Single Combat during the Trojan War

[Matthew Amt]

I'm not so sure about all that. I first read theories like these in the publications of one Immanuel Velikovski, who had similar bright ideas. Not bad ideas to begin with, but he ended up distorting even the 'knowns' to first the details of his theory.

Forget Velikovski, he's a non-issue. Every Bronze Age/Early Iron Age culture west of India has significant and often bizarre dating problems. Practically everything found has to be shoehorned, twisted, interpreted with wild leaps of logic, or simply shoved sullenly into a corner and ignored in order to fit the "orthodox" chronology. Simply taking the evidence at face value, however, chops about three centuries out of existence, and things start falling into place.

That said, I think that the authors of CoD are trying to do a 'Velikovsky'. It's very similar to discussing 5th c. AD Britain.
Part of their ideas certainly have merit, but they are in danger of wanting a achieve too much. They, too, are restrained by a dearth of historical material, and, too, should accept that some theories just cannot be proven - because no-one can.

Reasonable dates are too much? There is not a dearth of material at all. The problem is that basic scientific archeological principles have to be ignored to support the orthodox dates. There are well-established families of artifacts that are assigned radically different dates depending on where they are found! Tenth century Mycenaean graves *under* 12th century walls. An Egyptian 22nd Dynasty tomb that had a corner cut off to make room for a supposedly *earlier* 21st Dynasty tomb. Artifacts with clear features from different centuries. A big cemetary from 1200 with no settlement nearby, except for the settlement from 900 which has no cemetary. Whole cities or regions supposedly abandoned for 300 years, then suddenly reoccupied with exactly the same material culture. Carbon-14 dates which are exactly right--IF you "calibrate" them by adding 2 or 3 centuries.

Pick up a copy of "Centuries of Darkness", read a little of it, and tell me if you think it's a sensationalist work aimed at the unwashed masses for the mere sake of publicity and money!

Lower the dates. Seriously.

Matthew

PS: Sorry, I think I was frothing, there. I warned you about the froth!