By John Tiffany. When we read Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, (which just about every schoolchild in America has been asked to do for generations) we naturally assume them to be largely tall tales, set in the eastern Mediterranean area. However, while there are elements of the fantastical in these epics, there is also a solid historical core. That may not surprise TBR readers, but what is surprising is that the setting of the events is not in the modern areas of Greece and Turkey at all (forget about Heinrich Schliemann).
According to a growing number of thinkers, these events happened even earlier than we might have thought, and far to the north, in the lands we think of as the home of the Vikings. Sound farfetched? Read on…
The idea that the Mykenaens had a northern origin is not really a new one, although it may come as a novelty to most TBR readers. It may also come as a surprise to learn that the “Troy” (actually at least nine Troys at what is today Turkey’s Hisarlik) discovered by Heinrich Schliemann may not have been the original Troy of Homer. [Read the entire article as PDF…]
Taken from
The Barnes Review, January/February 2007: Baltic Origin of Homer’s Tales