: Who's using it as evidence for historical theories?
: Besides, your "levels of canon" take on
: myths doesn't seem any more appealing regarding myths
: of the real world compared to Myth itself. It's either
: canon or its not; it's either myth or reality. More
: truth over less truth doesn't work in practice, and
: I've found it utterly unscientific to generalize and
: blend the lines, in my experience.
I'm afraid that in the real world, levels of canon are absolutely vital. You can believe that everything you're told is either entirely true, or entirely false, but you're in real trouble the next time you go out to buy a car.
People are mistaken sometimes, and lying sometimes, and telling the truth sometimes. That's how reality works.
: Yeah, but what's your point? I don't understand your
: reasoning for discrediting the story of Aeneas…for any
: reason.
Simply that the story of Aeneas started out as one not-particularly-popular origin story among a thousand others. And the reasons it became popular in the early Imperial period are rooted in Roman politics and Vergil's personal life; they have nothing to do with historical truth.
I brought this whole thing up because you listed the Roman belief in Troy as a primordial paradise (which they didn't believe) as one piece of evidence for Atlantis. If that's not why you listed it, but merely for the general "religious cataclyms" subject we were talking about earlier, then never mind and carry on.
: Wrong: City with walls covered in relatively precious
: metals, including tin, bronze, and others (such as a
: description by Homer uncanily similar to that of
: orichalcum); incredible naval civilization;
: technologically advanced, including canal systems and
: terraced farming; associated with the Mother Goddess
: or relative female deity; equally related as the
: "firey mare", the horse; holy shrine in the
: center; destroyed by war; destroyed by fire; sank
: beneath the waves.
Troy, according to the Iliad, was not an incredible naval civilization. It did not sink beneath the waves. It was not a tremendous military power. It was not particularly technologically advanced. It was a wealthy and successful city on the same level as the Achaean cities who opposed it. Thus the Iliad tells us.
Plato's Atlantis did not worship a mother goddess; they venerated a human female whose ancestors sprang from the earth, and who by Poseidon mothered the Atlantean race. This is par for the course with Greek city-states; virtually all of them had at least one divine ancestor and at least one ancestor who sprang from the earth, thereby legitimizing their claim to the land.
Homer's Troy did not worship a mother goddess either, except insofar as all Greeks worshipped Hera. She was on Troy's side in this particular conflict, certainly, but she was not in any way Troy's particular patron goddess. I'll grant you, however, that the historical Troy most likely venerated a Cybele-variant, an Astarte-variant, or both. But this is true for just about any culture from Italy to India.
Cities that were destroyed by war are, to paraphrase your earlier words, hardly unique. I'd appreciate it if you'd point out the Iliad reference to terrace farming--I believe you, I just don't remember it--but this is hardly a unique characteristic either.
As for the adornment with precious metals and the general power and coolness...yes, yes, this is indeed an epic poem. Sparta and Mycenae are described the same way. You will not find many epics about small, ugly cities that didn't do anything important. A dizzying number of stories from around the world involve super-powerful heroes who fought giant monsters, but that doesn't mean they're all based on one real super-powerful hero who fought a giant monster X thousand years ago. Well, except when Captain Marvel was thrown back in time and had to battle Vandal Savage's Ultrasaur, but that's merely a statistical fluke and can be ignored.
I'm allowed to be silly after 2 in the morning.
: In addition to Homer's story being remarkably similar to
: that of Plato's, Homer's story was based on the old
: Greek legends we were discussing earlier, including
: the one between the Greeks and the Atlanteans. The
: story is the same, undoubtedly (with Homer's added
: details, naturally, on the soap opera drama of it
: (which I don't mean negatively; it's the same kind of
: drama as between Alric and Balor, or Connacht and the
: Head, etcetera)).
There are no known Greek references to Atlantis before Plato.
: Not the South Pacific; the South China Sea, in between
: the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Different how? They're
: practically the same. And Plato gets his information
: from the Egyptians, the same as Solon did.
Different as I explained above.
The South China Sea is still very very far from "just outside the Pillars of Hercules."
Plato says he gets his information from the Egyptians. He also says that all disease comes from not being a vegetarian. He also says that philosophers like him are uniquely suited to rule the world. He also says that nine thousand years ago (although many scholars believe that later copyists slipped an extra "0" in that number--an Atlantis 900 years before Plato would coincide extremely well with Thera's last days) Athens was exactly like the ideal civilization Plato happens to construct through pure reason in his other works. He also says that the sun once swung too close to the Earth and burned everything up (those wise old Egyptians noticed that). Plato says a lot of things, you see. So does Jack T. Chick, but we don't listen to him.
And it's Plato who says that Solon heard this from the Egyptians. Or rather, Plato has Socrates listen to someone else who says they heard it from their grandfather who heard it from Solon. Plato doesn't even say Socrates believes it--he only asked to be entertained with a story.
: But a river valley isn't described as the principle
: character of the flood in every story, but that of the
: civilization sinking beneath the waves (the water
: rising up) of an ocean or sea.
Well, yes. Presumably if you're telling a story about a very large flood, it's going to flood everything. Oceans, rivers and all. Once everything is underwater, you're now on a sea. The point is, people who live in river valleys are going to be very interested in floods as archetypal disasters in the first place.
: Omg no! The Pleistocene ended very quickly, very
: tragically when the glaciers very suddenly melted in
: 11,600 BP, and the water level rose some 150 meters in
: just a single millenium. The Darwinistic Gradualist
: theories your quoting are sorely outdated, Sili (lol,
: I love saying your name at the end of sentences
: because it sounds like "silly" :-)
I'm afraid all sea level estimates I've seen say differently, independent of any leanings I may have toward gradualism or catastrophism. Sources? And don't tell me you're a Lamarckian, now.
And I was talking about the Troy site since 1300 B.C. or so, not the Troy site in 11,600 B.C. Since you were arguing that rising sea levels have made Hissarlik much closer to the sea than it used to be.
: How fast? I'm sure it couldn't have been much faster than
: only a thousand or so years time.
See above.
: What? What does the position of a river have to do with a
: city's proximity to the ocean?
The mouth of a river opens onto the ocean. Rivers deposit silt along the coastline near their mouth. Gradually the coastline moves forward into the ocean. It's happening all over the world right now.
: We obviously have conflicting resources; from a
: topographical map, it's clearly visible there are
: mountains in the way of the "plain" that
: supposédly existed there.
And from pictures and people I know who went there and looked, there aren't mountains in the way. Do you have a link to the map?
: The Pillars of Hercules, the Straits of Gibraltar, were
: named after the Phoenecians, *admittedly* after a
: similar formation from their "homeland."
What of that? Plato and other Greeks knew quite well where the structures *they* called the Pillars of Hercules were. And obviously Plato's Egyptians agreed with that location, since they go on to talk about how Atlantis ruled southwest Europe and northwest Africa, before getting stomped by the Athenians.
: Plato gives appropriate location. Homer gives appropriate
: location. Point out the innacuracies, please.
Western Turkey != South China Sea. Outside the Strait of Gibraltar != South China Sea. Western Turkey != Strait of Gibraltar. Three for three.
: Plato places the date at 11,600 BP (interestly enough the
: same date as the end of the Pleistocene). Homer does
: not give an accurate date any more than
: "thousands of years before our time." What
: is "thousands of years earlier"?
I actually didn't know Homer gives a date such as that. Where is it?
See above for the likelihood that later copyists added an O to Plato's date.
: Exactly. That disqualifies it from being Homer's Troy
: because Homer's Troy had to be in Homer's past, and
: VIIa is after (above) the older levels he was
: contemporary with .
Um...I think you need to do a bit of reading. The levels are counted from the bottom. VIIa is below Homer's levels. Before. Below.
: Have you even read the Critias or the Timaeus ?
: Atlantis was destroyed by earthquake, conflagration,
: and deluge. Those geologic events were preceded by a
: war between two peoples, and the geologic events were
: somehow caused (mysteriously, albeit) by the war
: itself.
I think you read the Timaeus upside down or something. Atlantis got the crap kicked out of it by the Athenians, then proceeded to sink beneath the waves in a single night with accompanying earthquakes. The various Troys burned down; fell down after earthquakes; or were levelled by invaders. Sinking beneath the ocean is conspicuously absent.
On the other hand, it's entirely that the sinking bit was Plato's invention--in which case, congratulations! You just proved that the Atlantis myth is also based on the Hissarlik site! :-P
: From the Encylopedia Britannica: Bronze is also harder
: than pure iron and far more resistant to corrosion.
: The substitution of iron for bronze in tools and
: weapons from about 1000 BC was the result of iron's
: abundance compared to copper and tin rather than any
: inherent advantages of iron.
Well, I've heard that pure iron has a greater tensile strength than bronze, even if it's more brittle. But I won't argue with the Brittanica. It would come to my house in the night.
In any event, the mixture of iron and bronze in the Iliad remains an anachronism, as the Brittanica only emphasizes.
: Lol, the Romans never made the connection between
: Hissarlik and Troy.
Nope, they didn't--but they did think of Troy as decidedly Eastern. That comes straight from the Aeneid.
--SiliconDream
