More thoughts on the Kalifatli Asmak

The following can be found in Heinrich Schliemann, Ilios, the City and Country of the Trojans, 1880

In the following passage, Schliemann cites another source describing the river he calls Thymbrius but we call the Kimar Su today.

M. Burnouf makes the following remarks upon the river :—“ The Thymbrius flows in the hollow of a valley between the hills of Akshi Kioi and the heights to the south. It is about 30 ft. broad. Its banks are steep; it is perfectly limpid, and is overshadowed by large trees. Its banks, which are from 10 to 12 ft. high, show two very distinct layers : first, a modern alluvium, consisting of earth washed down by the rains from the hills; secondly, below this, a thick layer of plastic clay, analogous to that which forms the soil of the plain of the Scamander. The confluence of the Thymbrius and the Scamander is not difficult to determine, since the banks are high.  During the inundations, the great polygon formed by the Thymbrius, the Scamander, and the hills to the east, becomes covered with water, which runs with great impetuosity in an easterly direction ; inundates the swamp (now rendered salubrious) to the north of Akshi Kioi; pours into the large bed of the Kalifatli Asmak, which is identical with the ancient bed of the Scamander; and forms other streams, which flow in the same direction. On the 18th of May, 1879, we saw this whole plain covered with dead trees and branches, which had been carried away in the same direction, and caught by the bushes of the agnus-cactus and tamarisk.” (Ilios pp 77-8)

Burnouf is saying that the top of the plain, where the Scamander and the Kimar meet actually flows toward and through the swamp and into the Kalifatli Asmak during floods. 

The polygon Burnouf has in mind is the area indicated with blue lines.  The water coming from the confluence of the Kimar and the Karamendere does not flow "eastward" as Burnouf says, but rather to the north. Burnouf also locates the swamp north of Akshi Kioi, but it is actually west of there. Both confusions are easy to understand if Burnouf is thinking that down-plain, toward the sea is north.  The plain is actually going NW here.  

Nonetheless, he does tell us that the uppermost part of the plain drains toward the Kalifatli Asmak during flooding events.  

The following passage is from Dr. Rudolf Vinchow's appendix on "Medical Practice in the Troad in 1879". 

The Trojan Plain is a notorious region of fever, nor can any one be astonished at this. Large swamps and marshes extend in all directions. Several rivers and rivulets disappear in them and fill the subsoil with their water. Shortly before my arrival, the Scamander had overflowed its banks and had inundated the plain far and wide. In the first week of April the whole land on its west side was still coated with thick silt and mud; all the roads were covered up, and stagnant water still stood in many places. Then the evaporation commenced, and in the evening a stinking fog lay over the plain. The various arms of the Kalifatli Asmak began soon afterwards to change from flowing watercourses into chains of stagnant pools and tanks. In short, all the conditions were supplied for the formation of malaria, for at the same time the temperature of the air increased rapidly, and at noon we had not seldom in the shade 20°, 22°, and even higher degrees centigrade [68°-71 F].  (Ilios, p 723) 

I just want to point out that it was the west side of the plain that had standing water and was still coated in silt and mud.  On the east side of the plain, the Kalifatli Asmak was flowing until it stopped.  

Perhaps the reason that the east side of the plain was not coated in silt and mud is that the Kalifatli Asmak could successfully drain that side of the plain in the 1870s. 

Glimpses of Trojan Thalassocracy

I have confessed on this blog once already that I find Homer's silence about a Trojan navy, and Trojan naval installations, such as ports or quays, suspicious.  The Greeks do not take over a riverine port on the Dardanelles of the sort that probably existed.  Instead, they land on an unprotected beach and build a naval station. 

One of the things that makes it possible for the world to still believe in Homer as a war correspondent is the fact that archeology has never found anything naval at Troy; not an oar, pully, anchor, fishhook or port. Nada. I think this is mostly due to the fact that the archaeology has been pretty much restricted to the top of the ridge at Hisarlik (where there are, by the way, lots of sea shells, mostly of the nutrition related kind, but in Troy VI of the purple dye making kind as well). Ilhan Kayan found no evidence of port facilities in his study of Besik Bay, but this was restricted to a handful of drill cores. The plain, the beaches and the lagoons have not been examined closely. 

I doubt that Besik Bay was a port because it is too shallow.  The same goes for the Trojan Bay that may have existed at the north end of the plain in the Bronze Age.  It would have been too shallow for large sea faring ships.  Only wide bottomed shore crawlers and river ready craft would have been able to dock at the riverine port of the Scamander.  The Uluburun ship, hanging only 4 feet (1.4 m) below the surface, probably could have gone up stream some distance in the Nile delta, but not very far in the port of the Scamander. The favored craft at Troy would have been more canoe like, maybe of the sort that the sea peoples and the Egyptians are using in the image from Medinet Habu.  These are wide bottomed riverine craft with low sides, a sail and the men stand on decks. Such boats have so far only been found, to my knowledge, in the Danube area on the Black Sea, around 450 miles, or 720 kilometers north of Troy.  

A nautically related oddity to note in the story of the Trojan War is that the Greeks fabricate a huge horse that is meant as an offering to who? Athena? Isn't that more appropriate for Poseidon?  Horses are sacred to Poseidon, not Athena.  

Another oddity worth mentioning is the story of Erichthonius. 

Dardanus had a son, king Erichthonius, who was wealthiest of all men living; he had three thousand mares that fed by the water-meadows, they and their foals with them. Boreas was enamoured of them as they were feeding, and covered them in the semblance of a dark-maned stallion. Twelve filly foals did they conceive and bear him, and these, as they sped over the rich plain, would go bounding on over the ripe ears of corn and not break them; or again when they would disport themselves on the broad back of Ocean they could gallop on the crest of a breaker. (Iliad 20, 217 ff)

Three thousand mares with their foals in the marshes would be around 6k horses.  And how do you get 3000 mares anyway?  A lot of stallions would have to be born to get to that number of mares, so, there are around 3000 stallions missing from this account who are nevertheless biologically implied by it.  That would make around 9k horses.  

If Boreas "covered" all of the mares, there would have been around 3000 more foals.  Could it be that only 12 were fillies?  At least we know that 60x50 makes 3000, and that a mere 50 stallions could "cover" 60 mares apiece to get Erichthonius 3000 foals.  

I suggest that the 3000 mares, if not fully absurd is close to it given that the Citadel and its associated Lower City on Hisarlik together housed between 4k and 7k people.  So, a mere two years of owning 3000 mares will get you more horses than people at Hisarlik.  

In addition, horses can do well in marshy areas, but they cannot live 24/7 in marshes.  

On the other hand, horses are sacred to Poseidon.  Perhaps the horses in the marshes are ships.  Perhaps the early kings of Troy had an inordinate number of ships, not a comically large number of female horses.  The reference to Boreas (the north wind) could indicate swift sailing vessels.  A female horse brings forth new horses. Trading vessels bring other stuff.  Homer even compares the horses to ships: "when they would disport themselves on the broad back of Ocean they could gallop on the crest of a breaker." 

I think it might be possible to read Homer as though the work engages in mytho-poetic compression of Troy's maritime economy, including its fleet and naval power, to the level of mere symbols. Perhaps these famous horse men living on a maritime crossroads were actually famous sailors.  

There are several reasons to believe that Troy had a maritime economy: 

Troy's coastal location on a naval crossroads argues for sea faring.  

Archaeology at Troy indicates extensive trade. 

The far-flung Trojan allies listed by Homer suggest connections by sea. 

Paris, according to Homer (and other authors), went to Sidon after picking up Helen in Sparta, which indicates long distance sea travel.

          In addition, the plain of Troy is too small to sustain the inhabitants of Hisarlik.  Grain would have been a major Trojan import. The Orman and Lissos river valleys in Thrace were likely grain providers to the Trojans. But that would have required supply by sea. The plain of the Granicus is another likely source and while grain from that area could have arrived in Troy by land, it would have been more efficient to bring it down the Dardanelles by boat.  

        I also want to mention the work of Fred Woudhouizen, whose reading of a tablet from Enkomi in Cyprus recounts the story of a Cyprian ship captain who battled a fleet off the coast of Lycia (Lukka) that, he says, was under the command of "Akamas of Ilion, the great enemy".  

From Early Mediterranean Scripts, which is a collection of conversations between Eberhard Zangger and Fred Woudhuizen:

Zangger: We still need to speak about the Linear D document from the time when the regular trade contacts were already disrupted and maritime fighting was going on. Things had changed dramatically. This is when the upheavals were caused by the Sea Peoples, when the merchant ships were not safe anymore. Once the trade was disrupted, we do not find any of the documents recording economic transactions anymore.

Woudhuizen: The Linear D text is a letter written by a Cypriot nauarch, an admiral, writing from Limyra, in eastern Lycia, to inform his king in Cyprus about what had been going on in the southern Aegean. The admiral had been to Rhodes to seize the port city of Kameiros, and he argues that he had a right to do so, because Hattusili III and Halpazitis, the king of Aleppo, already maintained a stronghold there. So there was a territorial claim from earlier times which he says was still valid. From there he went on to Samos, where he got beaten by the forces of Akamas of Ilion. Thus Trojan ships had advanced way south. Consequently, the admiral retreated his forces back to his first base Limyra in eastern Lycia. This is the same kind of document that we know from the last days of Ugarit, but this time we get an eyewitness account from someone in an advanced position way over west. 

Zangger: Those documents from Ugarit are only pointing in the direction of Lycia, saying that there is much trouble there, but with this letter we get first-hand information from someone who actually saw what was going on. The nauarch clearly states that the Hittite king should send a fleet and additional forces to his support, exactly as we know it from the documents in Ugarit. The last king of Ugarit says that his ships are supporting the fleet of Suppiluliuma II in a maritime battle in the waters of Lycia. Evidently, the admiral’s call for help was indeed received and followed through. Unfortunately for the Hittites, this maritime battle against the Sea Peoples was lost. This particular document provides inside information about a thus far dark period during the initial phase of the Sea Peoples’ invasions. And this artifact actually exists and is exhibited in the Cyprus Museum in Nikosia. Photographs of it have been published as early as 1971. You are the first to have been able to read this letter and published the translation in 2017. (Early Mediterranean Scripts, p 127f) 

Early Mediterranean Scripts can be downloaded here. 

For FW's reading of the Enkomi inscription, see: 

https://www.academia.edu/33572468/The_Language_of_Linear_C_and_Linear_D_from_Cypru 

Below is another description of Akamas from Woudhuizen, who believes the people known by the Greeks as Teukroi are the Tjekers mentioned in Egyptian inscriptions about the Sea Peoples.  

Like the Philistines and Danaoi, a part of the Teukroi evidently founded themselves new homes in the coastal zone of the Levant. At least, in the Wen Amon story from the first half of the 11th century BC, we are confronted with Tjeker settled at Dor. According to Wen Amon’s vivid testimony, they still were a maritime force to reckon with at that time, since eleven Tjeker ships were blocking his way from the harbor of Byblos when, having accomplished his mission, he wanted to return to Egypt. The maritime adventures of the Teukroi presumably dating to the period of the upheavals of the Sea Peoples call to mind the career of the Trojan hero Akamas as recorded in Cypro-Minoan texts from Enkomi and Ras Shamra/Ugarit dated to the final phase of the Late Bronze Age. Here we encounter Akamas at first in Linear C texts as a representative of what appears to be the Trojan town Malos (between Palaescepsis and Achaeium, opposite the island of Tenedos) and of Ephesos engaged in maritime trade, receiving goods at Enkomi and delivering goods at Ras Shamra/Ugarit. Next, he turns up in the more evolved Linear D texts as Akamu Ilu “the Ilian Akamas” and Akamu Eleki nukar -ura “Akamas of Ilion, the great enemy”, who in the latter instance is recorded to have defeated (tupata “he smote”) the principal of the text (-mu “me”) in what from the context appears to be a naval battle. This last mentioned passage strikingly correlates to the information from the correspondence between the king of Ugarit and his superior, the king of Cyprus-Alasiya, as unearthed in Ras Shamra/Ugarit, according to which the Ugaritic fleet is stationed in the coastal region of Lycia, but enemy ships nonetheless have broken through the defense line and are now threatening the coasts of the eastern Mediterranean. Anyhow, it is clear that Akamas from Ilion in the course of events had grasped the opportunity and turned his maritime profession from trader into raider – a common change in the history of Mediterranean shipping.

The Ethnicity of the Sea Peoples, p 109. https://repub.eur.nl/pub/7686/Woudhuizen%20bw.pdf. 

Akamas is like a classic pirate: both a trader and a raider. Woudhuizen gives us a hint of what we perhaps should have expected all along.  Trojan sea power of both the commercial and martial varieties.  Akamas was an enemy in the mind of at least this one speaker of what Woudhuizen argues was a proto-Phoenician, Semitic language on Cyprus. He could have been commanding a fleet that was not Trojan, I suppose.  But it also might be the case that his name went down in history. Akamas' name is attached to a promontory in Cyprus. It might be that Acamas the Greek was invented to explain this. 

The Homeric Trojans are not very impressive or threatening.  They have a royal family. They have a history that we know little about. They have a citadel and an army and allies.  But they have no navy. They allow the will of one prince, Alexander, to determine their fate, and never force him to return Helen to Menelaus. They are deaf to the warnings of Cassandra and other sober minds. They wait 9 years before charging the beach in their own defense. They stupidly bring the huge treacherous horse full of soldiers into their city and then go to sleep.  

Perhaps the image of Akamas of Ilion fighting his way from Samos to Cyprus and then to the Levantine coast will put a different shine on the memory of the Trojans. 

If there was a war in the Trojan Plain at the end of the bronze age that deserves to be remembered, it was probably about the kind of thing Akamas represents; it was probably about power, including sea power.    

I figure that the deep water ports of Troy were probably not in the plain, but in places like Canakkale, Alexandria Troas, Tenedos, Lemnos and Imbros. There is a deep water port today at Akcansa, which is only 1.1 miles (1.8 k's) south of Besik Plain.  

A person arriving at Troy after 2500 bce would have seen hundreds of shallow draft boats around Besik Bay, the mouth of the Dardanelles and the mouth of the Scamander. They could have seen hundreds more by visiting the mouths of other rivers, such as the Danube, Orman, Lissos, Caicus or Granicus. These boats, made to enter rivers from the sea, might have been able to maneuver in the shallow bay of Troy, maybe all the way up to the north end of the tell in the time of Troy II.  But the big ships would have been somewhere else. 

Woudhuizen, by the way, thinks that the Sea Peoples group that the Egyptians called Tjeker were the Teukroi and ultimately the Trojans. 

The expansion of the Trojans, first by means of trade to Cyprus and Ras Shamra/Ugarit, and subsequently by actual colonization to Cyprus, again, and the Levant, is archaeologically traceable in the distribution of Trojan grey ware – not a widely desired export product, but evidence of real presence of Trojan traders and/or settlers. This ware is found in concentrations on Cyprus, especially at Kition and Hala Sultan Tekke, in Ras Shamra/Ugarit, and Tell Abu Hawam (= Haifa) in the neighborhood of the Tjeker town Dor, in a variety dated to the late 13th or early 12th century BC. The impetus for the Trojans to find new homes abroad is formed by the invasion of their territory by new settlers from the European continent, causing the destruction of Troy VIIa (c. 1180 BC) and the subsequent (in Troy VIIb1-2) introduction of buckle ceramic. Unfortunately, the Tjeker town Dor is not well excavated: at least it seems clear that the site was destroyed in the Late Bronze Age and subsequently characterized by Philistine ware. As opposed to this, the nearby Tell Abu Hawam has been better explored and shows, next to a destruction layer at the end of the Late Bronze Age, some, no doubt subsequent, Late Helladic IIIC1b ware – the hallmark of the settlement of Sea Peoples. If I understand Susan Heuck Allen correctly in that the Trojan grey ware arrived in Tell Abu Hawam already before the aforesaid destruction layer, the Trojans evidently prospected the site in the period of their trade connections with the Levant and hence very well knew where to go to find themselves a better place to stay!

Woudhuizen, The Ethnicity of the Sea Peoples, p 109-10

I know that the Tjeker = Teukroi = Trojans identification is disputed. I am aware that Woudhuizen's readings of the Enkomi materials are contested. 

However, it is important to consider more hopeful ends for the Trojans than tradition has assigned them.  Perhaps they migrated at the end of the Bronze Age. There has long been a suspicion than they migrated to Italy and especially to Etruria/Tyrrhenia.  Others have them going to Ilyria, even suggesting that the word Ilion is found in the word Ilyria.  Still others imagine that the Trojans were the Dorians of the Dorian invasion stories.  Woudhoizen suggests that they migrated to Cyprus and the Levantine coast.  Here they would have mixed with the local Canaanite population, just as the Peleset/Philistines (another of the sea peoples) apparently did. 

Perhaps the distant offspring of some of those purple dye-making bronze age seafarers became iron age purple dye-making Phoenicians.  

Luwian Studies Updated Their Website

 As a result of recent massive changes to the Luwian Studies website, all of the links to their site on this blog now go to the landing page of the new site.  

None of them index the information they originally linked to.  

In addition, the new site does not contain most of that information any more.  I have no idea why.  It was an excellent resource focused on the bronze age with a set of pages focusing on Troy.  The new iteration of the site is more narrowly focused on the work of the Luwian Studies Foundation.  Very little about Troy is preserved, and the discussions of the bronze age are mostly gone.  

You can find all of the old links here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20250129005928/https://luwianstudies.org/

or go like this:

https://web.archive.org/web/20250208215359/https://luwianstudies.org/hydro-engineering-during-the-bronze-age/

Plato Describes the City of Troy

At one point in Laws, Plato cites Homer, then comments on him.  I recite the passage below, then comment on it.  

Plato Laws, 681e-682e

Plato cites part of a speech from Aeneas describing his royal lineage extending from Dardanus.  

Dardania he founded when as yet
The Holy keep of Ilium was not built
Upon the plain, a town for mortal folk,
But still they dwelt upon the highland slopes
Of many-fountained Ida.
”Hom. Il. 20.216 ff.

...

Athenian

Ilium was founded, we say, after moving from the highlands down to a large and noble plain, on a hill of no great height which had many rivers flowing down from Ida above.

Clinias
So they say.

Athenian
And do we not suppose that this took place many ages after the Deluge?

Clinias
Many ages after, no doubt.

Athenian
At any rate they seem to have been strangely forgetful of the catastrophe now mentioned, since they placed their city, as described, under a number of rivers descending from the mount, and relied for their safety upon hillocks of no great height.

Clinias
So it is evident that they were removed by quite a long interval from that calamity.

Athenian
By this time, too, as mankind multiplied, many other cities had been founded.

Clinias
Of course.

Athenian
And these cities also made attacks on Ilium, probably by sea too, as well as by land, since by this time all made use of the sea fearlessly.

Clinias
So it appears. 

Athenian
And after a stay of ten years the Achaeans sacked Troy.

Clinias
Very true.

Athenian
Now during this period of ten years, while the siege lasted, the affairs of each of the besiegers at home suffered much owing to the seditious conduct of the young men. For when the soldiers returned to their own cities and homes, these young people did not receive them fittingly and justly, but in such a way that there ensued a vast number of cases of death, slaughter, and exile. So they, being again driven out, migrated by sea; and because Dorieus was the man who then banded together the exiles, they got the new name of “Dorians,” instead of “Achaeans.” But as to all the events that follow this, you Lacedaemonians relate them all fully in your traditions.

Megillus
Quite true.

__________________

Plato agrees with Homer that Troy was founded by persons who moved down from Mt Ida to a "plain" and seems to think it is a city protected from flooding only by "hillocks of no great height". 

The city was in "a large and noble plain, on a hill of no great height".

The ridge at Hisarlik is not a hill.  Hisarlik is a knoll at the far western end of a 15-20 meter tall ridge line that extends for a couple miles.  Its 55 feet (17 meters) above the plain seems like a great height. 

In addition, Hisarlik is not subject to perennial flooding.  The plain is. 

But Plato is emphasizing flood risk, saying that the city was beneath "a number of rivers" coming down from Mt. Ida, about which he is right.  And his point is that they forgot about the earlier flood catastrophe, which he calls "the Deluge".  

One thing I want to know is how many criticisms is he making?

Is he merely saying that they did not build Troy on a high enough height to be safe from floods? 

Or is he saying both that they did not build the city in the plain on high enough heights to protect it from floods, and that they did not protect this city in the plain from floods with anything more than "hillocks of no great height"?

These "hillocks of no great height" that were relied on for the "safety" of ancient Troy might be earthworks that functioned as flood walls.  

At some point, the city in the plain was indeed built upon a low hill because by the end of the bronze age it was over a thousand years old and many cities were on top of one another there. 

And maybe Plato has tapped into a memory of Troy's flood walls being overtopped.  He then patches up the moment of awkward encounter with an alternative tradition by bringing on the national dopamine rush of the siege myth. We can almost see the happiness of delusion return to his listeners eyes as the unfamiliar flood story is abandoned and the national myth is affirmed as "very true". 

Who was Myrine?

Now there is before the city a steep mound afar out in the plain, 

with a clear space about it on this side and on that; 

this do men verily call Batieia, 

but the immortals call it the barrow of Myrine, light of step.  

There on this day did the Trojans and their allies separate their companies. 

Iliad, Book II 814f  

Now a sharp ridge rises out in front of Troy,
all on its own and far across the plain
with running-room all around it, all sides clear.
Men call it Thicket Ridge, the immortals call it
the leaping Amazon Myrine’s mounded tomb, and there
the Trojans and allies ranged their troops for battle.  

Iliad, Book II 814f  

Who was Myrine? Like Penthesilea, Aegea and Hippolyta, she is an Amazon leader, either a queen or a general or something. In the only detailed story we have about her, which comes from Diodorus, she is a queen, and perhaps the first queen of the Amazons.  All other ancient references to her are brief and sketchy, so I present the only detailed, surviving account below.  

Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 

https://topostext.org/work/133

§ 3.52.1 But now that we have examined these matters it will be fitting, in connection with the regions we have mentioned, to discuss the account which history records of the Amazons who were in Libya in ancient times. For the majority of mankind believe that the only Amazons were those who are reported to have dwelt in the neighbourhood of the Thermodon river on the Pontus; but the truth is otherwise, since the Amazons of Libya were much earlier in point of time and accomplished notable deeds. 2 Now we are not unaware that to many who read this account the history of this people will appear to be a thing unheard of and entirely strange; for since the race of these Amazons disappeared entirely many generations before the Trojan War, whereas the women about the Thermodon river were in their full vigour a little before that time, it is not without reason that the later people, who were also better known, should have inherited the fame of the earlier, who are entirely unknown to most men because of the lapse of time. 3 For our part, however, since we find that many early poets and historians, and not a few of the later ones as well, have made mention of them, we shall endeavour to recount their deeds in summary, following the account of Dionysius, who composed a narrative about the Argonauts and Dionysus, and also about many other things which took place in the most ancient times.

§ 3.52.4 Now there have been in Libya a number of races of women who were warlike and greatly admired for their manly vigour; for instance, tradition tells us of the race of the Gorgons, against whom, as the account is given, Perseus made war, a race distinguished for its valour; for the fact that it was the son of Zeus, the mightiest Greek of his day, who accomplished the campaign against these women, and that this was his greatest Labour may be taken by any man as proof of both the pre-eminence and the power of the women we have mentioned. Furthermore, the manly prowess of those of whom we are now about to write presupposes an amazing pre-eminence when compared with the nature of the women of our day.

§ 3.53.1 We are told, namely, that there was once on the western parts of Libya, on the bounds of the inhabited world, a race which was ruled by women and followed a manner of life unlike that which prevails among us. For it was the custom among them that the women should practise the arts of war and be required to serve in the army for a fixed period, during which time they maintained their virginity; then, when the years of their service in the field had expired, they went in to the men for the procreation of children, but they kept in their hands the administration of the magistracies and of all the affairs of the state. 2 The men, however, like our married women, spent their days about the house, carrying out the orders which were given them by their wives; and they took no part in military campaigns or in office or in the exercise of free citizenship in the affairs of the community by virtue of which they might become presumptuous and rise up against the women. 3 When their children were born the babies were turned over to the men, who brought them up on milk and such cooked foods as were appropriate to the age of the infants; and if it happened that a girl was born, its breasts were seared that they might not develop at the time of maturity; for they thought that the breasts, as they stood out from the body, were no small hindrance in warfare; and in fact it is because they have been deprived of their breasts that they are called by the Greeks Amazons.

§ 3.53.4 As mythology relates, their home was on an island which, because it was in the west, was called Hespera, and it lay in the marsh Tritonis. This marsh was near the ocean which surrounds the earth and received its name from a certain river Triton which emptied into it; and this marsh was also near Ethiopia and that mountain by the shore of the ocean which is the highest of those in the vicinity and impinges upon the ocean and is called by the Greeks Atlas. 5 The island mentioned above was of great size and full of fruit-bearing trees of every kind, from which the natives secured their food. It contained also a multitude of flocks and herds, namely, of goats and sheep, from which possessors received milk and meat for their sustenance; but grain the nation used not at all because the use of this fruit of the earth had not yet been discovered among them.

§ 3.53.6 The Amazons, then, the account continues, being a race superior in valour and eager for war, first of all subdued all the cities on the island except the one called Mene, which was considered to be sacred and was inhabited by Ethiopian Ichthyophagi, and was also subject to great eruptions of fire and possessed a multitude of the precious stones which the Greeks call anthrax, sardion, and smaragdos; and after this they subdued many of the neighbouring Libyans and nomad tribes, and founded within the marsh Tritonis a great city which they named Cherronesus after its shape.

§ 3.54.1 Setting out from the city of Cherronesus, the account continues, the Amazons embarked upon great ventures, a longing having come over them to invade many part of the inhabited world. The first people against whom they advanced, according to the tale, was the Atlantians, the most civilized men among the inhabitants of those regions, who dwelt in a prosperous country and possessed great cities; it was among them, we are told, that mythology places the birth of the gods, in the regions which lie along the shore of the ocean, in this respect agreeing with those among the Greeks who relate legends, and about this we shall speak in detail a little later.

§ 3.54.2 Now the queen of the Amazons, Myrina, collected, it is said, an army of thirty thousand foot-soldiers and three thousand cavalry, since they favoured to an unusual degree the use of cavalry in their wars. 3 For protective devices they used the skins of large snakes, since Libya contains such animals of incredible size, and for offensive weapons, swords and lances; they also used bows and arrows, with which they struck not only when facing the enemy but also when in flight, by shooting backwards at their pursuers with good effect. 4 Upon entering the land of the Atlantians they defeated in a pitched battle the inhabitants of the city of Cerne, as it is called, and making their way inside the walls along with the fleeing enemy, they got the city into their hands; and desiring to strike terror into the neighbouring peoples they treated the captives savagely, put to the sword the men from the youth upward, led into slavery the children and women, and razed the city. 5 But when the terrible fate of the inhabitants of Cerne became known among their fellow tribesmen, it is related that the Atlantians, struck with terror, surrendered their cities on terms of capitulation and announced that they would do whatever should be commanded them, and that the queen Myrina, bearing herself honourably towards the Atlantians, both established friendship with them and founded a city to bear her name in place of the city which had been razed; and in it she settled both the captives and any native who so desired. 6 Whereupon the Atlantians presented her with magnificent presents and by public decree voted to her notable honours, and she in return accepted their courtesy and in addition promised that she would show kindness to their nation. 7 And since the natives were often being warred upon by the Gorgons, as they were named, a folk which resided upon their borders, and in general had that people lying in wait to injure them, Myrina, they say, was asked by the Atlantians to invade the land of the afore-mentioned Gorgons. But when the Gorgons drew up their forces to resist them a mighty battle took place in which the Amazons, gaining the upper hand, slew great numbers of their opponents and took no fewer than three thousand prisoners; and since the rest had fled for refuge into a certain wooded region, Myrina undertook to set fire to the timber, being eager to destroy the race utterly, but when she found that she was unable to succeed in her attempt she retired to the borders of her country.

§ 3.55.1 Now as the Amazons, they go on to say, relaxed their watch during the night because of their success, the captive women, falling upon them and drawing the swords of those who thought they were conquerors, slew many of them; in the end, however, the multitude poured in about them from every side and the prisoners fighting bravely were butchered one and all. 2 Myrina accorded a funeral to her fallen comrades on three pyres and raised up three great heaps of earth as tombs, which are called to this day "Amazon Mounds." 3 But the Gorgons, grown strong again in later days, were subdued a second time by Perseus, the son of Zeus, when Medusa was queen over them; and in the end both they and the race of the Amazons were entirely destroyed by Heracles, when he visited the regions to the west and set up his Pillars in Libya, since he felt that it would ill accord with his resolve to be the benefactor of the whole race of mankind if he should suffer any nations to be under the rule of women. The story is also told that the marsh disappeared from sight in the course of an earthquake, when those parts of it which lay towards the ocean were torn asunder.

§ 3.55.4 As for Myrina, the account continues, she visited the larger part of Libya, and passing over into Egypt she struck a treaty of friendship with Horus, the son of Isis, who was king of Egypt at that time, and then, after making war to the end upon the Arabians and slaying many of them, she subdued Syria; but when the Cilicians came out with presents to meet her and agreed to obey her commands, she left those free who yielded to her of their free will and for this reason these are called to this day the "Free Cilicians." 5 She also conquered in war the races in the region of the Taurus, peoples of outstanding courage, and descended through Greater Phrygia to the sea; and then she won over the land lying along the coast and fixed the bounds of her campaign at the Caicus River. 6 And selecting in the territory which she had won by arms sites well suited for the founding of cities, she built a considerable number of them and founded one which bore her own name, but the others she named after the women who held the most important commands, such as Cyme, Pitana, and Priene.

§ 3.55.7 These, then, are the cities she settled along the sea, but others, and a larger number, she planted in the regions stretching towards the interior. She seized also some of the islands, and Lesbos in particular, on which she founded the city of Mitylene, which was named after her sister who took part in the campaign. 8 After that, while subduing some of the rest of the islands, she was caught in a storm, and after she had offered up prayers for her safety to the Mother of the Gods, she was carried to one of the uninhabited islands; this island, in obedience to a vision which she beheld in her dreams, she made sacred to this goddess, and set up altars there and offered magnificent sacrifices. She also gave it the name of Samothrace, which means, when translated into Greek, "sacred island," although some historians say that it was formerly called Samos and was then given the name of Samothrace by Thracians who at one time dwelt on it. 9 However, after the Amazons had returned to the continent, the myth relates, the Mother of the Gods, well pleased with the island, settled in it certain other people, and also her own sons, who are known by the name of Corybantes — who their father was is handed down in their rites as a matter not to be divulged; and she established the mysteries which are now celebrated on the island and ordained by law that the sacred area should enjoy the right of sanctuary.

§ 3.55.10 In these times, they go on to say, Mopsus the Thracian, who had been exiled by Lycurgus, the king of the Thracians, invaded the land of the Amazons with an army composed of fellow-exiles, and with Mopsus on the campaign was also Sipylus the Scythian, who had likewise been exiled from that part of Scythia which borders upon Thrace. 11 There was a pitched battle, Sipylus and Mopsus gained the upper hand, and Myrina, the queen of the Amazons, and the larger part of the rest of her army were slain. In the course of the years, as the Thracians continued to be victorious in their battles, the surviving Amazons finally withdrew again into Libya. And such was the end, as the myth relates, of the campaign which the Amazons of Libya made.

I want to draw attention to the description of the regions around Troy here.  Diodorus tells us that:

She ... descended through Greater Phrygia to the sea; and then she won over the land lying along the coast and fixed the bounds of her campaign at the Caicus River. 

The Caicus River is the modern Baricay, which flows through the Pergamum area, which is south of Troy on the Aegean coast.  Myrine also siezed some of the islands in the area, including Lesbos, which is southwest of Hisarlik about 40 miles.  

Phrygia is east of the Troad.  If her descent through Phrygia runs west to Pergamum and Lesbos, then onward to other islands and then Samothrace, Myrine may have conquered the Troad along her way.  She may have ruled Troy for a while.  She was east of Hisarlik in Phrygia, then south of Hisarlik at the Caicus river, then southwest of Hisarlik at Lesbos, then west of Hisarlik in the islands, then northwest of Hisarlik on Samothrace, then north of Hisarlik in Thrace, and then, according to Homer, was buried at Troy, within sight of Hisarlik.  

I wonder if any artist has attempted a scene depicting Penthesilea visiting the tomb of Myrine on the morning of battle during the Trojan War.  Perhaps on that day she also mourned Aegea, who was lost in a ship wreck on her way to Troy.  

There is a city called Myrina on the Aegean coast near Pergamum and the Caicus/Baricay, around 90 miles south of Troy. 

There is also a city called Myrina on the island of Lemnos, around 40 miles west of Troy.  

This is a statue on the island of Lemnos, where Jason and the Argonauts stopped and made it famous for its armed women.  It depicts Maroula, aka The Last Amazon of Lemnos.  

Notes on the Kalifatli Asmak

If I could fund a study, it might be a professional study of the Asmaks in the plain of Troy, including a live walking-scientist type search for evidence of human construction, such as cut banks, artificially lined banks or sluice gate remnants; along with a full description of length, depth, width, how much of its length is straight and how much is meander, etc. That could be done cheap, right?  Has any professional ever walked the full length of the Kalifatli Asmak?  

There are several historical descriptions of the Asmaks.  They raise plenty of questions.  I will review some of those below, then look at some maps, then discuss the whole thing.  

The Asmaks are extensive.  The main one is called the Kalifatli Asmak.  Here are some remarks about it from Peter Forschhammer:

E. of the Mendere, and N.W. of the new Chiflik of Akchi Kevi, at the foot of three hills, in which a branch of the Chiblak range terminates, is a marshy lake, fed by springs called by the natives Judan (a water that never diminishes). From the Judan issue three Asmaks.* Two of these flow N. of W. towards the sea ; the third flows in an opposite direction, and falls into the Kimar-Su. ... The Kalifatli-Asmak does not come down from the mountains, nor does it fall into the Mendere, as has been erroneously represented by former topographers and map-makers. It issues from the Judan in the plain; and it is only during the period of the winter inundations that its waters mingle with those of the Mendere, and then in consequence of the latter overflowing and quitting their natural bed.   P 31 

 *Asmak is a term applied to channels which contain running water in winter only, and standing pools in summer. The beds of the Asmaks in the Trojan plain are commonly cut by the water through the flat soil, so that in many places they are not visible before you reach the edge of the steep bank.

We now know that "the Judan" was an artificial swamp caused by a collapsed bridge across an Asmak, which blocked the flow of three springs.  Frank Calvert removed the bridge and drained the swamp into the Asmaks.  The source of the Asmaks is near the meeting point of Kemer Creek and the Mendere.  

When Forschhammer says that two Asmaks take off to the NW, he is talking about the two arms of the Kalifatli Asmak which flow toward the sea.  The other one, which we will call the Akshi Kioi Asmak, goes out the SW end of the swamp, heading toward the Kimar Su. 

The Kalifatli-Asmak has a deep and very sharply-defined bed, from its source all the way down to the sea. In the month of August the water from the Judan does not preserve the character of a continuous stream further than about a mile from the lake. Lower down the channel was dry in some parts, and overgrown at the bottom with brushwood and rushes ; in others it was filled with pools of stagnant water. In the upper part the course of the river may be traced by the line of trees which borders its banks ; but in the lower part the bed is scarcely discerned before you reach the edge of its steep bank. P 30f  

It has "a deep and very sharply-defined bed, from its source all the way down to the sea", and in the lower part of the plain, where it does not have trees along its banks, "the bed is scarcely discerned before you reach the edge of its steep bank". It appears to be "cut by the water through the flat soil, so that in many places they are not visible before you reach the edge of the steep bank".  

Now for a remark from Walter Leaf's, Troy, A study in Homeric Geography (1912):  

The banks of the Kalifatli Asmak are steep and sharply marked: they must be constantly renewed. No ancient banks could retain this shape through the numerous inundations to which they have been subject for so long a time. P 32

Like Forschammer, Leaf notes how steep and sharply defined the banks of the Asmak are.  

Here is Heinrich Schliemann, from Troy and its Remains, 1875.

The Plain of Troy is traversed from the south-east to the north-west by the Scamander, which is distant from Hissarlik 30 minutes' walk, and the bed of which I can recognise from here by the uninterrupted row of trees growing upon its banks. Between the Scamander and Hissarlik, at a distance of only 15 minutes from the latter, the Plain is again intersected by the river Kalifatli-Asmak, which rises in the marshes of Batak (Thymbria), and is filled with running water only in late autumn, winter, and spring; but during the hot summer months, till the end of October, it consists of an uninterrupted series of deep pools. This stream, even during the continual heavy winter rains, and in comparison with its splendid and immensely broad channel, has but a very scanty supply of water -- in fact, never so much as to cover even the tenth part of the breadth of its bed.  p 72

Schliemann says that "even during the continual heavy winter rains" the Kalifatli Asmak does not have enough water in it to cover a tenth of its breadth.  It is that large and that well defined.  

From Schliemann's, Ilios, the City and Country of the Trojans, 1880: In his reviews of several different water bodies, Schliemann writes:

(f) Of the Kalifatli Asmak—which, with Virchow, Burnouf, and Calvert, I hold to be identical with the ancient bed of the Scamander—I have already spoken at some length. It is enough to add here, that one arm of it rises in the Duden swamp on Mr. Calvert’s farm of Akshi Kioi, while another arm starts from the point where the Scamander and Thymbrius meet. The latter arm, which is broad and deep, brings at the time of the floods an immense volume of water from the Scamander, and joins the former arm at a short distance to the north of the Duden swamp. There can hardly be any doubt that this is the ancient bed of the Scamander. At a short distance to the north of the confluence of the Scamander and Thymbrius there is a second channel, and a little further on a third, through which the Scamander now sends its surplus waters into the Kalifatli Asmak. In all three channels, but particularly in the last one, may be seen countless trunks of uprooted trees, which have been carried down the stream by the force of the current. The Kalifatli Asmak has scarcely any current except in the winter months; in the dry season it consists of a long series of pools of stagnant water.  P 99

This "broad and deep" arm that brings water from the Scamander during floods is the Akshi-Kioi Asmak. I've marked it on the map below, along with the silted up waterways he mentions.  

In the above map from Schliemann, he has drawn the east end of the Akshi Kioi Asmak rather faintly, as if it is partially silted up like the other three waterways marked there.  The eastern end of the Asmak reaches the Kimar Su. 

On the map above from Thomas Spratt we again see the Akshi Kioi Asmak extending to the southeast toward Kanai Tepe, along with other apparently silted up waterways. Forschhammer reported a marsh south of Kanai Tepe.  

On the map above, again from Thomas Spratt, we see the Akshi Kioi Asmak and two partial waterways drawn with dotted lines. One of these reaches Kemer Creek.  

Forschhammer writes:

In the plain the bed of the [Kimar] river increases in breadth, and after passing the last height to the N. divides into three arms which re-unite near the Chiflik of Akchi-Kevi, where the water begins to re-appear at intervals. About 100 yards farther on the river passes through a little marshy wood called Baluk (a place for honey), at the lower end of which the channels of the Akchi-Kevi-Asmak meet those of the Kimar. The marsh was quite dry in the month of August; but a deep and well-defined bed, with a smaller one by its side, could be traced from it to the Mendere, through which the waters of the Kimar and Akchi-Kevi- Asmak find their way in the wet season.  P 33

As Forschhammer sees it, the Akshi Kioi Asmak reaches Kemer Creek.  

Observations 

Not so long ago, the two branches of the Kalifatli Asmak met near the top of the plain. 

The two branches also meet just above Kalifat, so the east and west branches formed a circuit. 

Above the meeting point there was another section of Asmak that came down from Kemer Creek. This section was almost obliterated by the 1850-80s.  

The eastern branch of the Kalifatli Asmak, which follows the contours of the Chiplak Ridges for almost 3 miles, if it was to continue this pattern, would continue around the ridge that Kalafat sits on, and then finally around the ridge of Hisarlik.  However, it does not follow the ridges in the lower part of the plain and apparently never did.  Instead, it flows into the plain below Kalafat, and then suddenly makes a 90 degree turn to the east when it encounters the large raised earth anomaly that also turns the Mendere to the west. This mound that turns two waterways is still unknown to science.  

Thoughts 

Many theorists, including Spratt, Virchow and Schliemann, think that the Scamander/Mendere made the channels on the east side of the plain.  They call the Asmaks the ancient bed of the Scamander.  

I think that didn't happen for several reasons. 

In order to run on the east side of the plain, the Scamander, after meeting the Kimar, would proceed uphill to the higher, eastern edge of the plain.  Water does not run uphill.  

A river is unlikely to flow along the edge of a plain because the edge is elevated above the center of the plain. 

Where there are two channels both Asmaks cut across a slope for their entire length, which is highly unusual.  

Given the descriptions from both Schliemann and Forschhammer, there seem to be no natural levees associated with these channels.  If that is the case, and there really are no natural levees, then the channels were never a significant source of flooding, and therefore were never the bed of the Scamander for very long.  Any channel that is a perennial source of floods will build up natural levees along its banks by dropping its larger and heavier loads closer to the channel, and its lighter, smaller debris further away.  Thus do rivers build their banks.  If the banks are not built up, then the channel was never a significant source of flooding.  

This also means that neither the Mendere nor Kemer creek carved the channel, because they both flood. 

In low lying plains, and in gently sloped plains, like the plain of Troy, rivers are unlikely to cut down into the ground, and are more likely to form wide meanders and deltas.  Hence the very depth of the channel and the fact that it is in a gently sloped coastal plain strongly suggests that it is artificial or mostly artificial.  

The Asmaks are suspiciously deep, seem to have no levees along their banks, and cut across a slope on the raised edges of a plain for almost three miles. For these reasons, I believe they are artificial.  They obviously never contained a river, so they must have been canals from the very start, as they are now.  

Perhaps the whole thing started from the joining together of two oxbow lakes. 

Questions

Question: Why have two Asmaks?  

I mostly have thought of them as some kind of irrigation system.  Two Asmaks are better than one because it means more water trapped or stored in canals, I suppose. 

Question: Why are the two Asmaks so close to one another? 

If they are manmade, why are they close together on one side of the plain?  Why not put them further apart to bring water to more of the plain?  The east branch is so far over that it can only irrigate from it's western side, because its eastern side is too close to the Chiplak ridge to irrigate much, plus it is uphill to that side.  But its western side can only irrigate a small space because it is never far from the western branch. 

Question: Why do they join at the top and bottom and form a circuit?  

Perhaps they join at the top and bottom so that barges can go up one side and down the other without being taken out of the water.  This would facilitate movement of persons and provisions up and down the plain.  I don't know if one could row uphill in the plain, perhaps they used horses to draw a barge uphill.

I can't think of any other reason to form a circuit.

It is possible that we are looking at an incomplete project. Perhaps a third and fourth trench were planned but not completed, or perhaps there is another trench but it was obliterated before the 19th century. 

Question: Would ancient people actually build that?

I think not. But what do I know?  

Question: If the Trojans built this waterway in the bronze age, what was it for?  

It could be flood control.  

It could be irrigation. 

It could be domestic water supply for a city in the plain; even if it is not drinking water, it can be used in animal hydration, metal working, toilets and other applications.  

It could be for transportation of goods by barge in the plain.

Perhaps they held boat races on it.  

Heinrich Schliemann finds Bricks in the Plain of Troy

Heinrich Schliemann, Ilios, The City and Country of the Trojans, discussing the excavations of Dr Virchow:

He dug a fourth hole in the dry overgrown bed of the In Tepeh Asmak, close to the little neck of land at the south-west corner of Rhoeteum. Here he found the same compact clammy rich black earth, to a depth of 1 métre 10 centimetres; there were no stones in it, but a great number of rounded pieces of baked bricks. 

Ilios, p 88

Professor Virchow goes on to say: ‘‘ However satisfactory this result is in itself, it is but of little use for the chronological question. Only in the In Tepeh Asmak I found fragments of bricks in the silt of the riverbed, which bore witness to the comparative lateness of this silting up, which must, therefore, have taken place when brick-baking men already had their habitations in the Plain. I observe here that these brick fragments occurred not only on the surface, but also below. On this side, therefore, there can exist no evidence against the opinion that the In Tepeh Asmak has ceased to be a real outlet only in a relatively modern time.”

Ilios, p 89

These might be two descriptions of the same find, it might be two different finds.  It seems significant that all the way down by Rhoeteum, on the Dardanelles, there are "a great number of rounded pieces of baked bricks" in the ground.  Virchow is right that the silting up of the entrance to the In Tepeh Asmak north of Kum Koi probably took place after "brick-baking men already had their habitations in the Plain." He found bricks on the surface and also below the surface,  Seems like there might be a lot more of them around.  

We don't know if those are bronze age bricks or not, of course.  But I can imagine that a flooded mudbrick city in the plain would have left so many bricks to wash away that they would still be found way down river at the coast, three or four miles away, 3000 years later.