Article 2.
(Read article 1: Why was Achilles, Greece’s greatest hero, blond? )
As mentioned in an earlier article, there’s something strange with the Iliad because many of the Greek heroes, like Achilles, are blond and they’re fighting in a very cold Greece, where the supreme god loves to snow and hail. The Iliad and the Odyssey are two of Greece’s most famous works from ancient times. They were created by Homer sometime during the Bronze Age more than 3,000 years ago, but were written down much later, about 2,700 years ago. But already the ancient Greeks don’t seem to have recognized themselves in the works.
In addition to the snow and the blond hair, the Greeks couldn’t make sense of Homer’s geography. Homer has placed lots of islands, sailing distances, coasts, mountains, rivers, and other geographical details completely wrong. While the ancient Greeks scratched their heads, commentators of today have made things easy for themselves. They conclude that there’s so much that’s wrong in the Iliad and the Odyssey that they must be fairy tales and not based on real events. That’s an easy way to ignore if Homer was really bad at geography. And then you can ignore all the other details that don’t correspond with Greece, such as hair color and climate.
There are two solutions. Either, Homer was really bad at geography and made it all up. Or, the Iliad and the Odyssey are based on real events, and Achilles and the other heroes were real people. Because Homer must have gotten his inspiration from somewhere. However, wherever the events took place, they couldn’t have taken place in Greece, even if that’s where the works were finally written down and preserved. But then, where do the stories come from?
Last article: The Battle of Troy: a primitive battle at the Baltic Sea
Ilion & HERACLES: the books 