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TITVS SABATINVS AQVILIVS · 11-19-2002, 06:05 PM

Did anyone hear the Felice Vinci's theory about the real locations of the Ilyad and Odissey? He wrote an interesting book about the incredible names and places correspondence between the poems locations, names and facts and the finnish ones. Some days ago, at the italian tv channel "La7" Mr. Vinci explained his quite convincing theory in the real places in Finland. 
 
The correspondences are found also about the the Eneid and the Romans origin. Did Virgilius use those names due to ancient memories? Askainen-Ascanius, Raum-Roma, Lavia-Lavinia, Eura-Eurialus, Kattilus -Catillus, etc. 
 
Take a look to the two locations, the "classic" one, the Aegean sea and the "possible one" the Baltic sea-Finland: they has a very similar shape... 
 
This theory seems to give more value the old Tilak's theory about the ancient indo-european people (Greeks and Romans too) home: the North. 
 
Ever heard about that? What do you think? 
 
Valete, 
 
Titus Sabatinus Aquilius 
 
"Desilite, inquit, commilitones, nisi vultis aquilam hostibus prodere" D.B.G. (4.25)

Goffredo · 11-21-2002, 05:47 PM

Ciao 
I saw the interview too but by accident as I usually don't watch the program. More often than not the program is not very serious and more than once in the past I actually got quite upset while watching it as the approach the journalist uses is too sensationlistic and sometimes just ridiculous. 
 
Another odious example of the sensationalistic interpretation of archeological finds is the Schlieman story! I never did completely find the Schlieman interpretation of the finds in Turkey water-tight. In my opinion his Troy (which one?) was a site used for too long and even too recently to fit smoothly with the homeric legends. Not much in Schlieman's theory is smooth. I really feel he ruthlessly forced the interpretation and people bought it because they wanted to! These things happened many times in the past and do today too. Simply because everyone keeps saying Schlieman discovered Troy does not make it a true statement. It just proves he had a real talent for selling his image to the public. 
 
Mr. Vinci sounds like a very serious person! The pieces of the overall puzzle he seems to have identified seem to fit very nicely. I also liked the comments that were made after the interview by Prof. Trocchi on the nature of legends. On the one hand legends are to be robust in that they are used by a people or a culture to maintain continuity with their past and ancestors, but must be flexible to be able to trasform and adjust to the reality of later generations that might grow up in a completely different context. 
 
Indeed in prehistoric times migrations were the norm. The economies of pre-history were very fragile and even slight climatic or environmental changes, including the fighting for limited resources with other groups, could suddenly cause a significant change if only because the group had to migrate to new areas to simply survive. In addition life was short. 
 
So cultural continuity was always a very important priority in early human history. Stories were a group's memory. Structure (plot) and rythm imparted by the use of poetry has always made memorizing easy. But in any case "significance" had to be renewed every generation. Every generation had to re-interpret the story and interiorize it to best pass it on.

TITVS SABATINVS AQVILIVS · 11-22-2002, 09:52 AM

Ciao Goffredo, 
 
This is the Mr. Felice Vinci book: 
 
"Homericus Nuncius - Il mondo di Omero nel Baltico" 
Solfanelli editore - Chieti 1993 
 
The photo section of the Finland places is really interesting: rivers, bays, hills are the same of the poems and you'd have to see the names on the street signs! 
 
Vale, 
 
Titus Sabatinus Aquilius 
 
"Desilite, inquit, commilitones, nisi vultis aquilam hostibus prodere" D.B.G. (4.25)

**Robert Vermaat** · 11-23-2002, 11:59 AM

I have two really convincing EM books that prove that the Trojan war took place in East Anglia, and that Ulyssis/Odysseus wandered around the North Sea before returning home. Other theories have him visiting Helgoland, or better, Atlantis was Helgoland (I've dug up a book about that too, very good, by a German vicar 
 
Cheers, 
Robert Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=vortigernstudies>Vortigern Studies</A> at: 11/23/02 1:01:06 pm

Goffredo · 11-23-2002, 01:18 PM

Hi Vorty. 
Sarcasm is a powerful rhetorical weapon as nobody likes to be made to pass as a fool. 
 
I do agree with your implicit message that psuedo theories pop up all the time and plausibility is certainly not increased by simply saying something "different" from the traditional or standard theory/story. 
 
Instead there is room for alternative theories/stories when the standard one is not really convincing. 
 
What is the standard theory/story? Schlieman found Homer's Troy! Is this the best interpretation around? Can the Schlieman finds in Turkey with the many stratified cities (cities?), the gold death masks and rich treasures be none other than Troy? Others have even said Homer's chaps never existed at all. Maybe that is the wisest (best) hypothesis. Actually I personally prefer it to Schliemnan's. 
 
What makes a hypothesis a theory would be worth a discussion. In my environment a hypothesis is also called an "educated guess". A theory is much more than a hypothesis as it is supposed to tie together many facts into a coherent picture (consistent story) AND it has to have some predictive power: i.e. one should find new facts that can be interpreted as additional evidence in places the theory tells one to look. But this new evidence is only good if cannot be explained other ways. Schlieman found a rich city in an area were many rich cites are known to have existed. Hmm... 
 
If instead an hypothesis only ties together other educated guesses into a big imaginatively articulated guess, it still is not yet a theory! The Atlantis theories and similars, maybe even Mr. Vinci, fall into this category. 
 
The irony is that Mr. Vinci comes across in his interview as a serious person and a nice guy while Schlieman, if he were alive, he would certainly not be taken seriously. Yet generations of people still repeat the fact that Schlieman found Troy acritically.

**Robert Vermaat** · 11-24-2002, 12:28 PM

Oh, I was not rally aiming at the messengers, just fooling a bit around with the message. Indeed, new theories pop up all the time, and all with the same flaws. 
 
Is this about Troia? No, I think not. This is about the Odyssee, and Troia may be involved when it comes to the starting point. Like you, I hope Schliemann's ruins are Troia, but I fear we'll never be sure. But from the stories, I can only go and look for it in the Aegean area, not in the North Sea or the Baltic. Do most authors bother to explain how the story came to be transferred from their favorite areas to the Aegean? No, they don't. Do I have to take them seriously, then? No, I don't. 
 
Just to put in my opinion about the Odyssee: it did not happen. As a historian, IMO this story is no recollection of any real journey, and hence looking for a route that was followed by the hero is useless. The main flaw of all theories is that they seriously study the information about the geography, but (of course) neglect the 'fairy' stuff. that, IMO again, is not fair. If you study the story, you study it a s a whole. Is it a fairy tale, then don't discard the fairy stuff and pretend it was a truthful tale to begin with. So if there are crushing rocks that destroy ships, or sack of wind which blow you all the way back where you came from, or fairy ships that race you across the sea in a few hours, count them in. If the theory still fits after that, so much the better. Coast lines may be compared all over the world, even names can be deceptively similar. That the Baltic somehow looks a bit similar to the Aegean from above is useless info, because the story was not written by an author with a satellite picture before him. 
 
Having said that, of course there are many very interesting cultural elements in there, as are in the Ilias, which need to be studies to find out if they date to the Bronze Age or to Classical Greece. 
Maybe there even was a historical hero/warlord called Odysseus/Ulyssis who fought over Troia, I don't know. But stop treating the strory of his homecoming as if it was real, just placed totally elsewhere, without even bothering to think of a good explanation how that came to be a very famous Greek epos. 
 
Cheers, 
Robert

TITVS SABATINVS AQVILIVS · 11-25-2002, 09:58 AM

The VinciÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s research took its start from a PlutarcusÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢ work: 
ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…â€œDe facie quae in orbe lunae apparetÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã‚Â

TITVS SABATINVS AQVILIVS · 11-25-2002, 10:02 AM

Here is a german language review too: 
 
www.jesus1053.com/l2-wahl...utsch.html 
 
Valete, 
 
Titus Sabatinus Aquilius 
 
"Desilite, inquit, commilitones, nisi vultis aquilam hostibus prodere" D.B.G. (4.25)

**Robert Vermaat** · 11-25-2002, 12:45 PM

Like I said, I know several books with roughly the same solutions, but finding the names within a smaller area in France, Britain and the Low Countries. One author wrote that he was baffled by sentences read during his schooldays about high and low tides (not common in the e. Mediterranean, but neither in the Baltic Sea) and the sun rising across the sea.. (not possible at Schliemann's Troia). Oh, yes, I still owe you the references: 
 
ThÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â©ophile Cailleux (1879): Pays Atlantiques dÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â©crits par HomÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¨re, (Paris). 
 
Gideon, Ernst (1973): Homerus, zanger der Kelten, Odysseus op Schouwen-Duiveland, (Ankh-Hermes). 
 
Wilkens, Iman (1990): Where Troy Once Stood, (Rider, London), see also www.troy-in-england.co.uk/, where the author is still fine-tuning his theory (www.troy-in-england.co.uk/p1.htm) and www.jesus1053.com/l2-wahl/l2-autoren/l3-spedicato/Homer-Engl.htm and a very thorough one at ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/uc_wilson_troy1.htm 
 
A Dutch site about the Odyssee: home-3.worldonline.nl/~meester7/odyssee.html with arguments for other possible journeys. 
 
Names are clearly not the solution here, because it is absolutely impossible to prove that the alternative names go back all the way to the Bronze Age, or even to the time of the first written version of the Iliad/Odyssee. The easyness with which the names (whether modern or ancient) can be transported can also be explained, up to a point at least, with the common language roots. That so many areas are possible shouls be telling). Most of the time, though, the Scandinavian alternatives bear only a slight resemblance to the Homeric originals. Who's kidding who? 
 
Nothing against Plutarch, but did even he dare to explain how this Greek epos came to be located in Greece when it so obviously was located in the North Sea area? I guess not. If he did, please tell me, it would be a first. Vinci, too, can do no better than to repeat earlier authors who note that post-Mycenean Greek culture is influenced by other European (but lost) material. Hardly proof, I'd say, when there is no original material to test that theory with. This is no 'proof' of the nordic origin of the Mycenean culture, which was apparently last published by Prof. P. Nilsson: "Homer and Mycenae", London 1933, pp. 71-86 (according to a review of Vinci's book). 
 
(Just to make sure, the following is not meant to be sarcastic) These theories pose an intersting problem, anyway, for they speak of the relative easiness with which authors are prepared to discard history as established so far, for a radical new theory. I mean, that names like Attica, Atene and Naxos can be found on the south Swedish coast should not lead to the assumption that these famous Greek places are to be looked for there intead of in the Aegean region. Would anyone be prepared to assume that the Roman Empire actually lay in North America, simply because tody we can find many. many similar names? I once read a (sarcastic) article about the obelisk in Paris, where the author proposed that it was located in the original spot, and that Egyptian culture was just a rip-off from the famous Paris Obelisk.. EM 
 
Cheers, 
Robert Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=vortigernstudies>Vortigern Studies</A> at: 11/25/02 2:00:28 pm

TITVS SABATINVS AQVILIVS · 11-26-2002, 11:54 AM

Robert, 
 
while I understand your point of view about the lack of definitive proof: nobody denies it, Prof. Vinci too, 
I cannot agree about your last point: the fact that in North America there are a lot of Rome, Athen, etc. does not support 
that the same thing happened in Europe in so ancient ages and so far from the original places, basically due to the difference of the european feeling and memory compared to the the most recent one of the north americans. Europeans (all) kept their memory very alive through the ages and have not forgotten so much (so far!). The "proof" could be that the names are not "identical" to the ancient ones, like the emulator ones in the U.S.A., but they are a little bit different getting a "sweet corruption" along the centuries due to the oral handing on, to the changes of the local idioms, etc. These little differences are in my opinion a possible proof, even if "romantic" if you like, of their authenticity and a touching evidence. 
 
Valete, 
 
Titus Sabatinus Aquilius 
 
"Desilite, inquit, commilitones, nisi vultis aquilam hostibus prodere" D.B.G. (4.25)

**Robert Vermaat** · 11-26-2002, 12:58 PM

Titus, 
 
You wrote: "the fact that in North America there are a lot of Rome, Athen, etc. does not support 
that the same thing happened in Europe," etc, etc. 
 
Well, I guess it was a bit of sarcasm, but a theoretic example nonetheless. Of course it does not support such a claim, but any author could make a case of it the same way as these authors did when they located Troia wherever they want it to be outside the Aegean. 
The point is that no information is available from times even half as far back, so claims about place-names are easy to make: they are inprovable. The only bronze-age sites bearing names such as mentioned in the Ilias and the Odysse are in the Aegean cq the Mediterranean. Of course we can discuss how that came to be, but there are no sources dating back that far for similar names elsewhere. 
 
I'm a historian, and to me it is a simple matter of written sources. the Aegean hold the oldest sources, for most of Europe it starts with the Romans, for the Baltic it's even later than that. Therefore, there can be hardly any scientific discussion about names being elder in the Baltic than in the Aegean, other than a linguistic one, and that gives no hard dates. 
 
Again, you wrote: 
"basically due to the difference of the european feeling and memory compared to the the most recent one of the north americans. Europeans (all) kept their memory very alive through the ages and have not forgotten so much (so far!)." 
 
I'd be very interested to learn where you base that conclusion on. As far as I know, most Europen 'knowledge' of times past dates back to the first written version (again, mostly a Roman one), but most 'legends' go no further back than Medieval times. Of some stories we are lucky to have more versions, which show the complete opposite of your claim: much is forgotten, even more is altered down the line. No 'original' information through legends can be traced (apart from assumptions) to the bronze age or the PRIA, aside from the oldest legends which we have from pre-Roman and Roman sources. 
 
Lastly, you wrote: 
"The "proof" could be that the names are not "identical" to the ancient ones, like the emulator ones in the U.S.A., but they are a little bit different getting a "sweet corruption" along the centuries due to the oral handing on, to the changes of the local idioms, etc. These little differences are in my opinion a possible proof, even if "romantic" if you like, of their authenticity and a touching evidence." 
 
Titus, if anything this would be proof of the opposite. As I tried to say above, the baltic names are impossible to date as older than the Aegean ones. There is no necessity that because they seem to correspond, there should be a relation between them, other than Indo-European roots or sheer coincidence. 
 
As you say, such claims as by Vinci and other cannot be disproved, but that is hardly a scientific approach, it is? But even if it were, the bulk of the evidence is in favour of the Aegean being the original region, because the names there are presented in the oldest sources. I realise of course that any claim that the stories took place there might be void because they were made by biased observers, but that argument can be made both ways. We simply have no corresponding sagas in northern Europe, it's as simple as that. 
 
What remains is to say that of course theories about Troia and the Odyssee being located elsewhere are possible, but in my opinion these should be accompanied by statements that there is no hard evidence from sources equal to the Greek ones. I find it a bit unfair to present such theories as if they were of eual value, which is maybe my main reason for acting against them the way that I do. 
In my field of expertise, Dark Ages Britain, I have seen much damage done by authors who claim the wildest things (e.g. 'Roman roads built by the Celts'), get a big audience because of that, but shun any scientific discussion because 'scientist are biased and there is aconspiracy to supress real evidence'. It is left to 'us' to pick up the pieces and try and convince a bewildered and often hostile audience of the opposite. Luckily, the Troia theories are not as hostile by far, but it's the same principle: nice stories, no proof. 
 
Cheers, 
Robert

TITVS SABATINVS AQVILIVS · 11-27-2002, 02:49 PM

Robert, 
 
I was just referring to the well known american fashion to name their cities with ancient european names. 
 
In the Poetic Eddas, the ancient oral literature of Iceland which were finally written down from 1000-1300 A.D, is told about Ull the archer hero son of Sif. We know that Ulysses was an archer hero (Ull-Ulysses: note the names analogy) and Euripides tell us he was son of Sisifo (and Ull was son of Sif). But is just one of many examples that are a playground for the comparative mythology researchers. 
 
Anyway the first written source of indo-iranic-european Mythology and legends are the ancient indian Ryg-Veda books (8000-4500 B.C.) and iranic Avesta books (about 1500 B.C.). For example, they both tell about the northern/hyperborean Fatherland, many of their elements are common in the nordic and the greek-roman sagas too (G.B. Tilak, G.DumÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â©zil). In all the above texts , the archaic and main solar concept is pointed on the year composed by ten months of light and two of darkness in the ancient Fatherland of light, (Thule for the Greeks), represented since the Stone Age with the swastika sign. 
In the hindu epos of Parushu-RÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢m,a the winter point run across (8700/-6540 B.C.) the cancer constellation, today called Cancer, but represented at that time by the octopus (Polypus, Polupoun) about this representation we have archaic evidences diffused along a large area from Scandinavia to the mycenean Greece. The octopus symbolized the sun,and the swastika is its graphic representation. 
And always for example, as the great researcher of comparative mythology and languages G. Dumezil wrote in his "the german Gods", the nordic mythology and the greek-roman mythology has many indo-iranic roots and analogies: one above all, the Triad concept. 
 
This is not ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…â€œArea 51ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã‚Â

11-28-2002, 12:10 PM

The french scientist and explorer Alain Bombard had a theory according to which the Odyssey was the secret map of a voyage towards the British isles in search of tin, akin to the medieval "portulans". 
It was pretty rational too.. 
As for names of Uil and Sif, it could pretty well be the other way round: they were adopted from the greco-roman mythology --Like Hercules was, for instance-- since they appear in a text roughly two millenia after the facts. The analogy about the Paris Obelisk demonstrating that the Egyptian civilisation came from there comes to mind. 
Another book by Paul Faure (Ulysse le CrÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â©tois) demonstrates also that Odysseus was in fact a Cretan and he did not originally come from Ithaca. 
Ithaca in Greece, not in the USA.. 
It is extremely well documented too. 
Dumezil has indeed demonstrated certain things about the Indo-european peoples and the theory is that they originally came from the Caucasus area. Not from Sweden, I'm afraid. 
Besides demonstrating a common origin for the Indo-european peoples, it doesn't prove anything about Odysseus sailing the Baltic. 
On a purely dialectic point of view I find it difficult to dismiss a story as a whole ("The Odyssey is a legend") and then point out to parts of that "legend" as real facts. 
If the Odyssey was an invention, then why should the tides and the endless days be real? 
As for the Trojan War... Yes.. It never happened.. It's like the end of the Mycenean civlisation. It never happened. They just all went on vacation to Honolulu..

Goffredo · 11-28-2002, 01:52 PM

Hi Antoninus 
 
You wrote: 
"On a purely dialectic point of view I find it difficult to dismiss a story as a whole ("The Odyssey is a legend") and then point out to parts of that "legend" as real facts." 
 
You forget that most of history, until recent times, can be characterized by what you find difficult to accept "dialectically", namely that a story be refuted while parts be accepted as "factual". 
 
Lets not forget that historians in the past, when telling or rendering a story, were more intent in making a point (moral judgement, propaganda, destiny, what ever) than simply telling a sequence of facts in some neutral way. 
Facts were included, excluded, interpreted or distorted to make the story work. So we, today, many times find ourselves dismissing the stories of past historians but accept parts as factual. 
 
So if you accept that one must interpret history then you must dialectically accept the possibility that legends be interpreted too. Parts may be factual although the whole story stinks.

Goffredo · 11-28-2002, 02:37 PM

I am suprised to read that some of us blurt out squarely that legends date at most 1000 years. I really am missing the point. 
 
There are many legends that come from a remote past and fortunately got frozen only after a literary culture arose that jotted them down. Was Troy a complete invention of one man or did he simply systematize and clean up a story that was told by many generations with many small/large variations? What about the Old Testament? The Longobards? Romulus and Remus? History or Legend? Between pure white and pitch black there are many shades of grey. 
 
l.p.s. (long postscript) 
I accept that legends may be pure fiction but I hope the professional historians out there don't get offended if I say that history is not 100 factual either. History is not a science even though scientific methods must be used to reconstruct a certain ambient or sequence of events. But is that enough? Is that the real job of an historian? 
I hope I don't start off another argument on "what is science!" I simply mean that history does not deal with facts in the same way that physical sciences do. One can say that Ceasar really did die of n+1 stabs on such and such a day but I don't think this type of knowledge is what makes history interesting or attractive to the professionals out there. It is the story telling that makes it fun! Things make sense and connect! Note this is actually true of physical sciences too but the real difference is that in the physical sciences a story can be played over and over again, in controlled settings called reproducible experiments, until one is content or discontent with the story. The fun in science is not to measure some odd quantity with a certain precision but to add new evidence to give credit or debunk a certain "story". 
Both science and history are fun and both tell stories. In my opinion the big difference is, as I mentioned above, in the one word "reproducible". But this is my opinion and it is sufficiently subtle that I expect to be misinterpreted. 
 
Anyway, metaphorically speaking, to me historians are like art restorers that are trying to restore a painting or fresco that time has filled with holes, funghi and even the arbitrary noise and damage that past restorers have added in "wrong" restorations. But even an intact picture can tell a different story if the details "mean" (significance) different things to different viewers. The above topic becomes interesting when one tries to define what is a "wrong" restoration procedure. In modern restoration techniques the basic idea is first you consolidate and then that whatever else you do, it should be REVERSIBLE (sorry for misprint in original where I typed irreversible). Our descendants, posterity, might have a different interpretation of the very same artifact. It happend before and it will happen again. This is very wise and philosophically stimulating. 
 
In the physical sciences things are very VERY different. Here is another way of describing reproducibility: in modern physical sciences the phenomenon under study (to be compared with the historical event, or artifact) is not unique but can be made to manifest itself many times. If you can reproduce something then you can begin to hope to understand it (an idiot savant reproduces and out performs but doesn't comprend). 
 
Historians too attempt to identify "constants" in their rendering of the storys they tell; they look for structures (plots) in the stories they reconstuct and are not content with listing simply individual isolated unique facts. Isn't that what comprehension means? Understand something new in terms of that one already knows. But the physical sciences are by far easier to understand because controlled experimentation with simple systems is possible. Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=goffredo>goffredo</A> at: 11/28/02 4:51:33 pm

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