I've acquired a fair number of heretical and contrarian beliefs. I think I'll let this one slide, for now. Still, it's an interesting theory. An Italian Nuclear Engineer has assembled evidence that the Trojan War happened not in the Mediterranean, but in the Baltic.
Compelling evidence that the events of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey took place in the Baltic and not the Mediterranean
• Reveals how a climate change forced the migration of a people and their myth to ancient Greece
• Identifies the true geographic sites of Troy and Ithaca in the Baltic Sea and Calypso's Isle in the North Atlantic Ocean
For years scholars have debated the incongruities in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, given that his descriptions are at odds with the geography of the areas he purportedly describes. Inspired by Plutarch's remark that Calypso's Isle was only five days sailing from Britain, Felice Vinci convincingly argues that Homer's epic tales originated not in the Mediterranean, but in the northern Baltic Sea.
Using meticulous geographical analysis, Vinci shows that many Homeric places, such as Troy and Ithaca, can still be identified in the geographic landscape of the Baltic. He explains how the dense, foggy weather described by Ulysses befits northern not Mediterranean climes, and how battles lasting through the night would easily have been possible in the long days of the Baltic summer. Vinci's meteorological analysis reveals how a decline of the "climatic optimum" caused the blond seafarers to migrate south to warmer climates, where they rebuilt their original world in the Mediterranean. Through many generations the memory of the heroic age and the feats performed by their ancestors in their lost homeland was preserved and handed down to the following ages, only later to be codified by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Felice Vinci offers a key to open many doors that allow us to consider the age-old question of the Indo-European diaspora and the origin of the Greek civilization from a new perspective.
There is a well-known statement that “Homer is not a geographer”. This is due to one simple problem: when Homer describes a location, this often does not conform to reality. For example, Strabo wondered why in the Odyssey the island of Pharos, situated just outside of the Egyptian city of Alexandria, was said to lie a day’s sail from Egypt. In reality, it wouldn’t take five minutes. Places like Rhodes were never described as an island by Homer, though you would think he would describe it as such. The location of Homer’s Ithaca does not conform to reality either. Dulichium, the long island, has never been identified, for where it is supposed to be, there is nothing. Professor John Chadwick thus concluded: “there is a complete lack of contact between Mycenaean geography as now known from the tablets and from archaeology on the one hand, and Homer’s accounts on the other.”
Most observers have hence claimed that Homer never visited the locations, made the landscape up, etc. But some recognise that if Troy was not Hissarlik , Homer’s Pharos may not have been near Alexandria… and that would mean that the entire Iliad and Odyssey may not have occurred in those locations in and around the Mediterranean Sea that have become associated with them at all. So if not there, the question remains: where?
One important clue comes from Plutarch, who wrote that the island of Ogygia, mentioned in the Odyssey, was situated “five days sail from Britain, towards the west.” Indeed, such a location would make sense of Homer’s description of the site: a large number of seabirds is said to fly around Calypso’s Cave on Ogygia and the North Sea and its islands are far better known for their large number of seabirds than the rather tranquil coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. Elsewhere, Homer refers to the wild or singing swan, which is found in Siberia and Scandinavia, whereas Mediterranean countries only know the silent swan. Furthermore, the movement of the tides is often evoked by the bard, in both literal and figurative senses; but the tides are notoriously undramatic in the Mediterranean Sea, but all the more impressive along the shores of the North Sea.
This would place Homer’s epic in northern Europe, which may seem startling at first, but not to such well-respected authorities as Stuart Piggott: “The nobility of the [Homeric] hexameters should not deceive us into thinking that the Iliad and the Odyssey are other than the poems of a largely barbarian Bronze Age or Early Iron Age Europe.”
So Europe, but where in Europe? For Felice Vinci in “The Baltic Origins of Homer’s Epic Tales”, the answer is the Baltic States, along the coastlines of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Poland, etc. As to the location of Ogygia, for Vinci it should be identified with the Faroe Islands, specifically the island Kalsoy.
Kalsoy
Vinci is not the first to argue for a Scandinavian setting. It was also offered by the Swedish historian Martin P. Nilsson. Others, such as Bertrand Russell, stated that the Mycenaean civilisation originated with fair-haired northern invaders of Greece. One obvious question is why a Northern European story would become the backbone of the Mycenaean – Greek – civilisation in Southern Europe. For Vinci, the answer is simple: when the climate began to change and grow colder, these people were forced to migrate south. One tribe, the Achaeans, reached the Peloponnese and founded the Mycenaean civilisation. The migrants had brought their legends with them, but the geography of the north did not transpose on the south, hence the discrepancy.
So where precisely does Vinci locate these battles? The Iliad is placed along the Gulf of Finland and the Odyssey in and around Denmark. Troy itself is Toija in Finland; Thebes is Täby in Sweden; the Peloponnese was Zeeland, in Denmark. Vinci’s argumentation is linguistic, showing similarities in place-names, but hence suffers from a potentially fatal flaw, as most of these names cannot be traced back to before ca. 800 AD. This means that a gap of two to three millennia exists; as mentioned by Vinci himself, these people left their homeland in 1000 BC, so how can we be certain where was what, as there was no continuous tradition present?
Still, it is clear that there is some connection between north and south Europe, for there was trade between these Baltic states and Mycenea, as revealed by the large quantity of Baltic amber that was found in the most ancient Mycenaean tombs in Greece.
That Ogygia is clearly not situated in the Mediterranean Sea, seems clear. Its vegetation does not conform to the Mediterranean climate. And in Homer’s epics, there are frequent references to fog, even snow, and of how the sun does not seem to set but instead lingers just beyond the horizon, a phenomenon that is typical for summer in the northern regions. In the Odyssey, we read: “Here we can perceive neither where darkness is nor where dawn is/ nor where the Sun shining on men goes down underground / nor where it rises.”
Furthermore, the sea is never described as being bright, but grey and misty. The characters wear tunics and “thick, heavy cloaks” which they never remove, not even during banquets. The sun or its warmth are seldom mentioned in the book, yet are what would immediately come to mind in a Mediterranean setting. Indeed, there is nothing in this geographical description that hints at a Mediterranean setting; even if Homer was not a geographer, he should at least have known what a typical Mediterranean landscape looked like – as he is believed to have lived there. Instead, it seems he lived elsewhere…
Though Vinci may be right, Piggott is most definitely right: the Achaean warriors used chariots to move across the battlefield, a method of fighting that was unknown in Greece. But similar chariot fighting was described by Julius Caesar when he invaded Britain; what he witnessed, seemed taken word by word from Homer’s accounts. Furthermore, the “great walls” of Troy (never said to be made out of stone) could be identical with the palisades around various megalithic tumuli and Celtic settings. The sweet wine the warriors drink may seem typically Mediterranean at first, but we now know that wine was grown in northern Europe, but that honey was added… making the wine indeed sweet; such an addition was not required for Mediterranean wines, and once again, it seems Homer’s heroes were thus fighting elsewhere. Finally, in Homer’s account, everyone drinks from bronze chalices, which is typical of Celtic customs – and largely absent from Mediterranean cultures.
There's more at the link. It seems somewhat plausible - we know that the ancestors of the Greeks came into Greece from the north - they could have brought their tales with them. At the end of the bronze age, there was a lot of migrations, cities destroyed across Egypt, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, some of that certainly included the proto-Greeks who took over from the Mycenaeans. I don't know what evidence there is of bronze age ships in the Baltic - but this sort of literary detective work is what ended up in the discovery of L'ans aux Meadows in Newfoundland, all from clues in the Eddas. Might have to read some more on this one.
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