausgrabungen 1995,”
Studia Troica
6 (1996): 34, 36; Machteld J. Mellink and Donna Strahan, “The Bronze Figurine from Troia Level VIIa,”
Studia Troica
8 (1998): 141–49. On the steles outside the gates of Troy, see Manfred Korfmann, “Stelen vor den Toren Troias, Apaliunas-Apollon in Truisa/Wilusa?” in Güven Arsebük, Machteld J. Mellink, and Wulf Schirmer, eds.,
Light on Top of the Black Hill, Studies Presented to Halet Çambel
(Istanbul: Ege Yayinlari, 1998), 471–78. An inscribed silver bowl may attest to a victory over Troy by a Hittite king, probably an early one, but the subject is still under debate: J. David Hawkins, “A Hieroglyphic Inscription on a Silver Bowl,”
Studia Troica
15 (2005): 193–204.

For an introduction to the Troad, the region of Troy, in light of Homeric scholarship and recent archaeology, see J. V. Luce,
Celebrating Homer's Landscapes: Troy and Ithaca Revisited
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 21–164; see Cook's meticulous if now partly outdated
The Troad: An Archaeological and Topographical Survey
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973). A detailed study of the excavations at Be
ik Bay (the Trojan Harbor), including the cemeteries, may be found in Maureen A. Basedow,
Be
ik Tepe: Das spätbronzezeitliche Gräberfeld
(Munich: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 2000). On the Mycenaean-style seal stone with smiling face, found in the harbor excavations, see Ingo Pini, “Zu den Siegeln aus der Be
ik-Necropole,”
Studia Troica
2 (1992): 157–64, esp. 157–58. Rüstem Aslan and Gerhard Bieg, with Peter Jablonka and Petra Krönneck, “Die Mittel-Bis Spätbronzezeitliche Besiedlung (Troia VI und Troia VIIa) der Troas under der Gelibolu-Halbinsel, Ein Überblick,”
Studia Troica
13 (2003): 165–213, is a fundamental survey of archaeological research in the Middle and Late Bronze Age Troad outside the city of Troy. Fascinating details of the ecology and geology of the region appear in G. A. Wagner, Ernst Pernicka, and Hans-Peter Uerpmann,
Troia and the Troad: Scientific Approaches
(New York: Springer, 2003). For an argument on following Homer when it comes to locating the Greeks' ship station, see J. C. Kraft, “Harbor Areas at Ancient Troy: Sedimentology and Geomorphology Complement Homer's Iliad,”
Geological Society of America
31:2 (2003): 163–66. Botanist Martin Rix offers an appreciation of the plant life of Mount Ida in “Wild About Ida: The Glorious Flora of Kaz Dagi and the Vale of Troy,”
Cornucopia
5:26 (2002): 58–75.

There is a discussion of the fossils of the Troad in A. Mayor,
The First Fossil Hunters
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). On the winds in the Dardanelles and their impact on Troy's prosperity, see J. Neumann, “Number of Days That Black Sea Bound Sailing Ships Were Delayed by Winds at the Entrance to the Dardanelles Near Troy's Site,”
Studia Troica
1 (1991): 93–100.

A considerable minority of scholars reject a number of the Troia Project's conclusions; that is, they doubt that the lower city has really been found, that Troy was a major center of commerce, that Troy and Wilusa are one and the same—and some question even the identification of Hisarlik with Troy, an equation that goes back to Schliemann. The leading skeptics are the ancient historian Frank Kolb and the archaeologist Dieter Hertel, and they are joined by Hittitologists and experts in the ancient Near East as well as ancient historians and archaeologists. In English, see Frank Kolb, “Troy VI: A Trading Center and Commercial City?”
American Journal of Archaeology
108:4 (2004): 577–613, and D. Hertel and Frank Kolb, “Troy in Clearer Perspective,”
Anatolian Studies
53 (2003): 71–88. Christoph Ulf edited a collection of articles (in German) largely critical of the excavators' conclusions in
Der neue Streit um Troia, Eine Bilanz
(Munich: C. H. Beck Verlag, 2003).

But most of these criticisms have been convincingly answered: see D. F. Easton, J. D. Hawkins, A. G. Sherratt, and E. S. Sherratt, “Troy in Recent Perspective,”
Anatolian Studies
52 (2002):1–35, and P. Jablonka and C. B. Rose, “Late Bronze Age Troy: A Response to Frank Kolb,”
American Journal of Archaeology
108:4 (2004): 615–30. In my judgment, the excavators' claims about the lower town stand scrutiny, and likewise their argument that Troy VIi (formerly called Troy VIIa) was probably destroyed by human violence. It is not certain that Wilusa equals Troy or that the Ahhiyawa of Hittite texts are Homer's Achaeans, that is Greeks, but both conclusions are likely. The evidence of Late Bronze Age trade between the Aegean and the Black Seas is stronger than the skeptics allow, although it requires more investigation. See Olaf Höckmann, “Zu früher Seefahrt in den Meerengen,”
Studia Troica
13 (2003): 133–60.

The results of the University of Cincinnati's excavations at Troy between 1932 and 1938 are published in four volumes edited by Carl W. Blegen, John L. Caskey, and Marion Rawson,
Troy: Excavations Conducted by the University of Cincinnati, 1932–1938
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950–53), as well as in three supplementary monographs (1951–63). Blegen summarized his conclusions in
Troy and the Trojans
(New York: Praeger, 1963). Wilhelm Dörpfeld's excavations at Troy are described in an English-language book by Herbert Cushing Tolman,
Mycenaean Troy
(1903). Heinrich Schliemann famously began the modern excavation of Troy in 1871, and he published the pioneering results in volumes called
Ilios
(1881) and
Troja
(1884).

HOMER

Most readers get to know Homer in translation. While they are no substitute for the Greek original, many excellent translations are available. This book uses Alexander Pope's dignified and lapidary
Iliad
of 1720 and
Odyssey
of 1725–26, which render Homer in heroic couplets. Among recent translations, the two outstanding formal renderings of the
Iliad
are Richmond Lattimore,
The Iliad of Homer
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951) and Robert Fagles,
The Iliad/Homer
(New York: Penguin Books, 1991). Fagles's
Odyssey
is particularly beautiful:
Odyssey/Homer
(New York: Penguin Books, 1996). But perhaps the outstanding translation is Stanley Lombardo's rendition of Homer in ordinary English:
Iliad/Homer
and
Odyssey/Homer
(Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2000).

Indispensable for serious study of the
Iliad
is a six-volume scholarly commentary by G. S. Kirk, Mark W. Edwards, Richard Janko, J. B. Hainsworth, and N. J. Richardson,
The Iliad: A Commentary
(Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1985–93). A scholarly commentary in English on Books I–XVI of the
Odyssey
is available in A. W. Heubeck, Stephanie Hainsworth, and J. B. Hainsworth,
A Commentary on Homer's Odyssey
, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990). For an introduction to what little survives of the other poems of the Greek Epic Cycle, see M. Davies,
The Epic Cycle
(Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 1989). M. P. O. Morford and Robert J. Lenardon,
Classical Mythology
(New York: Longman, 1971) is useful.

Scholarly books and articles on Homer are almost innumerable. A good starting point is Barry Powell,
Homer
(Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2004), or Mark W. Edwards,
Homer, Poet of the Iliad
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), while Morris and Powell, eds.,
A New Companion to Homer
, offers expert essays on topics ranging from poetic meter to the experience of battle. A number of important essays on a variety of related subjects are found in Jane B. Carter and Sarah P. Morris, eds.,
The Ages of Homer: A Tribute to Emily Townsend Vermeule
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995). On Homer as an oral poet, the basic book remains A. B. Lord,
The Singer of Tales
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960). There is much of value in Gregory G. Nagy,
The Best of the Achaeans
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999).

On the impact of the ancient Near East on Homer, see M. L. West,
The East Face of Helicon
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), and Webster, F
rom Mycenae to Homer
, 27–64; Walter Burkert,
The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age
, trans. Margaret E. Pinder and Walter Burkert (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1992), 1–6, 88–100. Calvert Watkins has done groundbreaking work on the possible Trojan roots of the Homeric poems. See “The Language of the Trojans,” in Mellink, ed.,
Troy and the Trojan War,
45–62; “Homer and Hittite Revisited,” in P. Knox and C. Foss, eds.,
Festschrift Wendell Claussen
(Stuttgart: Leipzig, 1998), 201–11; “Homer and Hittite Revisited II,” in K. Alishan Yener and Harry A. Hoffner Jr., eds.,
Recent Developments in Hittite Archaeology and History: Papers in Memoriam of Hans G. Güterbock
(Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2002), 167–76. On the possible Hittite roots of certain images, verb forms, and similes in the
Iliad,
see Jaan Puhvel,
Homer and Hittite,
Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft, Vorträge und Kleinere Schriften 47 (Innsbruck: Inst. F. Sprachwiss. D. Univ., 1991). Sarah P. Morris's innovative work on the relationship of Greek and Near Eastern art and poetry includes her
Daidalos and the Origins of Greek Art
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992) and her “The Sacrifice of Astyanax: Near Eastern Contributions to the Siege of Troy,” in Carter and Morris, eds.,
The Ages of Homer,
221–45.