Notes on Eberhard Zangger on Ancient Troy

I first learned about the thinking of Dr. Eberhard Zangger some years ago through YouTube.  It started with a video about the bronze age collapse which theorized about the possibility of a wide ranging war.  The video made an impression on me.  Below is an updated version of that film.  

Eventually I discovered the Luwian Studies website.  I encourage everyone to read the website. It consists of a few dozen very short, informative treatments of specific topics, such as the Luwians, Egypt at the end of the bronze age, the sea people, ancient Troy, and iron age migrations of peoples. I have read his well known paper on the sea peoples.  Also a less well known paper linking Troy to Atlantis.  Also his book The Flood From Heaven, which is a detailed treatment of the connection between the story of Troy and the story of Atlantis.   

I want to outline and underline how right Dr. Zangger and the Luwian Studies website have been about the ancient city of Troy.  Below are a few of Zangger's remarks from 2017.  

Let’s just recap on the most important arguments I’ve put forward over the past thirty years. Firstly, I’m saying that not only the citadel knoll of Troy contains Bronze Age remains, but also the area five hundred meters west of it. Secondly, I’m saying that even if the Trojan War was invented by a poet, there needs to be an opponent equal to the Greeks on the eastern side of the Aegean. Thirdly, there are hundreds of settlements in western Asia Minor that have not yet been archaeologically explored.  https://luwianstudies.org/interview-eberhard-zangger-spiegel-article-wizen-balloon/  

I think his third point is perfectly clear and indisputable.  The second point is mostly clear and there will be much debate on it.  The first point demonstrates Zangger's confidence about the existence of a greater city in the plain at Troy.  He is right about it, and the matter is now all but indisputable. There really was a great city in the plain, and everyone can see on Google Satellite View precisely where it used to sit.  

Below are remarks from the Luwian Studies website. Zangger is the president of the Foundation for Luwian Studies. 

During the Trojan War, the Greeks are likely to have destroyed levees and hydraulic installations. Since the war was fought in the dry summer months, their actions had no immediate effect. But when the winter came, with Troy already defeated and destroyed, the topographically low-lying ruins were buried under mud carried by the rivers. Thus, the remains of Troy are likely to be buried a few hundred meters west of Hisarlık, and remain hidden. Excavator Manfred Korfmann has said (in a personal conversation) that drill holes in the floodplain revealed pottery deep down below the present surface. The geoarchaeologist who investigated these deposits for almost forty years concluded, “some levels contain a great deal of archaeological material … Pieces of bricks, stones and mortar indicate the remains of a construction. … From an archaeological point of view, the area along the foot of the northern slope of Troia is an important one … In the light of these findings we consider that it would be very useful to make an archaeological excavation about 7 meters deep.” (https://luwianstudies.org/the-history-of-troy/) 

During almost 150 years of research history in Troy, however, all excavations have been restricted to the hill of Hisarlık, which due to its elevation was never affected by mudflows. In other words, the actual lower city of Troy may indeed still lie hidden in the plain underneath a layer of gravel and alluvial silt. Approximately 300 drill holes that were made by Ilhan Kayan to investigate the plain’s stratigraphy produced thick layers with artifact-rich deposits. Accordingly, the buried lower city of Troy may already have been found in the floodplain.  (https://luwianstudies.org/the-lower-town-of-troy/) 

These passages further demonstrate the confidence of Dr Zangger's group about the existence of a city in the plain at Troy.  

Dr Zangger discusses the city of Troy in the video below, starting at 40:30 

At 42:38 he says, 'the actual city of Troy was not on the knoll, that is just the royal citadel, the actual city was in the flood plain.  It has been found there by drill cores five or six meters below the present surface'.   When he says this he is showing a slide containing the graphic from Luwian Studies that is also found in one of my earlier posts.  Behind Zangger throughout this lecture you can see that same graphic on the wall behind him, along with the picture of Troy that I critiqued in another of my earlier posts, and which appears again at the bottom of this page.  I have appealed or reacted to things from the Luwian Studies web site in several other places as well.  

This blog has benefited greatly from his work, and I will happily repeat what I said in the first of those earlier posts.  Dr Zangger and the Luwian Studies foundation are right about the location of the greater city of Troy.  

Two sources on the city in the plain

 

Here is a paragraph from the Luwian studies website: 

Texts from antiquity to the late Middle Ages indicate that the actual city of Troy extended into the plain beneath the citadel of Ilion (Diodorus 4.75.3; William Gell 1804, 121). The living quarters of the population, craftsmen’s workshops, garrisons and port districts are likely to have been located down there. Various sources describe how the remains of the city, after its destruction by the Greeks, literally disappeared under water and mud (Strabo 1.3.17; Dio Chrysostom 11.76; Quintus of Smyrna 14.646–652; Homer, Iliad 12.16–33; see also Plato, Timaeus 25d). During almost 150 years of research history in Troy, however, all excavations have been restricted to the hill of Hisarlık, which due to its elevation was never affected by mudflows. In other words, the actual lower city of Troy may indeed still lie hidden in the plain underneath a layer of gravel and alluvial silt. Approximately 300 drill holes that were made by Ilhan Kayan to investigate the plain’s stratigraphy produced thick layers with artifact-rich deposits. Accordingly, the buried lower city of Troy may already have been found in the floodplain. Archaeologists looking for the remains of the actual city of Troy may only need to dig a mere 5- to 6-meter trench 300 meters west of Hisarlık – and they are likely to make a breakthrough discovery surpassing that of Heinrich Schliemann.

https://luwianstudies.org/the-lower-town-of-troy/

This passage mentions two sources on the city in the plain, Diodorus Siculus and William Gell.  Below is a screen shot of the relevant lines from Diodorus.

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/diodorus_siculus/4d*.html  

The relevant sentence is that "Ilus founded in a plain a city which was the most renowned among the cities in the Troad, giving it after himself the name Ilium".  

Luwian Studies also cites William Gell.  Here is a helping of that: 

The account of the territory of Troy being thus completed, it will perhaps be necessary to make a few observations on the inhabitants, at the time of the invasion of the Greeks. The learned Mr. Bryant informs us in the third volume of his Mythology, p. 439, that the Trojans came originally from Egypt; for they were of one family with the Titanians and the Meropians. Ilus is distinguished as a Merop Atlantian, and he was of the race of the Trojan kings, consequently they were all Merop Atlantians. Herodotus also observes, that the Atlantians of Phrygia were skilled in the sciences, and Diodorus says, that they were allied to the gods and heroes, a circumstance which may account for the difference of language which existed between the gods and men, of which Homer takes notice. ...  The Atlantians appear to have been settled in Phrygia before the time of Dardanus and Batieia, and she seems to have been called Myrinne, as Scamander was Xanthus, in their language. The son of Batieia, Ericthonius, was a rich and powerful monarch, and is said to have discovered the mines of precious metals, with which the country abounded, and of which the traces are yet visible in the vicinity of Skepsis. In the reign of Ericthonius, the city of the Trojans was either in another situation, or covered only the upper part of the hill, as the city of Cecrops did the rock of the Acropolis at Athens; but when Tros, his son, ascended the throne, the people were so multiplied that they began to overspread the declivity, and the additional town was called Troy, in honour of that prince. The original fortress, or citadel, was probably stiled Dardania, the town of Tros succeeded, and at length in the time of Ilus his son, the habitations occupied the whole of the hill. Ilus gave his own name Ilion to the city, or at least to that part of it which had been added in his reign; and the kingdom was at that time become so potent, that the monarch found means to expel Tantalus and his son Pelops from Asia. (see pp 120-21,  The Topography of Troy, and Its Vicinity - Google Books)

Gell is citing from Bryant, but I do not know Bryant's sources.  This passage describes a city that was added on to by Tros, "and the additional town was called Troy", but it does not say that this city was in the plain.  It goes on then to discuss Ilus expanding the city and calling the new area Ilion.  Again, it does not say that Ilion was in the plain.  

I included the earlier part of this passage because it mentions Atlantians.  

Between these two sources on the origins of Troy, we have only one explicit reference to a city in the plain.  

A few propositions and attitudes about Ancient Troy

Some philosophers think a lot about propositions.  They also think about propsitional attitudes (i.e., attitudes toward propositions, such as trust, distrust, belief, disbelief, etc.)  So, in the follwing exercise, I will list some propositions and my attitudes toward them (attitudes in italic).

Two propositions I am willing to defend on the basis of visual evidence: 

There is a large mound in front of Hisarlik in the plain of Troy.  

There are three more, much smaller mounds west and southwest of Kalafat, along with two declivities. 

  

One proposition I believe on the basis of inference from visual and other evidence and would gladly defend: 

There is probably a large city buried in the plain in front of Hisarlik. 

One proposition I believe on the basis of inference from visual evidence but probably would not defend: 

The smaller mounds around Kalafat are probably flood control works.  

One proposition that has been known and ignored for way too long: 

There is a cut through the coastline across from Hisarlik. 

One compund proposition that I believe is sad but true: 

The cut through the coastline and the plain of Troy have mostly been ignored by archeology.  

YouTube Video about the Mound in the Plain of Troy

 

I finally put up a video at Youtube.  Under 3 minutes.  Check it out. 

Leading American Crackpot: Ignatius Donnelly

There are a lot of falsehoods about the Atlantis tale.  In fact, there are two or three falsehoods about Atlantis that seem to underlay most of the nutty history we all loathe.  

Three recent videos at YouTube discuss the main source of the disinformation, which is the American writer and politician Ignatius Donnelly, who wrote the book called Atlantis, The Antediluvian World that appeared in 1882.  

Donnelly's work postulates an advanced technical society that was destroyed 12k years ago. He argues that survivors of the cataclysm founded all of the world's great civilizations.  

Neither of those ideas are found in Plato.  He did not say that Atlantis was advanced -- his Atlanteans are on the same level of culture as the people around them.  In addition, Plato did not mention or discuss Atlantean survivors.  So, both of those story elements are additions from later writers, probably from Donnelly.  

Donnelly's work is central to pretty much all of the crackpottery that has come after him. He truly is a king of the crackpots, and an Ur crackpot in American history. This connection between Donnelly and other kinds of crackpottery, from Ancient Aliens to Q Anon, is nicely explained in the first film below, beginning around 9:10 to 16:40. The bio of Donnelly begins around 20:25.  He was a Lincoln supporter and Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota (1860-63), and a congressman from Minnesota (1863-69).  So, he moved from the state house to federal office during the civil war.  

This second film is very informative. I enjoyed the discussion of Plato (7:30 - 16:30). The opening seven minutes contain a nice outline of Donnelly's main claims.  The final minutes treat the idea of a comet impact that Donnelly and other crackpots appeal to.  The notion that there was an advanced prehistoric culture is pure poison, and yet it is believed by more than half of Americans. 

This third video works on the distinction between science and pseudo-science, with special attention to the work of Donnelly.  

New Pics of Ancient Troy

One of the most pressing questions about the plain of Troy is simply who did all of this? 

Who cut through the coast line across from Hissarlik? Who did the massive earthworks west of Kalafat? Who built a flood survivable city in the plain? Who built the famous acropolis on Hissarlik? 

We all want to say that the Trojans did this stuff.  And of course, we are right to say it.  But when we call the city Troy and its inhabitants Trojans we are speaking as the Greeks taught us, not as the people who lived there taught us. 

The Hittites may have called this place Wilusa, or Tauruisa, or Assuwa, or Ahhiyawa.  But again, those are Hittite words.  

In addition, the cut through the coastline, the manmade mounds west of Kalafat and the city in the plain form no part of the familiar story about Troy.  Most of what I discuss on this blog has never been part of the meaning of the words Troy and Trojan.  

I hope to see the meaning of those terms deepen, to include not only the geography and archeology of the plain, but also the voices of the people who lived there.  May writing be found one day in the mound!  

Wouldn't it be nice to know who these people were and how they thought about their world including how they thought about the Greeks and Hittites?  What did they call the Hittites? What did they call the Greeks? And what did they call themselves?  

An Unexplained Structure in the Plain of Troy

I have spotted a structure in the plain.  It is inside the baseball field shaped marsh SW of the city, in the SW corner of the marsh.  

I have no idea what that is.  It is on both sides of the road and canal.  For all I know, it is modern.  But it could be ancient.