Cool Beans- new information on the reality of the Trojan War

[Xen]

well, first off, I recentlly got a magazine called "current world archeology", and in it, it had a nice little articel on troy, in one of the side boxes, I found a very interesting sub article...

[qoute]

Was troy Wilusa?
In the classical world, Troy had two names; Troia (Troy), and Ilios or Wilios - hence the Iliad. Is the name of Wilios preserved in Hittite documents which appear to refer to the place and area as Wilusa?

Much wirk has been dine recently on Hittite geography demonstrateing that Hittite names often reflect the later Greek names.A breakthrough came came in 1997 when David Hawkings, Professor of Ancient and Anatolian languages at the London School of Oreintal and African Studies, translated for the first time the Karabel rock inscription. This inscription, first reported in the 1840s, is situated in a pass to the north east of Ephesus and dates to around 1300 BC. It appears to be a boundary inscription, marking the boundary between Mira, the land of Eohesus to the south, and the Seha river lands to the north.

Three other names are of particular interest: Millawanda is probably Miletus, 50 miles ot the south and Apasa, which is probably Ephesus. Then to the north there is an area called Wilusa: opposite Lazba, which is probabley Lesbos, the nearest major island to Troy.

Then around 1280 BC, the extremley poweful Hittite Empire concludes a state treaty with king Alaksandu of Wilusa. From this moment onward the latter bacame a vassal state of the Hitties, and only five years later Egyptian sources record a contingent of war-chariots from a place called Dardaniya, taking part in the battle of Quadesh in Syria. Is not Dardania another name for troy, deriving from the dardanelles, and the Mythical mother city of Troy, Dardaniye?

the most controversial name in the Hittite texts is that of the Ahhiyawa : are they the Acheans, that is the Greeks? Debate rages on this subject, but it dose appear that the Hittites were well aware of the greeks, who were a powerful force on the islands off shore ofwestern Anatolia.
[/quote]

that was the side article in its entirety...

now what intrigued me the most about that short sub article was not so much the corrolation of place names- but rather the name of king "Alaksandu of Wilusa"- those fo you famillear with the illiad will note that Paris, a prince of Troy is not known as Paris in the Illiad, but rather "Alexander"....

some interesting food for thought...

over all with th res tof the article, it seems the Homers' (or group of poets collectivelly known as homer ) portrayal of the Illiad- the entire epic, is becomeing more realistic- even the portral of the city as a rather typical Bronze age city, dominated by agriculture, not foreing trade is right on with current finds from Bronze age troy- not to say that the city didnt have trade, far from it, as a great deal of forign goods have been found in the upperclass residences, but over all, it was more or less a rather run of the mill, if large by bronze age standards, city...

[Mongoloid Cow]

Was troy Wilusa?

IMO yep.

PS: Cool Beans?

[Xen]

same here, I think there is just to much evidence in favore of it

and yes, cool beans , the Illiad, and the Odyssey are what got me interested in history in the first place, and I am still very interested in them, and the time in which the take place