Troy and Homer: Towards a Solution of an Old Mystery

In this book Joachim Latacz turns the spotlight of modern research on the much-debated question of whether the wealthy city of Troy described by Homer in the Iliad was a poetic fiction or a memory of historical reality.

Earlier excavations at the hill of Hisarlik, in Turkey, on the Dardanelles, brought no answer, but in 1988 a new archaeological enterprise, under the direction of Manfred Korfmann, led to a radical shift in understanding. Latacz, one of Korfmann's closest collaborators, traces the course of these
excavations, and the renewed investigation of the imperial Hittite archives they have inspired. As he demonstrates, it is now clear that the background against which the plot of the Iliad is acted out is the historical reality of the thirteenth century BC. The Troy story as a whole must have arisen
in this period, and we can detect traces of it in Homer's great poem.


Author: Joachim Latacz
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 02/03/2005
Pages: 362
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.27lbs
Size: 8.74h x 5.76w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9780199263080

About the Author

Joachim Latacz is Professor Emeritus at the University of Basel and the author of Homer: His Art and His World.

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