As explained in my first post above, I am not an archeologist. I am not an historian. I am not a hydrologist. I have no commitments one way or the other on any question in Homer. Ancient literature is not my bag. I prefer ancient history to ancient writers. As a philosopher, I consider Plato a pox on the discipline. We can discuss his bad metaphysics and politics later. My twitter handle is @not4plato, and, at age 59, Aristotle is the only ancient writer I have ever warmed up to (NB: I did not say philosopher, I like Socrates, Diogenes, both Zenos, Chrysippus, and some other ancient philosophers, most of whom left little or no writing).
Homer's accuracy rate as a war correspondent is of no interest to me. His accuracy rate as a describer of the plain of Troy, or of anything else, does not concern me a bit. It looks to me like he described the springs at Pinarbasi pretty accurately. Perhaps I will do a blog post on that. I am not alone in that opinion. Some scholars also think that he described those springs. I got the idea from them. Many scholars believe that he also described the citadel at Hisarlik accurately. Although others might find a problem here, I do not. I figure Homer is probably not just one person anyway. And even if he was an historical individual, he wove a tale that just happens to imply (if you are looking for his models) that the springs 6 miles away are right in front of the gates of the citadel on Hisarlik. That kind of thing is not much of a price to pay for a good story. He knew a springs he could describe, and he used what he knew. They were not right in front of the gates of the fortress in which he set his story, but he put them there anyway. (And again we only know about this because of the search for his models.) Or perhaps one of the poets Homer relied on got misinformed, and was told that Pinarbasi was the original site of Troy, and then wrote the parts about the hot and cold springs outside the gates of the city. It doesn't matter much to me. I am happy either way. The Iliad is primarily entertainment, not history.
I figure that Homer, or the poets that are collected by that name, never saw the great city in the plain at Troy. It had been obliterated by flooding by the time any of the writers in question saw the locations they described. I am thinking that what Homer called a swelling of the plain (throsmos) just is the ancient city in the plain at Troy. It would have been more obvious in his times, only 500 or so years after being destroyed, provided it was destroyed in the late bronze age. I am not very interested in the niceties of the story (i.e., the Greek camp and where Homer says the river is -- Homer is inconsistent with the names of the rivers anyway). There should be no lumps or bumps in a flood plain. If there was one big enough for fifty thousand men to camp on, it was probably a buried city. What does that mean for the poet as war correspondent? There are two possibilities. 1. The city in the plain was buried in mud for hundreds of years by the time of the Trojan War, and the war was fought on top of it as Homer describes it. 2. The city in the plain was destroyed in the late bronze age, and Homer or some other poet saw the city 500 years later as a lump in the plain, and went on to invent a story about camping and fighting on top of the lump. I don't care which is true. That does not mean that I do not want to know which is true, just that I have nothing at stake in the answer.
As for the accuracy of the historical tale, I have never been able to stomach the idea of a ten year naval siege of a city as an historical fact. Nor boats big enough to carry 80 to 100 men that remain sea worthy after laying on their sides on a beach for ten years. Nor thousands of men going to war over a woman. Nor a city so small that grown men in armor could chase one another around it three and a half times, then stop and fight. If the city was the size of an American high school athletic track, a quarter mile around, it would be notably smaller than the little city on Hissarlik, but running around it once in armor would be too much for most men. The final Hector and Achilles scene belongs in theater, not in history. It requires a tower on a stage with two actors running around it while Helen watches from a window. And Achilles and Ajax belong in myth, not history. And I don't necessarily enjoy hearing what the gods think. And a shepherd, or whatever Paris was, who is offered wisdom, power or a woman and chooses the woman is some kind of a fool. But at least the story includes a hint that the war could have been about power, rather than a woman.
Do I think there was a Trojan war? I think that question means: do I think there was a conflict that could have been remembered that way? Of course I think that is possible.
If I am being asked, did the war Homer described happen or not, I would say I am not aware of which war that is, but probably not. If that means a ten year siege, then no. A Trojan horse? Definitely no. Any of Homer's characters doing what Homer said they did? Any? Well, no. I do not affirm any of that at all. Again, I have not read the book since high school. Not a fan of ancient literature.
None of what I am denying is inconsistent with my also holding that Homer's lines could contain some accurate information.
There may have been major military operations at Troy several times in its history. The citadel shows signs of that. One or more of those campaigns might be remembered in a story like Homer's.
The city in the plain may have gone down in a war. Maybe in the time Homer is trying to describe. It may have gone down in a war and been flooded into oblivion 500 years before Agamemnon, too. Or perhaps it merely met with a flood it could not handle and was never destroyed by looters. And perhaps this happened in the time of the bronze age collapse. Perhaps it happened long before that. Who knows? Nobody. And it will stay that way until archeologists dig into the tell. After that, we will all know.
I do not hold to anything that is in conflict with whatever the ultimate answer is. I have nothing at stake in this. I found an anomaly by accident. My sole interest is in getting it investigated by professionals.
Of course I know a few things, not much though, about Wilusa, Ahhiyawa, the Sea Peoples, the bronze age collapse, the Hittites, the Luwians and what have you. I don't study that stuff. But I think about those things now and then. Could the sacred water system of Wilusa be the water courses of the city in the plain of Troy? Why not? They impress me. They might impress the Hittites too. Then again, Wilusa might be in southwest Anatolia.
I would like to know what the people who built that city in the Trojan plain called themselves. I am only mildly interested in the term Wilusa as compared to that.