Historicity of the Trojan War Archives - Tales of Times Forgotten

Update: Dr. Christine Morris Confirms She Has Not Found the Trojan Horse

As frequent readers of my blog are already aware, on 10 August 2021, the website Greek Reporter republished an article that it originally published in 2014 claiming that archaeologists have found the remains of the Trojan horse. The story was quickly copied in both The Jerusalem Post and the International Business Times. The next day, however, I published a post on this blog titled “No, Archaeologists Have Not Found the Trojan Horse,” in which I pointed out evidence that the article published by Greek Reporter is a hoax written by someone with only very superficial knowledge of Aegean archaeology.

One of the pieces of evidence that I pointed out is the fact that the article cites a supposed professor at Boston University named Christine Morris as the leader of the team that has supposedly excavated the Trojan horse—but there is only one archaeologist who studies the Aegean Bronze Age named Christine Morris, she teaches at Trinity College Dublin, not Boston University, and, as far as I could tell, she has never excavated at Troy. Nonetheless, some people left comments on my post insisting that maybe Dr. Morris used to teach at Boston University at some point and maybe she really did discover the Trojan horse seven years ago.

I thought these objections were implausible, but, in the interest of being thorough, I emailed the real Dr. Morris using the email that is listed on her faculty webpage for Trinity College Dublin. She has very kindly taken the time out of her presumably very busy schedule to reply to my email. She has confirmed that she has never been affiliated with Boston University in any way, that she has never excavated at Troy or worked there in any capacity, that she has never claimed to have found the Trojan horse, and that the story that has been published by Greek Reporter and all these other news outlets is completely fabricated.

No, Archaeologists Have Not Found the Trojan Horse

On 10 August 2021, the website Greek Reporter published an article written by a contributor named Philip Chrysopoulos titled “Archaeologists Claim They’ve Discovered the Trojan Horse in Turkey.” The article claims that archaeologists have discovered the remains of a wooden structure inside the ancient city of Troy that they think is the actual Trojan horse. On the same day, The Jerusalem Post copied Greek Reporter’s story, publishing their own article titled “Did archaeologists find the Trojan horse?” that cites the Greek Reporter article as its only source.

The problem is that the whole story is a steaming pile of horse manure. The Greek Reporter article contains obvious signs that it is a deliberate hoax written in order to attract views in order to drive up ad revenues. By publishing this ridiculous, easily debunked story, Greek Reporter and The Jerusalem Post are both showing that, at the very best, they do not conduct even the most basic fact-checking or source verification and that they are not trustworthy news sites.

Heinrich Schliemann Debunked

Anyone who has studied archaeology has heard of Heinrich Schliemann. He is popularly acclaimed as the bold, talented, German-American amateur archaeologist who discovered the lost city of Troy at Hisarlık in what is now northwest Turkey. In truth, this image is largely a fabrication of Schliemann’s own making. The real Heinrich Schliemann was a lying, cheating, grifting, thieving charlatan and overall scumbag who only became famous because he was extremely rich and highly skilled in the art of lying to make himself seem more impressive than he really was.

Even though Schliemann is popularly credited as the “discoverer” of Troy, he was not the first person to identify Hisarlık as Troy. He was not even the first person to excavate there. Furthermore, his attempts to excavate the ruins of Troy were so hopelessly incompetent that he ended up actually destroying most of the ancient site.

What Did Helen of Troy Look Like?

Many people over the years have wondered what Helen of Troy might have looked like. After all, she was supposedly “the face that launched a thousand ships.” Who wouldn’t want to see what that face looked like? The truth, however, is that Helen of Troy never really existed and she can look however you imagine her to have looked. Nonetheless, in this article, I intend to briefly examine how various ancient Greek and Roman authors describe Helen’s appearance and how she is portrayed in ancient Greek and Roman art.

The Truth about Atlantis

If you are like most Americans, chances are, you probably believe that Atlantis or another civilization like it once existed. A survey conducted by Chapman University in October 2014 found that, at that time, roughly 63% of people in the United States agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “ancient, advanced civilizations, such as Atlantis, once existed.”

These numbers do not seem to be rapidly falling away either; when Chapman University conducted the same survey again in October 2018, they found that, this time around, 57% of people in the United States agreed or strongly agreed with the exact same statement. In other words, they seem to fairly consistently find that roughly six in ten people in the United States believe in the existence of Atlantis or another highly technologically advanced civilization like it.

These numbers are absolutely astounding considering that Atlantis is pure fiction; we know exactly where the story comes from, who made it up, and where he drew his inspiration from. This would be like if, in 2,500 years, 57% of people in some futuristic civilization believe that Westeros once existed. It is truly astonishing. Nonetheless, it seems there is just something so romantic about the idea of a lost, highly advanced civilization that no one wants to accept the reality that Atlantis is totally made up.

Did the Trojan War Really Happen?

The Trojan War and the events ensuing thereafter are the subject of the Iliad and the Odyssey, the two foundational epics of all Greek and, by extension, western literature. This one war has had more words written about it than probably any other war in the history of humanity. It has been immortalized through songs, poems, novels, and paintings. Yet, here is a startling question: did it ever really happen at all? We know Troy was a real city, but that does not mean the Trojan War itself really happened and very few Homeric scholars would try to argue that the Iliad or the Odyssey in any way resemble historical narratives—yet many laypeople still view them this way.