INTERVIEW - Did the Trojan War take place?

2024-02-09T04:12:37.252Z

Highlights: According to legend, the Trojan War pitted a coalition of Greek cities against the city of Troy, or Ilion, after the kidnapping of Helen, the wife of the king of Sparta, by the Trojan Paris. Several cities claim to be the site of the confrontation. In the 18th century, emerging archeology confronted this mythological literature with one objective: to find the location of Troy. Although we can observe traces of destruction at certain levels of the city, there is nothing to indicate that they correspond to the events described by Homer.

The Trojan War saw legendary heroes clash during a 10-year siege that became legendary. But exactly, how much myth is there in this story? Did the Trojan War even happen? Virginie Girod leads the investigation in the company of Thierry Piel, lecturer in ancient history at the University of Nantes, specialist in archaic civilizations of the Mediterranean basin and the author of Troy, historical portrait of a mythical site (Lemme Edit) . According to legend, the Trojan War pitted a coalition of Greek cities against the city of Troy, or Ilion, after the kidnapping of Helen, the wife of the king of Sparta, by the Trojan Paris. The conflict ends with the destruction of Troy. One of the major sources describing this conflict is Homer's Iliad, written between the end of the 9th and 8th centuries BC. Homer, however, is not a contemporary of the Trojan War; he only takes up elements of an older oral tradition. Furthermore, “in the poem, it is only 56 days in the tenth year of the war” recalls Thierry Piel. There is therefore no mention of what triggered the conflict, or even the destruction of the city. These elements come to us from other stories that make up the Trojan cycle. The myth of the Trojan War is so influential in antiquity that several cities claim to be the site of the confrontation. There is an ancient city called Ilion, near the Dardanelles Strait, in what is now Turkey. “It is a place of memory, (...) we wanted to provide concrete elements, to set topographical milestones for this mythical war” explains Thierry Piel. The Greeks also endeavored to establish a chronology of the war to historicize the myth, the estimated dating of which fluctuates between the 14th century and the 11th century BC. In the 18th century, emerging archeology confronted this mythological literature with one objective: to find the location of the city of Troy. In particular, the self-taught German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann officially cleared the site from 1871. But Schliemann was biased: he wanted to match the historical Ilion, the place of memory, with the legendary Homeric Troy. Although we can observe traces of destruction at certain levels of the city, there is nothing to indicate that they correspond to the events described by Homer. “In no case can we invoke the Trojan War to try to stick to what is an archaeological record, and which must therefore be distinguished from mythology” summarizes Thierry Piel. Themes covered: mythology, archaeology, Trojan War, ancient Greece