Moses Finley, a reputable historian, insisted on that point, too. In his book The World of Odysseus (1954), he affirmed that searching through Homers works for authentic testimonies concerning the Trojan War, its causes, outcome and even composition of coalitions is just the same as studying the history of Huns in the 5[[th]] century by the Song of Nibelungs or appealing to the Song about Rolland to reconstruct the course of the Battle of Roncevaux Pass. Finley grounded his doubts on both the data for comparative philology and results of the economic history study of Homers society by means of the model proposed by French anthropologist Marcel Mauss.
In his famous book The Gift (1925), Marcel Mauss studied the mechanism of operation of traditional societys economy based on the gratuitous expenditure principle. According to Mauss, archaic economy does not push advantages. At its bottom there is the potlatch (a holiday held to distribute all of the tribes property; however, another tribe receiving the gifts undertakes to make a greater and more generous potlatch. Thus, accumulated and spent wealth circulation starts, for the prestige of ones and enjoyment of others.[45]
By reconstructing the system of exchange in the Hellenic world, Finley discovered that the socio-economical relations mirrored in Homers poems were close to those existing under eastern despotism and that they were absolutely untypical for the Mycenae society during the Trojan War period (13[[th]] and 12th centuries B.C.). The Iliad and the Odyssey somewhat restored the reality of the 10[[th]] and 9[[th]] centuries B.C. (i.e. the Dark Ages). On this basis, Finley directly stated that the Trojan War depicted by Homer should be razed from the history of the Greek Bronze Age.
Moses Finley had written his book before Michael Ventris and John Chadwick published deciphered results of the so-called linear writing B the most ancient syllabary, samples of which were found on artifacts of Mycenae Greece.[46] The article Evidence for Greek Dialect in the Mycenaean Archives[47] by Ventris and Chadwick provoked a chain reaction in the scientific world. One by one, the studies appeared, reconstructing the Crete and Mycenaean period of ancient history. According to Chadwicks testimony, 432 articles, brochures and books by 152 writers from 23 countries appeared[48] in the period 19531958 alone. These studies demonstrated that linear writing was used in all big centers of Mycenaean Greece as the official writing, and therefore, it was a factor that combined politically different societies in a uniform cultural space. A more important thing was that according to these studied high-level culture and developed political life were there on the Aegean islands of the 2nd millennium B.C.
Fig. 23. Knossos plates with linear writing B (XV century B.C.)
Authoritative French historian Paul Fort asserted: The texts discovered in Knossos, Pylos, Mycenae, Phebe, etc., made it possible, at last, to reconstruct the everyday life of the contemporaries of the Trojan War and even that of a few generations of their predecessors since the 13th century B.C. Due to these, peasants, seamen, handicraftsmen, soldiers, officials once again began speaking and acting. And the golden masks of the Athenian museum became more than simple masks of the dead.[49]
The results of decryption of ancient written sources, together with analysis of archaeological finds, served as an additional argument in favour of Finleys and his predecessors hypothesis that the author of the Iliad did not realize customs and everyday life of the Hellenes in the 13[[th]] and 12[[th]] centuries B.C.
The results of decryption of the Mycenaean written language, along with analysis of the archaeological finds, confirmed that the author ofIliaddid not realize customs and everyday life of the Hellenes in the 13th and 12th centuries B.C.
For the Greek theocratic monarchy in the Trojan War times, the kings were considered as living gods, unapproachable by mere mortals and managing their empires by means of a developed bureaucratic apparatus. According to Homer, the kings were quite close to the people and not devoid of democratic methods of rule.[50]
13
V.P. Tolstikov, Heinrich Schliemann and Trojan Archaeology, The Treasures of Troy. The Finds of Heinricha Schliemann. Exhibiton catalogue (Мoscow: Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts: Leonarde Arte, 1996); p. 18.
14
А.V. Strelkov, The Legend of Doctor Schliemann in G. Schliemann, Ilion. The city and country of the Trojans. Vol. 1 (Мoscow: Central Polygraph, 2009); p. 11.
15
D.A. Traill, Excavating Schliemann: Collected Papers on Schliemann (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1993), p. 40.
16
Seventeen year old Sophia Schliemann was practically bought for 150,000 francs from her uncle, a Greek bishop Teokletos Vimpos.
17
V.P. Tolstikov, Heinrich Schliemann and Trojan Archaeology, The Treasures of Troy. The Finds of Heinricha Schliemann. Exhibiton catalogue (Мoscow: Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts: Leonarde Arte, 1996); p. 18.
18
Carl Blegen, Troy and the Trojans (Praeger, 1963).
19
Heinrich Schliemann, Ilios, City and Country of the Trojans (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
20
Actually it was with the publication in 1950 of his epistolary heritage that the perception of Schliemanns personality began to change. Comparing data from Schliemanns letters and his autobiography, the researchers found that the great archaeologist was lying at every turn.
21
American researcher David Treyll insisted that Priam Treasure was a fraud. D.A. Traill, Excavating Schliemann: Collected Papers on Schliemann (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1993).
22
It was only in 1882 during excavations that architect Wilhelm Dörpfeldw invited to reconstruct urban planning of different periods of the Troy history explained that to Schliemann. After having spent four days in his tent in silence, Schliemann acknowledged that his colleague was right.
23
In 1876 Russian Archaeological Society was trying to buy Schliemanns collection. However, the price was unaffordable.
24
After the exhibition several countries claimed the treasures of Priam: Germany (who received it as a gift), Turkey (where they were found), and even Greece (where they had supposedly belonged).
25
Carl Blegen, Troy and the Trojans.
26
Carl Blegen, Troy and the Trojans.
27
Etymologically the name Hesion associated with the word Asia. Hesion asiyka, a resident of Anatolia. (L.A. Gindin, V.L. Tsymbursky, Homer and the history of the oriental Mediterranean (Мoscow: Vostochnaya Literature, 1996); p. 53).
28
When she became the wife of Telamon, Hesion bore Teucer, who thus became the half-brother of Ajax Telamonid.
29
Carl Blegen, Troy and the Trojans.
30
C. Baikouzis, M.O. Magnasco, Is an eclipse described in the Odyssey? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, June 24 (2008). URL: http://www.pnas.org/content/105/26/8823.full
31
Carl Blegen, Troy and the Trojans.
32
A. Furumark, Mycenaean Pottery I: Analysis and Classification (Stockholm, 1941).
33
Carl Blegen, Troy and the Trojans.
34
Carl Blegen, Troy and the Trojans.
35
Strabo, Geography, XIII, 25.
36
Strabo, Geography, XIII, 27.
37
Strabo, Geography, I, 2.
38
R.V. Gordeziani, Issues of the Homeric Epos (Tbilisi, Tbilisi University Publishing House, 1978); p. 161.
39
Michael Wood, In Search of the Trojan War (Plume, 1987).
40
Lord Byron, Journals, jan. 11, 1821.
41
R.V. Gordeziani, Issues of the Homeric Epos; p. 162.
42
Perhaps the first guess about the difference between time of Homers world and the time described in Iliad was made at the beginning of the 18[[th]] century by Giambattista Vico, an Italian philosopher (See Vico, Giambattista. The New Science, III).
43
During his expedition Parry had written down a poem of a Bosnian Avdo Međedović The Wedding of Meho Smailagić that had more than 12,000 lines, that is equal to the volume of the Odyssey. (Albert B. Lord, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, 1960)). This was the proof of the possibility of a similar volume of works in the unwritten culture.
44
Albert B. Lord, The Singer of Tales.
45
Marcel Mauss, The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies (London: Cohen&West, 1970).
46
Palace at Pylos, where they found the tablets with texts written with this type of writing, was opened in the early 1950s by Carl Blegenom.
47
M. Ventris, J. Chadwick, Evidence for Greek dialect in the Mycenaean archives, The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 73 (1953); pp. 84103.
48
John Chadwick, The Decipherment of Linear B (Cambridge at the University Press, 1967).
49
Paul Faure, La Grèce au temps de la Guerre de Troie. 1250 avant J.-C. (Paris, Hachette, 1975).
50
The leader of the Achaeans Agamemnon makes key decisions not on his own, but at the Military Council. See Iliad, II, 50444.