Mycenaean Warriors

[Paullus]

Another theory I've heard is that Ajax and Hector are characters from a much older epic, with suitable equipment for early centuries, including figure-8s. On the Ajax tower shield bit I'm not there with that, but if we are talking about a figure-8 for Hector that might be one explanation. Homer might simply be trying to rationalize an even older character with a more modern era.

Plus by saying that could not be would to say that Homer made absolutely no mistakes and that its impossible that there were no transcription errors by scribes. Its not like Homer was the only "writer" of the Illiad either, so he himself may have taken the description of Hector's shield as something else from an older form of the story. In the end the Iliad is just a myth and a story. So what if Hector has a figure 8? In the Matrix the characters drive out of production cars and use phones dating from the 60s and 70s. Not totally historical, but its a story element.

That being said one should not just pick and choose what elements to see as historical. Neither can we say the Iliad and Homer are 100%. But the new finds, particularly in Thebes, are quite intriguing in their similarity to the Iliad, and in some ways to Connolly's reconstructions.