|TROY AND ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN HISTORY Ralph S. Pacini,
The Trojan War moved from myth to reality in the late nineteenth century with the discovery of the ruins of an ancient eastern Mediterranean city identified as the Troy of Homer. After a century of extensive study by archeologists and historians, many puzzling problems remain about the relationship of Troy to other Mediterranean sites. These problems appear to be primarily chronological, including a requisite “dark age” for Greece. The work of Velikovsky, supplemented by Courville and others offers some startling solutions to these problems, resulting in a flood of synchronisms including an indirect relationship to biblical events, and suggests other lines of inquiry. _______________________________________
The Trojan war is a pivotal event in the early history of Greece and the Mediterranean region, not because of its exact location, its causes, or its outcome, or the identities of the combatants. Its historic importance is directly proportional to the enormous popularity of Homer’s Iliad in the ancient Mediterranean world. Looking back at the ancient Greek and Roman writings on the subject, it is readily apparent that the authors treated the Trojan War as an historic event, and frequently used the Fall of Troy as a chronologic reference point. King Xerxes of Persia, Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar were among the ancient leaders, who, in the course of their military conquests, actually visited the reputed site of ancient Troy to pay honor to the fallen heroes.1 Roman and Greek authors related the founding of Rome and numerous other Mediterranean cities to the fall of Troy. However, as the centuries passed, and we entered our industrial and scientific ages, Homer’s epic tended to be relegated to the status of a fanciful myth or legend. Suddenly, in the late nineteenth century, Heinrich Schliemann, claiming the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, excavated and exposed what appeared to be the fabled city of Troy on Hissarlik, a mound on the eastern Mediterranean coast within sight of the Dardenelles. Despite much continuing controversy about Schliemann’s original findings, subsequent careful investigation leaves little doubt about an historic basis for Homer’s famous story.
1. Muller, Herbert J., The Loom of History, Harper, New York, 1958, pp. 93-96
2. The Mound of Hissarlik
Sites of ancient human habitation in the middle east are usually located in “tells” – great mounds that have been shown to consist of layers of debris from successive human cultures inhabiting the site. The study of these layers frequently carried down to bed rock, has become increasingly sophisticated, making use of the emerging technology of our time. Each layer is numbered sequentially, beginning with the deepest layer, and is identified according to its resident artifacts, allowing comparison to similar artifacts at other sites for dating purposes. Ancient texts found on monuments, temples, tombs, clay tablets, papyri, etc., are of obvious value. Among the artifacts, pottery has been particularly useful as a marker because of its ubiquitous presence, and has been extensively cataloged for this purpose. Art forms, including jewelry, have also been studied and cataloged. In addition, tools and weapons have been used to define the relevant “Archaeologic Age”, i.e., stone , bronze, or iron.2
2. Brothwell, Don & Higgs, Eric, Science In Archeology, Basic Books, Inc., New York, 1963. Regrettably, archaeologic ages have evolved into a sort of shell game because of the endless subdivisions, and the absence of firm evidence for the sequential arrangements.
Today, as a result of detailed archaeologic study, there is a general consensus that the mound of Hissarlik is indeed the site of the historic Troy of Homer. The mound contains nine major layers. The deepest layer, labeled Troy I, is thought to represent a stone age village dating to about 3,000 B.C. The Troy of Schliemann, the second city, or Troy II, turned out to be much more ancient than the Troy of Homer. It is conventionally dated 2500-2200 B.C., and considered contemporary with the Old Minoan, Old Mycenian, and Old or Middle Kingdoms of Egypt on the basis of pottery, art forms, and other artifacts.3 It was found 23 to 33 feet below the surface, covered or encased by several feet of rock hard reddish “Trojan wood ash”, almost certainly of volcanic origin. No man-made fire could possibly account for this thick layer of rock hard material which had hidden its contents and supported the foundations of five or six more cities. The finding of much valuable treasure in Troy II also speaks strongly against its being sacked and burned by human conquerors. It must have come to its end suddenly by some sort of volcanic cataclysm.4
3. Courville, Donovan A., The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, Challenge Books, 1971. Courville demonstrated that the Old and Middle Kingdoms of Egypt existed in parallel, and both ended during the same series of natural disasters and the “Hyksos” invasion. The so-called “intermediate periods” of Egypt simply represented the centuries of Hyksos domination, about which very little is known. See also Pacini, R., In Search of Amalek, Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, Vol. 11 (1), 1997, pp. 117-119.
4. de Grazia, Alfred, Paleo-Calcinology: Destruction by Fire in Pre-historic and Ancient Times, KRONOS, Vol. I, No. 4, pp. 25-36 & Vol. II, No. 1, pp. 63-71. Also Samner, Jan N., Troy And The Greek Dark Age and Sicily, Carthage, And The Fall Of Troy, KRONOS, Vol. VIII, No. 2, pp. 1-17.
The Troy of Homer is now thought to be Troy VI, conventionally dated 1800-1250 B.C., contemporary with the Middle Minoan and Middle Mycenian Kingdoms, and the 18th and 19th Egyptian dynasties. Its beautifully built sloping walls appear just as Homer described them, except for the total size – an area limited to a mere five acres. It also shows significant evidence of earthquake damage, which some believe may account for the fall of Troy to the Greeks. Interestingly, Troy VII, contains classic Greek artifacts and is found immediately on top of and intermingled with Troy VI, a most curious anomaly, considering the four to five hundred year “dark age” which should have left a significant layer of debris. Troy VIII was an Hellenic Greek town, built right on top of Troy VI-VII, initially walled in the late fourth century B.C. by Lysarchus, one of Alexander’s generals. Finally, Troy IX, the “New Ilium”, was built in Roman times and eventually abandoned about the time of the Ottomans.
3. The Egyptian Connection
Since the 19th Egyptian dynasty is firmly fixed by historians to 1350-1200 B.C., and there is compelling archaeologic and ancient historic evidence linking it to the Trojan War, the fall of Troy has been placed between 1250 and 1150 B.C. despite much contrary evidence from both ancient writings and modern research. Interestingly, conventional history cannot produce anything of Greek origin between the Trojan war and the seventh century, so a “dark age” of some four to five hundred years was created to fill the gap, apparently without even considering the possibility that the dating of the 19th dynasty of Egypt might be in error.
How did this linkage to an Egyptian standard come about? Beginning in Napoleonic times, an enormous volume of Egyptian artifacts was distributed to the museums of the west. Despite the poor quality and confusing nature of much of this material, the subsequent finding of many Egyptian artifacts in other eastern Mediterranean regions led archeologists and historians to gradually substitute consensus for scientific candor, and use Egyptian chronology as a reasonable standard against which all ancient middle east history can be measured. This process was accelerated by claims that astronomers could lock certain Egyptian events to our calendar by astronomical retro-calculation, supplemented in recent years by radio-isotope dating techniques. Considering the enormous volume of research and scholarly texts based on this Egyptian standard in the past century, it is no surprise to find this standard rigidly enforced throughout the academic world. This has been particularly evident in the reaction to Immanuel Velikovsky, who began publishing a series of books and articles in 1952 detailing a radical reconstruction of Egyptian chronology. In the first book of this series, he presented extensive evidence for moving Egyptian dynasty 18 forward by more than five centuries, ending about 830 B.C., instead of 1350 B.C.5 Among Dr. Velikovsky’s publications is an article titled, “Astronomy And Chronology“, a scholarly refutation of the astronomical basis for certain “fixed” dates which are the pillars of Egyptian chronology.6 A similar refutation is included in a recent publication by David Rohl, a scholar in Egyptology and Ancient History at University College in London.7
5. Velikovsky, Immanuel, Ages In Chaos, Doubleday, New York, 1952.
6. Velikovsky, Immanuel, Astronomy And Chronology, first published in PENSEE, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1973, and again as a supplement to Peoples Of The Sea, Doubleday, New York, 1977.
7. Rohl, David M., Pharaohs And Kings, A Biblical Quest, Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, 1995.
4. The Chronologies of Ancient Authors
The presently accepted date for the Trojan War (ca 1250 B.C.) is incompatible with most of the relevant surviving works of ancient Greek and Roman authors, whose chronologies are not given much credence except when they happen to agree with conventional dating. To some extent, this is understandable because these writings have frequently been shown to be based on poor information and the authors have a general tendency to overestimate the antiquity of their respective people. For example, Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), in a relatively unknown book about ancient chronology published posthumously, made some interesting comments about ancient Greek authors. His book began with this remarkable statement:
The Greek Antiquities are full of Poetical Fictions, because the Greeks wrote nothing in Prose, before the conquest of Asia by Cyrus the Persian.
He concluded that the Greeks made no mention of the Olympiads until at least sixty years after the death of Alexander:
So then a little after the death of Alexander the great, they began to set down the Generations, Reigns and Successions, in numbers of years, and by putting Reigns and Successions equipollent to Generations, and three Generations to an hundred and twenty years (as appears by their Chronology) they have made the Antiquities of Greece three or four hundred years older than the truth. And this was the original of the Technical Chronology of the Greeks. Eratosthenes wrote about an hundred years after the death of Alexander the great: He was followed by Apollodorus, and these two have been followed ever since by Chronologers.(sic)9
8. Newton, Sir Isaac, The Chronology Of Ancient Kingdoms, Amended, Originally published London, 1728, Reprint 1988, p. 1.
9. Newton, ref. 8, p. 3.
Velikovsky studied ancient writings intensively for clues to the mysteries of the past. While admiring the accomplishments of the ancient authors, he expressed reservations quite similar to those of Isaac Newton:
In composing his history of Egypt and putting together a register of its dynasties, Manetho was guided by the desire to prove to the Greeks, the masters of his land, that the Egyptian people and culture were much older than theirs or than the Babylonian nation and civilization. Berosus, a Chaldean priest and a contemporary of Manetho, tried to prove to the Greeks under the Seleucid rulers the antiquity of Assyro-Babylonian history and therefore he extended that history into tens of thousands of years. Similarly, Eratosthenes, a learned Greek from Cyrenaiaca, chief librarian at the Alexandrian library under Ptolemy II and III, a younger contemporary of both Manetho and Berosus, tried to prove the excellence of his Greek nation by claiming for it a great antiquity reaching back into mythical times… This tendency similarly displayed by these three men must be kept in mind when we deal with the chronology of the ancient world.10
But Velikovsky and others also recognized that these writings often contain valuable clues to historic synchronisms, and deserve to be continually compared to the best available modern information in the interest of improving our understanding of the ancient world. Regrettably, our perception has, by general consensus, been limited to the view seen through the prism of Egyptian history.
10. Velikovsky, Immanuel, Peoples Of The Sea, Doubleday, New York, pp. 207-8.
5. Carthage And The Fall Of Troy
Carthage had been the primary source of Phoenician influence in the west for several centuries before it was leveled to the ground by the Romans in 146 B.C. Though Phoenicians had their own historians and official documents, and are credited with imparting the alphabet to the Greeks, their writings perished, and we are dependant primarily on Greek and Roman authors for information about Carthage. These ancient Mediterranean authors, including the Roman historian Appian, Greek chronographer Timaeus, Jewish historian Josephus, and fourth century Sicilian chronographer Philistos tended to date the founding of Carthage to the late ninth century, about 825 B.C., followed in 72 years by the founding of Rome in 753 B.C. These dates are generally accepted by modern historians despite very poor supporting evidence. But they have uniformly rejected the statements of these same authors that the fall of Troy occurred about 37 years after the founding of Carthage, ca. 788 B.C. This strange selectivity resulted from the firm archaeologic linkage of the fall of Troy to the 19th Egyptian dynasty, conventionally dated 1350-1200 B.C.(see above)11
11. Courville, ref. 3, Vol. 2, p. 274, names other ancient authors to illustrate the same chronology, including Justin, Orosius, Philo-Biblius, and Virgil.
If one accepts Velikovsky’s date [ 830 B.C.] for the end of Egyptian dynasty 18, then 788 B.C. becomes a very appropriate date for the fall of Troy, providing dynasty 19 followed immediately after dynasty 18. While Courville accepted this arrangement, Velikovsky insisted that dynasty 19 did not follow immediately after dynasty 18, but was preceded by the Libyan and Ethiopian dynasties 22 to 25, delaying the emergence of dynasty 19 until the early seventh century (i.e., after 700 B.C.).12 It was at this time, in the early seventh century in the time of Isaiah, that Assyrian king Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem with an army of 185,000 men, destroyed miraculously in a single night. According to Hebrew legend:
12. Velikovsky, Immanuel, KRONOS, Vol. III, No. 3, pp. 3-33; Vol. IV, No. 3, pp. 3-22; Vol. V, No. 3, pp. 1-10, Vol. VIII, No. 2, pp.18-20; Vol. IX, No. 2, pp. 1-2.
After the destruction of the Assyrian army, when the Jews searched the abandoned camps, they found Pharaoh the king of Egypt and the Ethiopian king Tirhaka. These kings hastened to the aid of Hezekiah, and the Assyrians had taken them captive and clamped them in irons, in which they were languishing when the Jews came upon them.13
13. Ginzberg, Louis, The Legends of the Jews, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1913, Vol. IV, p. 271.
According to Velikovsky the Egyptian pharaoh found in chains was Seti I, founder of the 19th dynasty. He claimed support for this identification from Herodotus, delaying the emergence of dynasty 19 to the early seventh century.14
14. Velikovsky, KRONOS, Vol. III, No. 3, pp. 12-13.
6. The Chronology Of Carthage
In 1983, four years after Velikovsky’s death, Jan N. Samner, Associate Editor of KRONOS, published a pair of articles about Troy. After reviewing the archeology of Troy, and the relevant writings of ancient authors about the chronology of that era, the author cited the latest archaeologic studies conducted at the site of ancient Carthage (see above and below). It seems that after many years of digging, archeologists penetrating to the lowest levels of the most ancient buildings in Carthage, were unable to come up with anything older than the last quarter of the eighth century, ca. 725 B.C. This shift of one century suggests a late eighth or early seventh century date or the fall of Troy, and seems to fit perfectly with Velikovsky’s placement of Egyptian dynasty 19.15
If the Trojan War really took place in the late eighth or early seventh century at the height of the Assyrian Empire, it seems reasonable to wonder about the total absence of any reference to Assyria in the Homeric epic and in all the ancient commentaries on the subject. According to the nineteenth century historian, George Rawlinson, Assyrian arms never penetrated westward beyond Cilicia.16
15. Samner, ref. 4. Velikovsky may not have known about the archaeologic evidence from Carthage before his death in 1979.
16. Rawlinson, George, The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, Dodd, Mead & Company, New York, 1870, Vol. II. p. 235.
7. The Revised Chronology
In consideration of the observations described above, a re-examination of ancient writings should be of interest.
A. From Herodotus: Herodotus has been subjected to much criticism by modern historians because, measured against conventional chronology, his famous “The Histories” is said to contain numerous anachronisms.
1. On page 177 of Book Two, Herodotus wrote about Solon’s visit to Egypt in the days of Pharaoh Amasis of the late 19th dynasty:
“Amasis established an admirable custom which Solon borrowed and introduced at Athens where it is still preserved ….”.
To historians, this story is a gross anachronism because the 19th dynasty ended ca. 1200 B.C. Velikovsky’s dynasty 19 ended with the Persian conquest of Egypt in 525 B.C., and this story is a perfect fit.
2. In describing the defeat of Lydian King Croesus by King Cyrus of Persia in 546 B.C., Herodotus referred to a mutual defense treaty between King Croesus and Pharaoh Amasis of the late 19th Egyptian dynasty.17 Though considered a severe anachronism by conventional standards, this is entirely in keeping with our revision.
17. Herodotus, ref. 17, I. 77.
3. In Book One, pages 93-6, Herodotus told about a prolonged famine that occurred a few decades before the Trojan war in the ancient kingdom of Lydia, in what is now western Turkey. He described how half the population set sail to look for a new home under the command of Prince Tyrrhenus. Sailing west, they eventually settled in Umbria in northern Italy where they became known as Tyrrhenians, ancestors of the Etruscans. Since there is no archaeologic evidence of Etruscan presence in northern Italy before the late eighth century, this story is considered another of Herodotus’ anachronisms, again based on the conventional date for the Trojan War. Our revised date produces a perfect fit. [Of additional interest to those of us with Etruscan roots, Herodotus wrote that the Lydians were known anciently as “Maeonians” (VII.70). When I was a boy, my father’s employees were mostly immigrants from Tuscany, the land of the ancient Etruscans. One of them was named “Maeo”.]
4. In Book Two, pages 111-119, Herodotus presented an interesting discussion of the Egyptian view of the Trojan War, which took place during the reign of a King Proteus, identified with the early 19th dynasty (See below). The Egyptians claimed that Paris was driven into the Nile Delta by storms, and that Helen and the goods stolen from her husband were kept in Egypt until reclaimed after the war by her husband Menalaus. Paris was forced to sail away with his other companions. The Egyptians argued that King Priam would not have sacrificed his sons and kingdom fighting over a mere woman. Herodotus expressed a belief that Homer knew this story, but “rejected it as less suitable for epic poetry than the one he actually used”.18
18. Courville, ref. 3, See Vol. 1, pp. 297-8 for more comments.
B. From Homer: The Phrygians were described by Homer as allies of King Priam of Troy. Their time and place of origin is uncertain, but Greek tradition has the Phrygians coming from Thrace; no archaeologic evidence has been found dating earlier than about 800 B.C. Their chief city was Gordion (of “Gordion Knot”), the seat of King Gordias, founder of the dynasty, and the King Midas of legend. The Phrygian kingdom came to its end ca 687 B.C. when they fell to the Cimmerians from the north during the natural catastrophes in the time of Isaiah. Their linkage to the Trojan War is considered a horrible anachronism by historians, but fits perfectly with Velikovsky’s revision.19
19. Velikovsky, Immanuel, Ramses II and His Time, Doubleday, 1978, pp. 153-4. Velikovsky believed the Cimmerian occupation was transient, and followed by occupation by Lydia from the west, and the Chaldeans from the east, whom he identified as the “Hittite Empire”.
C. From Egyptian & Greek Sources Via Courville: 1. Comparing Egyptian and Greek sources, Courville supported the synchrony between the Trojan War of Homer and Egyptian dynasty 19 by quoting Manetho through Africanus and Eusebius:
“Thuoris, who in Homer is called Polybus, husband of Alcandra, and in whose time Troy was taken, reigned for 7 years.”
This king, Thuoris, belonged to the 19th dynasty. Another Egyptian source, the Sothic King List, has an appended note stating that after the close of the Trojan war, Menalaus and his restored wife, Helen, visited Egypt during the rule of this same king Thuoris. Courville further identified Thuoris with king Proteus of Herodotus, whom he placed in the era of Seti I, also of the XIXth Dynasty. Courville believed Thuoris, like Seti I, was one of the local rulers in the Nile Delta at that time.20
20. Manetho’s Thuoris = Herodotus’ Proteus = Homer’s Polybus, all identified with the era of Seti I of the XIXth Dynasty. See Courville, ref. 3, Vol. 1, pp. 284-5, 291, 298; Vol. 2, p 270.
2. Courville defended the chronology of Virgil’s famous story about the founding of Rome by the Trojan hero, Aeneas. This has been regarded as a ridiculous romantic anachronism, with the added disclaimer that almost every European nation created its own mythical ancestors from Trojan heroes. As noted above, modern historians have universally accepted the statements of ancient authors dating the founding of Rome 72 years after the founding of Carthage, i.e. 753 B.C., while rejecting the claim of these same authors that the fall of Troy occurred about 37 years after the founding of Carthage, i.e. ca. 788 B.C.. Since the founding of Rome now appears to have taken place ca 653 B.C., and the fall of Troy ca. 688 B.C., the story linking Aeneas with Dido, sister of Phoenician king Pygmalion, and with the founding of Rome may still be a ridiculous romantic fiction but it is finally in synchrony with regional history.21
21. Manetho’s Thuoris = Herodotus’ Proteus = Homer’s Polybus, all identified with the era of Seti I of the XIXth Dynasty. See Courville, ref. 3, Vol. 1, pp. 284-5, 291, 298; Vol. 2, p 270.
D. From Mediterranean Sources Via Jan N. Samner: Greek colonization of the western Mediterranean began near the end of the eighth century and the early seventh century, apparently as they emerged from the cataclysmic turmoil at the close of the Middle Mycenean Age in the era of the Trojan War. This period saw major migrations of people throughout the Mediterranean region resulting in the founding of numerous cities.22
22. Samner, ref. 4, pp. 11-17.
1. Generally accepted tradition places the founding of Syracuse on the eastern coast of Sicily ca. 735 B.C. 2. According to Thucydides, Gela on Sicily’s southern shore, was “built in the forty-fifth year after Syracuse by Antiphemus, that brought a colony out of Rhodes”, ca. 690 B.C. 3. Eusebius also affirmed that Gela was founded ca. 690 B.C., the same year as the founding of Phaselis in Asia Minor. 4. Philostephanos, a Greek historian, wrote that Gela was founded by one of the warriors who took part in the Trojan War. Antiphemus, the founder of Gela, was a brother of Lacius who founded Phaselis, both brothers coming from Rhodes, and both having been associated with Mopsus, another warrior. 5. Segesta in western Sicily was founded, by tradition, in the late eighth, early seventh century, by a Trojan named Aegestes. 6. There is extensive archaeologic evidence supporting the Mycenian origin of many Sicilian towns, founded by the Greek and Trojan survivors of the Trojan War. Middle Mycenian artifacts including tholos tombs exactly like those in Mycenae, Mycenian pottery, gold bowls, and other art forms are found in a number of Sicilian sites, including Muxaro on the southern coast, and Segesta in the west, traditionally founded in the years following the Trojan War by the Trojan named Aegestes(see above).23
23. Samner, ref. 4, pp. 11-17.
E. From Velikovsky: 1. The Trojan War occurred in the time of the prophet Isaiah, and the celestial war of the gods in Homer’s Iliad represented a cosmic interaction between Earth, Moon, Mars, and Venus.24
24. Velikovsky, Immanuel, Worlds In Collision, Doubleday, New York, 1950, Part II, Chap. 3.
2. Velikovsky believed that ancient Volsinium, the chief city of the Etruscans, was destroyed by an exploding bolide or other cosmic catastrophe during the era of the Trojan War, accounting for a sudden decline in Etruscan power. Our revision makes this event potentially relevant chronologically to the founding of Rome by the Latins.25
25. Velikovsky, ref. 24, p. 273.
8. Other “Myths”
Ancient authors clearly believed in the historic basis of Homer’s stories about Troy and the Trojan War. These authors also wrote about a number of regional natural disasters associated with terrifying disturbances in the heavens which they seemed to treat as historic, though shrouded in mythical mystery. Since modern studies seem to lend support to the attitude of the ancients toward fabled Troy, it seems reasonable to engage in some speculation about the other legends out of ancient Greece, as transmitted in the writings of Plato, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plutarch, and others.
In Plato’s Timaeus, the primary source of these legends, the story is told of Solon’s visit to Egypt, where he spent several years. By the revision here defended, this would have taken place in the mid sixth century, during the late 19th Egyptian Dynasty. According to Plato, Solon was told by the Egyptian priests that the Greeks had been so slow developing their language and culture because their land had been destroyed repeatedly by natural disasters of fire and water, each time leaving only a few survivors who had to start all over again. In these catastrophes, “..the literary works..and their learned men perished; for that reason the Greeks were still childish, as they no longer knew the true horrors of the past.”26 These ancient Greek legends include:
26. Velikovsky, ref. 24, p. 145.
1. The Flood Of Deucalion covering the entire Greek land mass, and survived only by Deucalion and his wife. 2. The “Conflagration Of Phaethon” associated with widespread destruction by fire, ending in the appearance of the evening star.27
27. In an article posted on the internet (ca. 2007) about the relationship of the Phaethon explosion to the Exodus events, Emilio Spedicato, Department of Mathematics, University of Bregamo, argues (p. 29) that the traditional date for the founding of Rome (753 B.C.) should be moved forward by a century.
3. The disappearance of the large island of Atlantis, located in the Atlantic ocean west of modern Gibraltar. 4. The Flood of Oxyges, also involving the Greek land mass, but apparently less extensive than the flood of Deucalion.
Velikovsky was a forceful advocate of the historic basis of these legends. He believed that the flood of Deucalion, the conflagration of Phaethon, and the disappearance of Atlantis all occurred during the lifetime of Moses (ca 1525-1405) in the era of the EXODUS. According to Velikovsky, Eusebius placed the flood of Deucalion and the conflagration of Phaethon in the fifty-second year of Moses’ life; he also noted that Augustine placed the Flood of Deucalion in the time of Moses, assuming that the Flood of Oxyges occurred somewhat earlier. But Velikovsky believed the Flood of Oxyges followed the larger flood of Deucalion, occurring in the days of Joshua; he thought that the flood of Deucalion would have wiped out all memory of any previous flood.28 Other ancient chronologists quoted by Velikovsky calculated that the flood of Deucalion took place in the time of Moses, but not simultaneous with the EXODUS.29
28. Velikovsky considered Oxyges to be the Greek version of Agog, the first Hyksos king of Egypt during the waning years of Moses into the time of Joshua. See Worlds In Collision, pp. 149-50 for details. Velikovsky devoted an entire chapter of Ages In Chaos, 1952, to his identification of the Hyksos of Egypt with the Amalekites of Scripture.
29. Velikovsky, ref. 26, Chap. 7 and KRONOS, Vol. VIII, No. 2, pp. 15-16. Also Courville, Vol. 2, p. 274.
9. Conclusions & Speculations
The proposed correction of Egyptian chronology produces a veritable flood of synchronisms in the ancient middle east, affirming many of the statements by ancient authors which have been discarded by historians as anachronisms. The broad outlines of the reconstruction may be listed as follows:
1. The Troy of Schliemann, Troy II, perished along with the Old Minoan, Old Mycenean, and the Old and Middle Egyptian Kingdoms30 in the cataclysms of the mid fifteenth century associated with the era of the EXODUS during the lifetime of Moses and Joshua. This included the flood of Deucalion, the conflagration of Phaethon, and the sinking of Atlantis, followed by the flood of Oxyges.
30. According to Courville’s reconstruction, the Early and Middle Kingdoms of Egypt were parallel.
2. The Troy of Homer, Troy VI, perished in the somewhat less spectacular cataclysms in the days of Isaiah (739?685) along with the Middle Minoan and Middle Mycenaean Kingdoms, coinciding with the early days of the native 19th Egyptian Dynasty, which struggled to emerge in the face of repeated Assyrian incursions, aided at least temporarily by the miraculous destruction of the army of Assyrian king Sennacherib at the gates of Jerusalem in 687 B.C.
3. The Trojan War period was a time of continuing widespread earthquakes and natural disasters inducing massive migrations throughout the Mediterranean region resulting in the founding of many new cities, including Rome.
4. The so-called Dorian “invasion” of Greece did indeed follow shortly after the fall of Troy, but may well have been simply a southern migration into Middle Mycenian Greece provoked by widespread natural cataclysms. The destruction of the Middle Mycenian cities was caused by these natural cataclysms, not by Dorian invaders. These Dorians seem to have behaved more like immigrants who mingled readily with the Mycenian Greeks, joining them in the rapid development of the classic era of Greece without any intervening “dark age”, created by historians pursuing a mistaken chronology.
5. Homer appears to have been a contemporary of Isaiah who lived and wrote during the actual time of the Trojan war. The archaeologic findings at Hissarlik reveal structural details demanding that the Iliad was written by an eye witness.31 Hellanicus, a fourth century Greek writer, also assumed that the poet who so vividly described the fighting at Troy had been an eye witness.32
31. Velikovsky, ref. 26, pp. 245-74, esp. p. 252.
32. Kitto, H.D.F., The Greeks, Penguin Books, 1969, p. 44.
6. Perhaps those stories told by Herodotus, Plato, Plutarch and others describing strange catastrophic events deserve more serious consideration.
It was a pair of articles in Kronos in 1983 by Jan Samner that triggered my interest in writing about the Trojan War, focusing on the revised chronology of Immanuel Velikovsky. Three decades later, Dale Murphie’s Blue Planet Red Footprints, (a soon-to-be-published book) shines a bright light of understanding on that sixty year period which ended one night in 689 BC with the destruction of Sennacherib’s army outside the walls of Jerusalem — and, dare I guess? — also bringing Homer’s Trojan War to an abrupt end by the same means ! His war of the gods in the sky had suddenly ended and the Trojan War ended abruptly without explanation. The Trojan Horse story doesn’t appear until several pages into the Odyssey.
Aside from the chronology, thanks to Blue Planet Red Footprints, we now have an understanding of the migration of all those peoples (including my own ancestors) and the founding of cities (including Rome) in the Mediterranean region in that time period. Carthage is also said to have been founded by northern tribes of Israel fleeing a severe famine just before Assyria hauled off the remnant of the northern tribes. And the Dorian “invaders” from the north joined the Greeks in creating the Golden Age of Greece. And, suddenly, the natural disasters attributed to that time period have a probable explanation.