Joachim Latacz ; translated from the German by Kevin Windle and Rosh Ireland.
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.
New York :
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
Oxford University Press,
Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.
2004.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item
1 online resource (xvii, 342 pages) :
Other Physical Details
illustrations, maps
INTERNAL BIBLIOGRAPHIES/INDEXES NOTE
Text of Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 318-329) and index.
CONTENTS NOTE
Text of Note
pt. 1. -- Troy -- pt. 2. -- Homer.
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SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
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.