Talk:Where Troy Once Stood

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 2006-10-16. The result of the discussion was keep.

Contents

[edit] manifesto

The apparently obvious evidence, documented in the book ,"Where Troy Once Stood," would suggest that the Trojan war did not take place in Greece or Turkey and that Homer based his Illiad on a war around Cambridgeshire, U.K.. This raises the question as to why it has taken so very long for the belief, that Troy was in Turkey, to be challenged. The ideas put foreward in that book undermine the very roots of our culture. In understanding that question one must consider thus.

The cultural background to all educated thought of the last 800 years has been based on the 'grammer school curriculum' This was in effect the repeated study of the limited number of greek and latin texts available in about the 10th or 11th century. This curriculum, almost unaltered, has been the basis for almost all western education and culture. It continued to be the basis of study until the beginnng of the 1960s.

All scientific writings, interpretation of archaeological material and documents, for centuries has been by academics educated to this one body of beliefs. All arts and liturature of the last 2000 years has been based on the belief that the Greek gods and heros were Greek! It appears that perhaps they were not.

Homer's tales have been the very basis of our western culture. It is only in the last 40 years or so, that with the great expansion of information available coupled with greater liberalisation of thought, that a challenge to this foundation of our culture may be entertained. Academics of old were unhappy to be proved wrong.

I. H. Piper —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hedleypiper (talk • contribs) .

[edit] Pseudoarchaeology

I won't press the point by continuing to revert if the word pseudoarchaeological is removed again, but the work as described in the text of the article is not proper scholarship and is used by mainstream archaeologists to illustrate improper archaeological thought. --5telios 12:55, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Antiphus 15:24, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pseduoscience

There seems nothing here which is physically demonstrable using the tools of empirical science. It is accordingly rank speculation. JACC

Perhaps, but if we're too include criticism it must be cited to a reliable source. --Sam Blanning(talk) 22:00, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
As opposed to basing a whole encyclopaedia entry on a kooky book and presenting it as truth in the face of hundreds of years of opposing scholarship? --5telios 06:57, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Edit it if you think there's undue weight. Alternatively, you can nominate it for deletion if you don't think the book is notable enough for an article. I have been concerned with the continued lack of demonstration of any recognition of this book (e.g. by citing third-party reviews), despite the fact that I suggested they should be included if any exist back when this article started. However I don't feel comfortable nominating the article myself due to my earlier involvement. --Sam Blanning(talk) 09:53, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
WP has a pretty low threshold for notability, and I think this book meets it by virtue of the high price it commands on the used book market--if it's that expensive, there are people out there who want the book. However, the article needs to make it clear that the scholarly community regards Wilkens' thesis as absurd on its face, when scholars have actually bothered to notice the book. Some relevant quotes are at Talk:Odyssey.
I do question whether we need separate Where Troy Once Stood and Iman Wilkens articles, and whether Wilkens' questionable etymologies and theories should be all over articles on British geography (see [1]). --Akhilleus (talk) 14:32, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Belief

That Homeric Troy might have been at Hissarlik is not! Wilkens' belief but almost a conviction of most if not all people. To change "a belief" in "Wilkins belief" turns things around, and please try to remember that the man's name is Wilkens and not Wilkins. Antiphus 05:22, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Concur. JACC

[edit] Pseudo?history

Why don't we let history decide if this book is history or pseudo history? Are we ever completely sure of what's fact and what's not when it comes to history? At first people told each other that Homer's stories and locations must be considered mythical because nothing seems to fit. Now a new theory comes along which does fit we all say: don't even read this because it can never fit because these stories are myths!, or: no evidence!, or: wrong method! Even if a wrong method was used the theory could still be right. Suppose 6,500 bronze artefacts would have been found round Hissarlik, or the Cambridgeshire rivers mentioned in the article; wouldn't that have been considered proof? For sea-peoples the distance from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean was a matter of weeks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Antiphus (talk • contribs) 12:47, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Should we do the same with science and pseudoscience? Your arguments can be applied there as well. Firstly, your statement of 'at first people told each other that Homer's stories and locations must be considered mythical...' is just false, because prolific writers such as Snodgrass have engaged in debates aroudn that very topic for decades now. The difference between them and Wilkens? The evidence, the method, the training, etc. etc. I could also say the same thing as your 'Suppose...' statement in relation to a theory that Troy was really on the Mississippi delta. 'Supposing' doesn't get you very far in any field. Claims need to be backed up with evidence presented with proper methods of history and historiography. CaveatLectorTalk 18:13, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Excuse me, did I miss something: is the Mississippi delta in Europe? And to say: 'supposing' doesn't get you very far; isn't that a stupid thing to say with so many scholars around? Didn't supposing get us to where we are?Antiphus 18:21, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Remember, my dear Antiphus, that you should be civil. You obviously DID miss something, as I was drawing on a metaphore to show precisely how useless a 'supposition' is in the absense of facts. As scholars, we do not JUST 'suppose'. We derive a thesis from the evidence and then we research to strengthen that thesis. We do not wake up one morning and say 'What if Troy was in England?' I'm not saying that this is what Wilkens did; however, taking a 'supposition' as a pure fact is academically outrageous. CaveatLectorTalk 19:11, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Excuse me for not being civil and thank you for explaining the metaphore (although not really necessary). In case you think I missed something: I've turned around your Mississippi-delta argument because I've heard similar metaphores before. Most often these metaphores are not successful because they are too far-fetched. If we stick to the facts: Mississippi is not in Europe and this river delta doesn't have the characteristics the bay of the Wash does have. Simple as that. The theory about Gog Magog Hills didn't fall out of the sky and wasn't made public lightly. Everybody with more than one braincell knows what it means to claim that Troy was in England. You don't really believe that it takes a scholar in Classical History or Archaeology to understand the gravity of this claim? Because "Troy outside the Mediterranean" looks so incomprehensable at first notice, Wilkens is put in the same category as Velikovsky, Flat Earth Society, Edgar Cayce, etc. etc., or simply called a crank, lunatic fringe. Basta. Case closed. What FACTS make Hissarlik more probable than Gog Magog Hills other than the fact that Hissarlik is in the Mediterranean? If we want to derive a thesis from the evidence, as you propose, and if we look for evidence in the geography and archaeology of the Mediterranean and if we examine what Homer tells us about the Achaean and Trojan customs and if we look at what Mediterranean historians of old tell us and what Cambridgeshire geology and archaeology tells us and what Homer tells us about the warriors, about the ships and considering what we know of the technique of shipbuilding already as early as 5000 years ago in Denmark: ships curved at both ends with overlapping planks; the so called "lapstrake" (yes, I do have references for this other than "unreliable source" Wilkins); and if the evidence that we then have collected is used to derive a thesis, the thesis would be....Academia should be ahead of the rest and not stumble behind. Antiphus 20:41, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Pseudohistory, pseudoarchaeology and original research. If this article is kept at AfD, and that does seem likely, it will need comprehensive clean-up. Its purpose is not to repeat and amplify the arguments in the book, as Antiphus appears to believe. Original research, and the use of Wikipedia as soapbox to advance a particular viewpoint, are not acceptable. Angus McLellan (Talk) 21:08, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Is collecting data from reliable sources, as Wilkens did, and forming a thesis around these data to be considered original research? Is the Fenland Survey not reliable? Homer is not a reliable source? Antiphus 14:57, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Please read WP:OR, especially the section WP:OR#Synthesis of published material serving to advance a position, which states: "Editors often make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article in order to advance position C. However, this would be an example of a new synthesis of published material serving to advance a position, and as such it would constitute original research."
Wikipedia is not the proper venue to prove Wilkens' theories, and I urge you not to try, because any material that violates WP policies will be removed. This will be a waste of your time; surely it took you quite a bit of time to work up the text you put in all those articles on British geography, but that text has been removed or refactored to suit WP policy. If you want to show the world that Wilkens is right, I think your time would be better spent making your arguments in other venues, because Wikipedia is not a soapbox. --Akhilleus (talk) 15:07, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pseudo?history (2)

Pseudo according to Wiktionary: Etymology: From Greek (Ancient) ψευδής (pseudēs), false, lying. Noun: An intellectually pretentious person; a poseur.

Not one of these four qualifications are suitable and therefore I reject this qualification. It's already stated in the article that it is a hypothetical work and that it challenges academic consensus. This should be sufficient. You can add that the work is rejected but pseudo is too strong in my view. Antiphus 19:22, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Try the pseudohistory and pseudoarchaeology articles instead. Especially the suggestion that one characteristic of pseudohistory is "[t]hat competing (and simpler) explanations or interpretations for the same set of facts, which have been peer reviewed and have been adequately sourced, have not been addressed."
As far as the Wiktionary definition of "pseudo-", I'm perfectly comfortable with saying that Wilkens' work is false. Furthermore, it's clear that Wilkens has no training or ability in historical linguistics. Nevertheless he seems confident that he understands the etymology of placenames in the Homeric poems better than the experts, which I'd call "intellectually pretentious". --Akhilleus (talk) 22:56, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Dutch "Breukelen" changed into "Brooklyn" in New York, which can be explained using etymology. But if two words are exactly or practically the same there's no need to start about etymology. Temese in Odyssey and Temese, the Celtic river-name Thames (or rather, as I meant to write: "Temese, the Celtic and Middle English rivername for present-day Thames". (re-edited later by Antiphus)), the same! or Homer's "Tiryns" and French Medieval city of "Tirins" (now Thury-Harcourt), or H: Orneia, F: Orne, or H: Gonoesse, F: Gonesse, practically the same! Nothing pretentious; Facts. Antiphus 05:25, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
And Homer's Troia -> French Troyes? But that would shoot your argument in the foot, no? --5telios 07:39, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
You think that didn't cross Wilkens' mind? Why not read his book if you are interested and if you can find the time. It would make discussion easier. Antiphus 11:59, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
If Wilkens really says that these words are "practically the same" that's more evidence that his handling of the evidence isn't up to snuff. "Temese" and "Thames" are pretty different--for one thing, "t" and "th" are different sounds. But if your comparisons are based on spelling, then the difference between aspirated and non-aspirated probably doesn't seem like a big deal. Furthermore, ancient sources say that Temese is Tempsa in Bruttium or Tamassos in Cyprus; Hadjioannou (Archaeologischer Anzeiger 1966, pp. 205-210) connects it with Alasia in Cyprus. Anyone who says that Temese is in western Europe has some explaining to do, including a linguistic explanation of how the Celtic name got transformed into the Greek form.
But let's stick to what reliable sources say. We have only one scholarly evaluation of Wilkens' work, the Snodgrass article. It's clear that Snodgrass thinks that Wilkens' work is outside the mainstream, to put it kindly. Any work that is so contrary to academic consensus is by definition pseudohistory and pseudoarchaeology. Antiphus has never disputed that Wilkens' work is outside the mainstream, and has never provided a single reliable source that says anything, positive or negative, about Wilkens' work. I'm therefore restoring the categories Category:Pseudohistory and Category:Pseudoarchaeology; if anyone wants to take them out, I think they need to provide some evidence that Wilkens' work fits into mainstream scholarship. --Akhilleus (talk) 14:50, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Dear Akhilleus, I understand that it's all a bit confusing for you. That the Thames once was called Temese is shown here:Thames; Origin of the name Now you may give a linguistic explanation of how the Celtic name got transformed into the Greek form, but I couldn't care less, because I believe Homer was...Celtic. Antiphus 17:55, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Akhilleus. I should apologise for not correctly formulating my remark about Temese and Thames. I caused your confusion by not having formulated my remark as I should have done, which I now partly corrected. What I meant was that Homeric "Temese" is the same word as Middle English "Temese", from which "Thames" is derived.Antiphus 18:40, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the apology. I'm pretty sure initial stops in Middle English were aspirated, just as they are today. In other words, if ME "Temese" were transcribed into Homeric Greek, you'd get something like Θεμέση. But Homer has Τεμέση--the initial "t" is not aspirated. Never mind that this is the wrong historical period--Wilkens needs a proto-Celtic (circa 1200-700 BCE) ancestor of "Thames" for this argument, not a Middle English form. I don't think we know all that much about toponyms where in NW Europe at that time. I'm guessing that Wilkens doesn't deal with this question, though...
You may not care how the Celtic name was allegedly transformed into Greek, but Wilkens' theory depends on the resemblance of place names, right? If there's a theory or theories about the origin of "Temese" that's accpeted by scholarship, Wilkens needs to present a better theory to overturn it. Of course, if you already believe that Homer was Celtic, problem solved. But that's a circular argument--you believe Homer was Celtic, therefore the Greek placenames in the Homeric poems are actually Celtic, therefore Homer was a Celt. This isn't a good way to argue that Wilkens is anything but pseudohistory. I wonder if there's a Category:Pseudolinguistics? --Akhilleus (talk) 19:04, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Why don't you look this [2] up. It says: "most scholars now believe Temese and Tamesis come from Celtic (Brythonic) Tamesa, possibly meaning 'the dark one'." The circular argument to prove Homer is a Celt is your invention, not Wilkens'. He gives other arguments for it: If Homer was Greek, he would have given Athens a much larger role in the Trojan War, as it was always the capital of Greece. The Ionians, who are supposedly Athenians, are mentioned only once in the epic, which is written in Ionian Greek. The fact that the poet does not mention a single person living after the Trojan War is an indication that he was a contemporary of the warriors, the more so as it is absolutely impossible to describe a war in minute detail several centuries after the event. Furthermore, Homer does not describe a Greek culture of the Iron Age but a Celtic culture of the Bronze Age and finally, his geography does not fit the Hellenic world.Antiphus 00:16, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Is this really what Wilkens argues? Did he read *any* Homeric scholarship? Your post is a better demonstration that Wilkens is ignorant of classical scholarship than anything I could write. It's like trying to establish a new theory of physics by refuting the theory of phlogiston; no one believes the things Wilkens supposedly disproves. I'm sure it's hopeless, but I'll respond in detail, just to show how far away from understanding classical scholarship Wilkens is:
1) "If Homer was Greek, he would have given Athens a much larger role in the Trojan War, as it was always the capital of Greece." The word "capital" implies that Greece was a unified nation-state. Anyone who knows even a little bit of Greek history knows this is wrong: Greece was a collection of fractious city-states, and was hardly ever politically unified until the Roman period. I suppose one could argue that Athens was the "capital" in the sense that it was politically and culturally dominant, but this only happened in the 5th century BCE and after, and Athens' power was always contested. By the 5th century, it would have been difficult to make extensive changes in the Homeric poems--nearly everyone agrees that they took definitive shape by the 6th century BCE at least.
2) "The Ionians, who are supposedly Athenians..." Really? That's not quite what Herodotus said. Unfortunately, Perseus doesn't seem to be working at the moment, so I can't provide a link, but in 1.146-147 Herodotus says that the Ionians were of mixed blood, and that only a few Ionian colonists could claim descent from Athens, and even those took wives from the Carians.
3) "are mentioned only once in the epic..." Right. So? The orthodox view is that the Homeric poems were composed in the 8th-7th centuries BCE and depict an idealized past. If it helps, you can think of the poems as a historical novel. If I were writing a novel about the American revolution, I wouldn't have George Washington riding around in a tank. In just the same way, Greeks of the 8th-6th century thought that the Ionian migration happened after the Trojan War, so the poems avoid mentioning Miletus, the Ionians, etc. You and Wilkens are of course free to disagree with this, but the point is that we already have a good idea why Homer only mentions the Ionians once; if Wilkens hopes to convince serious researchers, he needs to respond to current scholarship, not some outdated strawman.
4) "which is written in Ionian Greek." Nope, Homeric Greek.

Homer's Iliad and Odyssey were written in a kind of literary Ionic with some loan words from the other dialects [3]. Antiphus 12:19, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

5) "The fact that the poet does not mention a single person living after the Trojan War is an indication that he was a contemporary of the warriors, ..." See point #3. Most, if not all, classicists who think that Homer preserves a memory of the Bronze Age agree that the poems were transmitted orally over centuries, and reached their final form in the 8th century or later.
6) "the more so as it is absolutely impossible to describe a war in minute detail several centuries after the event." Find me one current classicist who thinks that Homer is an accurate historical description, in minute detail, of the Trojan War. It's epic poetry, based on myth, not a work of historical prose. The comparison to a historical novel applies here too.
7) "Furthermore, Homer does not describe a Greek culture of the Iron Age but a Celtic culture of the Bronze Age and finally, his geography does not fit the Hellenic world." No, see, this is a conclusion, not an argument. Circularity still applies: Homer was a Celt, therefore he was not describing Iron Age Greece, but a Celtic culture of the bronze age, therefore Homer was a Celt.
8) You know, I already pointed out that the River Thames article didn't have a reference for the etymology. So it doesn't help me out to tell me to "look it up": since no reference was provided, I don't know where to go to verify the etymology. But if the article is accurate, the etymology for "Thames" is quite different than the etymology for Τεμέση, so I'm not quite sure what your point is...
P.S. the above post is for entertainment purposes only, Wikipedia content is governed by WP:RS and WP:OR (and this post is definitely OR). --Akhilleus (talk) 04:06, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

(1)Athens was the leading city in Greece during the greatest period of Greek civilization during the 1st millennium BC.[4]. Hardly mentioned by Homer.

If you read one sentence later in the same article, you see that the leading city description refers to the period after 500BC. At the time described in the poems, it is questionable if Athens had a leading position in Attika at the time of the Trojan war, let alone in Greece. --5telios 12:02, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

(3)"In just the same way, Greeks of the 8th-6th century thought that the Ionian migration happened after the Trojan War, so the poems avoid mentioning Miletus, the Ionians, etc." (5)"Most, if not all, classicists who think that Homer preserves a memory of the Bronze Age agree that the poems were transmitted orally over centuries, and reached their final form in the 8th century or later." These quotes conflict with each other: First you state that the poems were composed around 8th-6th century BC, whilst explaining why Miletus, the Ionians, etc. were left out in order to depict an idealized past. Then you state that the poems were already composed earlier and orally transmitted to explain why no persons living after the Trojan War were mentioned.

(7)Not discussing if Homer was a Celt here. I wrote: Homer described a Celtic culture of the Bronze Age; This is about the content of the poems as religion and customs are described. Furthermore, You didn't address the geography of the Mediterranean which doesn't fit the poems as the Atlantic does.

(8)Themese vs. Temese, to me looks more alike than Temese vs. "ancient sources say that Temese is Tempsa in Bruttium or Tamassos in Cyprus; Hadjioannou (Archaeologischer Anzeiger 1966, pp. 205-210) connects it with Alasia in Cyprus". Antiphus 09:54, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

4) "Homer's Iliad and Odyssey were written in a kind of literary Ionic with some loan words from the other dialects [5]." This is a good illustration that WP isn't necessarily the best reference source. The Oxford Classical Dictionary, s.v. "Homer", says:
The language in which the poems are composed contains a mixture of forms found in different areas of the Greek world. The overall flavour is Ionic, the dialect spoken on Euboea, other islands of the eastern Aegean such as Chios, and on the mainland of Asia Minor opposite them. Attic Greek was a subdivision of Ionic, but Atticisms in the epic dialect are rare and superficial...More deeply embedded are certain words and forms which belonged to the dialect of southern Greece in the Mycenaean age, sometimes described as Arcado-Cypriot...
So, it's not far wrong to describe Homeric Greek as a kind of Ionic, but your quote downplays the influence of other dialects. The essential point here is that "Ionic" doesn't mean "Athenian", and in fact the Homeric poems show few traces of Athenian influence in its dialect.
3) and 5) These don't contradict each other. Most classicists think that the poems were composed sometime in the 8th-6th century BCE. Most classicsts also think the poems are based on earlier myths/stories passed down by oral tradition. There's strong disagreement about how much knowledge of the Bronze Age was passed down, and how accurately oral tradition preserved that knowledge, so some people think that the Homeric poems give us good information about bronze age society and culture. But even those people would agree that the poems reached their final form sometime in the Iron Age. "composed" and "reached their final form" are synonymous here.
7) If the sequence of the argument is 1) the customs H. describes don't fit Greek customs, but 2) they do fit Celtic customs, 3) therefore Homer is a Celt, I agree it's not circular. It's just crazy. I'm not interested in trying to refute it; the point of this post is not to argue that Wilkens' argument is wrong. The point here is that Wilkens is not even familiar with what classical scholarship says about Homer; essentially, he didn't do his homework. There's a vast amount of scholarship investigating how Homer does describe Greek culture, society, religion, you name it, and I doubt that Wilkens engages with it, except for some scattered references to M.I.Finley's The World of Odysseus (which is a good book, but a lot's been written since then).
Similarly, I'm not going to bother to argue against Wilkens' geographical ideas, except to note that scholars have written about this too, (see e.g. Luce's Celebrating Homer's Landscapes) and I doubt that Wilkens has bothered to take note of this work.
8) Super. But why should your opinion trump that of experts who have written about the question, especially when you don't seem to understand the difference between aspirated and unaspirated? More importantly, why should we believe Wilkens' opinion, when he doesn't bother to cite the accepted etymologies of "Thames" and Greek Τεμέση, or explain why those etymologies are incorrect? Once again, Wilkens is not operating according to accepted standards of academic argument, and seems unaware of what scholars have written on the question--two marks of a pseudohistorical style. --Akhilleus (talk) 15:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Well done. 212.123.163.102 16:52, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

How about the initial stop in Brythonic "Tamesa"? Was this aspirated? Antiphus 05:16, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../w/h/e/Talk%7EWhere_Troy_Once_Stood_be2a.html"