So, I've been seeing this book, Trojan Odyssey by Clive Cussler, on display at bookstores recently; a few weeks ago I checked it out of the public library and um...ended up reading a little of it...and mostly skimming through to find out about the shocking new location proposed for Troy...Well, well, well: England. Mycenae was in France. Ithaca was at Cadiz. Odysseus' adventures: in the Atlantic and Caribbean...Cussler depends on the recent Where Troy Once Stood, by Iman Wilkens--and also on the more ancient Theophile Cailleux ...
All well and good, but how does he know that Troy wasn't in Croatia??? Or in the Baltic area??? Or in Atlantis [Sanskrit Lanka]???
More outlandish theories are welcome in comments...and is there a website anywhere devoted to, er, shall we say, non-mainstream identifications of the site of Troy?
[CLARIFICATION: The theories don't have to be "more outlandish"--just outlandish, and more of them is what I'm after...]
[UPDATE 2/24/05: N. S. Gill at About.com points to an essay by Tom Slattery, hosted by About.com, speculating about the possible relation between smallpox, Troy, and the Exodus story...Not a different Troy location, but interesting in this context.]
Oh, and how was the book? Well, I like this review posted at Amazon:
I have read nearly 200 books, primarily novels in the past 3 years, including several Clive Cussler novels...this book is without a doubt the worst book I have ever read, period.
Do yourself a favor and literally run from this book. If you see a spare copy laying around somewhere...set it on fire.
First of all, the story line is ridiculous. Cussler is trying to put together evil villians, women who think they're ancient goddesses, Greek mythology, etc. and make some kind of plot/storyline out of it. It's horrible!
Secondly, the dialogue is even worse (if that's possible). It was SO bad I started highlighting the stupid phrases, things nobody would ever say in real life. I stopped reading the book when my highlighter went dry from all of the marks.
And lastly, I thought if Cussler spent another full page describing one of Pitt's stupid cars, or leapt from the story line into another 8 sentence description of some wine that's being drunk, I was gonna have to kill myself.
There's also http://phdamste.tripod.com/ which discusses a NW European Troy. It includes a paper given to the 'Herodoteans', Classical Society of the University of Cambridge, titled 'The Trojan Kings of England'.
Posted by: Alun | February 23, 2005 at 04:13 AM
Troy was in Egypt!
(Click the link below)
Posted by: Robot Wisdom | February 23, 2005 at 02:13 PM
"Do yourself a favor and literally run from this book. If you see a spare copy laying around somewhere...set it on fire."
Lol!
Nix
Posted by: Nix Harris | February 24, 2005 at 04:28 AM
i think that troy was lacated in turkey.i remember reading some where that the greeks wanted to controll the aegean sea, and troy stood in their way. so wouldn't that mean it was possable that troy was in turkey? i'm only a freshman in college but it seems logical to me.
Posted by: jen | October 16, 2005 at 06:25 PM
Jen,
You're right--Northwest Turkey (specifically the site of Hissarlik) is the traditionally recognized location of Troy; these other theories are certainly "non-mainstream."
Posted by: Mischa | October 17, 2005 at 12:28 AM
Umm...lol Troy was found years ago why are you debating on its location?
Posted by: Adam | October 17, 2005 at 12:53 PM
Umm...lol Troy was found years ago why are you debating on its location?
Posted by: Adam | October 17, 2005 at 12:53 PM
You are all wrong! Iman Wilkens is right on the money, Celts and troy are english, and the locations that Wilkens has described in his book, are almost spot on, some minor variations, but almost a perfect deduction of the real truth of troy.
Forget about Cusslers stoyline, it was the fact that he read Wilkens book that gave him the loose idea for another vehicle for his Dirk Pitt character and more money in the bank, but the facts in Wilkens book are not far short of the truth.
Why do I say this? how do I come to this conclusion?
I have been a Royal Navy Diver most of my Adult life, and have been on salvage operations and deep sea dives all around the world, and always liked to read books by other like minded of the diving fraternity as a way of passing time when on board ship etc.
After reading Cusslers book, I was intrigued enough to convince a friend who is also an ex navy diver, to go and follow the trail described in Wilkens book.
Its taken us over 2 years of research and diving, but we have located artifacts and evidence that prooves beyond doubt, that what Wilkens has written, is in fact, a very good account of the real Troy and the voyages.
Troy was in England, not Turkey or Croatia or anywhere else, and the Greeks are pretenders to the titles given by historians.
We have enough evidence now, and shall soon be approaching media and other interested parties, to announce these findings.
What we have discovered will blow the history books into confusion, and will make the Da Vinci Code look like a childs story book!
keep your eyes on the press!
regards
loz and mike
Posted by: loz | January 25, 2006 at 11:24 AM
What are you waiting for? That's amazing stuff right there. I sure hope that information gets shared with the rest of the world.
Posted by: Nick | January 23, 2007 at 06:25 PM
troy is in western romania on the shore of the pannonian sea which finally disappeared in the 16th century. see the largest earthworks in europe [troy] just 20km north of timisoara today! don't miss the huge tumuli, the monsterous war dykes and anything else you might have ever looked for but couldn't find.
Posted by: orf | May 28, 2007 at 10:10 PM
In the beginning I didn't believe Eman Wilkens.
After seeing the bronze age boat in Dover, I spent my hollidays visiting the places Eman Wilkens names.
I have been to Cadiz, and mount Espartos. Both are exactly described by Homer.
I have been to Troys and many other places in France.
This summer I spent between the Wash and the Gog Magog Hills.
All the descriptions of gods sitting on mountains watching the war go on can be seen in the landscape.
The place indicated to be Troy could have been a hill fort. It is demolished, that can be seen.
Later I went to Cornwall. There I saw a prehistoric tin mine and Sint Michaels Mount. The Scilla and Charibdis as Homer describes it.
With the knowledge from the book and the knowledge of the countryside I reread both Odyssey and Iliad. It is a different story. If you get a translation that does not use the word greek for aecheans or archeans it is even better. Many translations try to fit the story in the Meditairenean.
It will take a long time before this new story will be accepted.
Regards Frank
Posted by: Frank Sjoukes | August 21, 2007 at 03:40 AM
Well, loz and mike promised great revelations 2 years ago, where are they?
Wilkens states "It also appears that Homer's Greek contains a large number of loan words from western European languages, relatively more often from Dutch rather than English, French or German." These languages only developed around 1000 years after Homer, so Wilkens claim is clearly impossible.
Homer's description of boat-building is the oldest such description and was long rejected as it was felt that it referred to boat building in Homer's time. More recent research shows that it does describe how the Greeks built ships at that time. Casson L., Ships and Seamanship in the ancient world (Princeton, 1973) Du Plat Taylor J., (ed) Marine Archaeology (London, 1965)
Michael Wood in his bookIn Search of the Trojan War refers to several artefacts described by Homer:
1. The tower-shaped body shield associated with the character Ajax and
found on the Thera frescoes (and obsolete by the time of the Trojan War.
2. The figure-of-eight shield found on various 13th century frescoes, eg
at Knossos, Mycenae and Tiryns.
3. The silver-studded sword, known from 15th and 16th century finds.
4. Leg greaves found in Bronze age tombs, but not in Iron Age ones.
5. The boar's-tusk helmet - numerous representations and a full example
from Knossos -- Homer's description was very good, even telling how the
tusks are laid in rows with the curves alternating.
Nestor's Cup -- a cup matching Homer's description was excavated by Heinrich Schliemann http://www.ancient-greece.org/images/museums/athens-mycenaean/pages/athens-mus-mycenaean005.html
While Wilkens argues that England matches the descriptions in Homer, recent geological research shows that the descriptions in the Iliad match with the sedimentology and geomorphology of the area around Hissarlik. Harbor areas at ancient Troy: Sedimentology and geomorphology complement Homer's Iliad, John C. Kraft, George (Rip) Rapp, Ilhan Kayan and John V. Luce Geology; February 2003; v. 31; no. 2; p. 163-166 http://www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/2003/troy030303.html
There are loads of other problems -- river names, for instance. where he creates his own etymologies.
Or the Catalog of Ships. It's generally thought that this is an interpolation, a Mycenaean
Catalogue (doesn't Wilkens mention this important point?)
See for instance the book The Catalogue of the Ships in Homer's "Iliad" by
R. Hope Simpson; J. F. Lazenby
which says that it mentions:
""places which can be fairly securely located, and which, on our present
evidence at least, were inhabited in the Mycenaean period, but were not
inhabited subsequently-or at least not until after the eighth century
B.c."
Posted by: Doug Weller | February 29, 2008 at 05:11 AM