One of the most mysterious events of historical times is who or which event(s) triggered the fall of the Bronze Age civilizations [Mycenae, Minoans, Ugarit, Hittites, Mitanni, Aksum kingdom (Ethiopia), Mayans, Gupta, Funam (Vietnam); others entered a decline period, such as Egypt and Assyria]. A book, the most ancient 'reliable' description, from that epoch, is the Iliad.
HOMER MAY HAVE NOT EXISTED
We don’t know when he was born or died.
Barbarism in the novel reflects a more ancient age.
In any case, he is told to be a blind bard or minstrel.
Additionally he was illiterate.
The earliest ascription of Iliad and Odyssey poems to Home can’t be traced further back than about 520 B.C.
The oldest full copy of Iliad (Venetus A) dates back to X century AD.
According to prestigious Cambridge historian John Chadwick, Homer mixed up and added parts of the story, during 500 years of oral tradition. Homer’s description could not be accurate because in 4 or 5 centuries the stories should have been recounted through several generations. It is difficult to believe that a war began by a woman in a society where men were bisexual, enslaved people and valued females in a few oxens.
Troy VIa layer discovered by Schlieman, is the third layer in the archaeological site of Hisarlik (in fact 3rd of 9 cities built on top of the previous). Why did Achaeans build on top of the savaged Troy, when in the book they swear to raze and scorch Ilion to its foundation? Seems probable that Troy VI-a was destroyed by a chain of earthquakes, together with the rest of contemporary kingdoms.
DISAPPEARANCE OF ACHAEANS
If Mycenae was an powerful Empire (1000 ships), how could it vanish only 100 years later? The ‘Catalogue of ships’ in Book II is said to have been an interpolation. How could phantom warriors (‘Sea People’) destroy well established kingdoms such as Mycenae, Pylos, Sparta, Iolchos, Thebes, Crete (Minos), Ugarit, Hittites Empire and drove Egypt New Kingdom into decline? Why didn’t the Sea People occupy raided lands and why Assyrians did not expanded into the free regions? For now, recall that Achaeus (son of Poseidon, god of sea and land –earthquakes-) was son of Poseidon and grandson of Pelasgos.
As acknowledged by several scholars, Bronze Age Collapse was probably triggered by catastrophes [Nur http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1998ncdb.conf..140N, Cline https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440399904314] (or a chain of them: earthquakes, volcanism, droughts). We might then speculate thathe cause of the geological upheaval may be the recent rearrangement of the solar system. A lot of cultures vanished about the same epoch: Mycenae, Minoans, Ugarit, Hittites, Mitanni, Aksum kingdom (Ethiopia), Mayans, Gupta, Funam (Vietnam); others entered a decline period: Egypt and Assyria.
Tanis
That said, I don’t mean that those ‘phantom pirates/raiders’ didn’t exist, but it’s possible that they were mere looters who took profit of chaos and damaged kingdoms and cities affected by a chain of geological upheavals. The devastated northern city of Tanis is full of buried monuments and torn and melted blocks of stone, which seem to have melted and recrystallized.
PELASGIANS-PELASGOI. PROSELENES. ETYMOLOGY
Etymologically Pelasgians or Pelasgos means ‘From the sea/ocean’. From Ovid, Plutarch, Vergilius, Pliny the Elder, Thucydides, Strabo, Herodotus, Euripides, Aeschylus, Diodorus Siculus, Apollodorus, to Aristotle appears the term. Pindar wrote ‘Bringing a beautiful gift, the earth made the first humans, the divine Pelasgus’. Herodotus and Thucydides seem to refer to Pelasgos as descendants of ancient people. They were supposed to be inhabitants of Arcadia (other sources from Pella –Macedonia-; and others from Caria –Miletus- Anatolia). Certain sources relate them to biblical Philistines.
The toponymy of Hellenes comes from Hellen (Hellas), a son of Deucalion (Noah) and Pyrrha. It means ‘torch, corposant or shining’. So its origin is not Helen, the Homer’s character. Selene is the Greek goddess of moon, supported by the goddess of beauty Aphrodite (Moon). Helen is her avatar.
Some say that the Pelasgians were Illyrians, and that the etymology of those people points to Neolithic men, worshippers of the sun (God Dze (El / Il/Ile,).
Plutarch talks about ‘pre-lunar people’; Ovid about people who lived before Jove’s kingdom (older than moon). Aristotle link them to the Proselenes (people who lived when
the moon didn’t exist). Why are no cave paintings about the moon, if it was allegedly the 2nd most important orb? Why did lunar gods (males) only have secondary roles? There is NO good theory about the origin of the moon [Capture, Fission, Co-formation, Planetesimals, Theia]. They are plenty of drawbacks and packed out with lots of anomalies.
HATTUSA
Bogazkoy clay tablets don’t prove the clash between Hattusa and Myceneae. It’s not clear that Ahhiyawa and Achaeans were the same people. It is unknown how Mycenaeans called themselves. It is not even known how Hittites did. It is supposed they called themselves Khatti. Others affirm they called themselves Neshians.
Linear A was Minoan writing. Was Linear 1B writing pre-greek or not? In 1952, Velikovsky (Ages in Chaos) states that Greek Dark Ages didn’t exist, and we must redate egyptian history (Hiksos). In 1955, Michael Ventrus deciphers Linear B as an early greek, which seemed to agree with Velikovsky. The alleged Trojan War has been dated from 1135 BC to 1334 BC, though the most used values are that from Blegen (1250) or Dorpfeld (1300).
Eclipses are subjectively calculated from from Ephemeris Time (old time scale until 1950), different from Universal Time (current time scale based on Earth's rotation). Therefore, the deceleration of Earth's rotation (due to tidal effects) must be beared in mind.
In the Hattusa tablets was mentioned a place called Wilusa related etymologically to Ilion. Maybe it was Beycesultan and Truwisa could have been Trysa (South Lycia). The name ‘Aleksandu’ as ruler of Wilusa (in Ahhiyawa?), gives way to compare the root the name with Alexandros (Paris).
Ceramics remains and language of Aegean cultures mysteriously disappeared after 1.200 BC (approximately). Why? Shouldn’t civilized people be able to recover from an ‘invasion’? Late Helladic III-A (LH III-A) was re-dated to before 1.300 BC. So, LH III-B (about 1.250 BC). And LH III-C, which was found at Troy VII layer, was post 1.200 BC. This means it couldn’t account for Homer’s Troy (1.220 BC allegedly).
ANALOGIES BETWEEN ILIAD AND MAHABHARATA
Helen’s Plots and runaway characters (or are very abduction) resembles Draupadi’s humiliation after the dice game, and her kidnapping in the forest exile.
Doubts in Achilles and Arjuna to enter the battle.
Kill of Patroclus (friend of Achilles) and of Abhimanyu (son of Arjuna) makes the hero es reconsider it.
Achilles and Krishna are cursed to die. The fate turns to be more important than gods in the epics.
Hera forces the sun to set and Krishna causes an eclipse (modern translation), to make Kauravas believe Arjuna has fallen into the sun.
Xanthos floods the plain. Arjuna sees Dwarka flooded.
Achaeans create a defensive wall in front of their ships, as Drona (Kauravas) do likewise in a circle formation. Hector breaks Achaean’s wall and Abhimanyu Kaurava’s one.
Hector is dragged and tried to be dismembered as Duryodhana and Duhsasana are in the final fight.
Heroes possess divine weapons.
Troya is similar a Indraprashta (Hastinapur).
CONCLUSIONS
It might be that 1/3 of the story was true, transmitted orally. Another third of it could have been made up or exaggerated. The final third of story, the part related to the Gods, might have been passed on through millennia. It possibly could date back to Holocene/Pleistocene transition.
As Michael Wood acknowledges, his research might have just found what he was looking for, the same as Schliemann, Wilhelm Dörpfeld, Arthur Evans and Carl Blegen.
You must not believe any story but investigate yourself!
Mahabharata (probably from 3,500 BC) was the source from where the Iliad originated. Kurukshetra and Troy relate the same events.
The Vedas, in its migration from North Siberia to the Crescent Fertile and Indus Valley, transmitted (first orally and then in writing) these legends to Mesopotamia, Levante and Anatolia.
The pre-Phoenicians passed these to the kingdoms of the Bronze Age. Homer and other troubadours broadcast 1/3 of the anthropomorphized story (relative to human heroes) which came from centuries ago, adding 1/3 ornaments appropriate to its time. The remaining third are the plots about the ‘wars of the gods’ (celestial orbs), and narrates the re-arrangement of the solar system.
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