Single Combat during the Trojan War

[Robert Vermaat]

I'm more inclined to think that Homer IS describing weapons, armour, and tactics that actually occurred at the end of the Bronze Age. The old argument that Homer was writing 300 years later no longer holds water. There is more than enough evidence to suggest that the current chronology is wrong. Various experts suggest that between 100 and 250 years should be removed from the so called "Dark Ages". Homer could have been writing as little as 2 or 3 generations after the events in question. There have been five publications just this year alone supporting this.
http://www.centuries.co.uk/news.htm
The most relevent one is this
Nikos Kokkinos, "Ancient Chronography, Eratosthenes and the Dating of the Fall of Troy", in Ancient West and East 8 (2009), pp. 37-56. It proposes that the Trojan War should be dated to c. 940 BC, not c. 1200 BC.

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. His timeshift was a bit larger than 250 years, btw.

Now I'm the first one to agree than anciet Egyptian chronology is by no means an iron-clad thing. We've learned from medieval chronology based on pedigrees and king-lists that the resulting 'counting of regnal years' usually ends up with problems, and that's from Medieval sources 2000 years closer in time. The much smaller basis of history that is the Bronze Age is even more difficult, and has far larger problems when it's upset - Egyptian chronology is also often the lynchpin for the chronologies of neighbouring civilizations.

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.

Back to the Trojan War.
I agree with those who argue that it took place, but never as described. For one, what about a siege of 10 years? Or what about heroes (Ajax was it?) with that very large shioeld, that does not really seem to belong to the age, just like the Dendra panoply? I like to think that (like Plato describing Atlantis or King Arthur and the Round Table) the Trojan War was part event, part writing for an audience. yes, there was action in the Troad, in which European warlords went to war to seize the hold of Asian warlords on trade (perhaps). No, 'twas not of a beautiful face, nor did it last for 10 years, nor did they use an oversized hobbyhorse to end it all. :wink: