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183 Pages·2016·6.85 MB·English
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Archaeology and Homeric Epic AArrcchhaaeeoollooggyy aanndd HHoommeerriicc EEppiicc..iinnddbb ii 1111//3300//22001166 55::0088::4422 PPMM SHEFFIELD STUDIES IN AEGEAN ARCHAEOLOGY ADVISORY EDITORIAL PANEL Professor Stelios ANDREOU, University of Thessaloniki, Greece Professor John BARRETT, University of Sheffi eld, England Professor John BENNET, University of Sheffi eld, England Professor Keith BRANIGAN, University of Sheffi eld, England Professor Jack DAVIS, University of Cincinnati, USA Professor Peter DAY, University of Sheffi eld, England Dr Roger DOONAN, University of Sheffi eld, England Professor Paul HALSTEAD, University of Sheffi eld, England Professor Caroline JACKSON, University of Sheffi eld, England Dr Jane REMPEL, University of Sheffi eld, England Dr Susan SHERRATT, University of Sheffi eld, England AArrcchhaaeeoollooggyy aanndd HHoommeerriicc EEppiicc..iinnddbb iiii 1111//3300//22001166 55::0088::4433 PPMM SHEFFIELD STUDIES IN AEGEAN ARCHAEOLOGY Archaeology and Homeric Epic edited by Susan Sherratt and John Bennet Oxford & Philadelphia AArrcchhaaeeoollooggyy aanndd HHoommeerriicc EEppiicc..iinnddbb iiiiii 1111//3300//22001166 55::0088::4433 PPMM Published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by OXBOW BOOKS The Old Music Hall, 106–108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JE and in the United States by OXBOW BOOKS 1950 Lawrence Road, Havertown, PA 19083 © Oxbow Books and the individual contributors 2017 Paperback Edition: ISBN 978-1-78570-295-2 Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-78570-296-9 (epub) A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Sherratt, Susan, editor. | Bennet, John, editor. Title: Archaeology and Homeric epic / edited by Susan Sherratt and John Bennet. Description: Oxford & Philadelphia : Oxbow Books, 2016. | Series: Sheffi eld studies in Aegean archaeology | Includes bibliographical references. Identifi ers: LCCN 2016040020 (print) | LCCN 2016044861 (ebook) | ISBN 9781785702952 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781785702969 (epub) | ISBN 9781785702976 (mobi) | ISBN 9781785702983 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Archaeology--Greece. | Homer--Infl uence. | Epic poetry, Greek--History and criticism. | Civilization, Homeric. Classifi cation: LCC DF78 .A644 2016 (print) | LCC DF78 (ebook) | DDC 938--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016040020 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher in writing. Printed in the United Kingdom by Hobbs the Printers Ltd For a complete list of Oxbow titles, please contact: UNITED KINGDOM UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Oxbow Books Oxbow Books Telephone (01865) 241249, Fax (01865) 794449 Telephone (800) 791-9354, Fax (610) 853-9146 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] www.oxbowbooks.com www.casemateacademic.com/oxbow Oxbow Books is part of the Casemate Group Front cover: Reconstruction by Piet de Jong of battle scene in Hall 64 at Pylos (Lang 1969: col. pl. M). Courtesy of The Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati and American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Pylos Archive, Piet de Jong Collection of Watercolors. Photo Jennifer F. Stephens and Arthur E. Stephens. AArrcchhaaeeoollooggyy aanndd HHoommeerriicc EEppiicc..iinnddbb iivv 1111//3300//22001166 55::0088::4433 PPMM Contents List of Contributors .............................................................................................................vii Introduction .........................................................................................................................viii 1. Homer, the Moving Target ............................................................................................1 Anthony Snodgrass 2. The Will to Believe: Why Homer Cannot be ‘True’ in any Meaningful Sense..............................................................................................10 Oliver Dickinson 3. Dream and Reality in the Work of Heinrich Schliemann and Manfred Korfmann................................................................................................20 Johannes Haubold 4. Homeric Epic and Contexts of Bardic Creation .......................................................35 Susan Sherratt 5. Remembering and Forgetting Nestor: Pylian Pasts Pluperfect? ...........................53 Jack L. Davis and Kathleen M. Lynch, with a contribution by Susanne Hofstra 6. In the Grip of their Past? Tracing Mycenaean Memoria .........................................74 Diamantis Panagiotopoulos 7. Heroes in Early Iron Age Greece and the Homeric Epics .....................................101 Alexander Mazarakis Ainian 8. Gilgamesh and Heroes at Troy: Myth, History and Education in the Invention of Tradition ....................................................................................116 Stephanie Dalley 9. History and the Making of South Slavic Epic.........................................................135 Margaret H. Beissinger AArrcchhaaeeoollooggyy aanndd HHoommeerriicc EEppiicc..iinnddbb vv 1111//3300//22001166 55::0088::4433 PPMM vi Contents 1 0. ‘The National Epic of the Modern Greeks’? – Digenis Akritis, the Homeric Question, and the Making of a Modern Myth ........................................................156 Roderick Beaton Ο Γκιλγκαμές στην Τροία/Gilgamesh at Troy (a very short epic) ......................164 Paul Halstead AArrcchhaaeeoollooggyy aanndd HHoommeerriicc EEppiicc..iinnddbb vvii 1111//3300//22001166 55::0088::4433 PPMM List of Contributors RODERICK BEATON JOHANNES HAUBOLD Centre of Hellenic Studies, King’s College Department of Classics and Ancient History, London University of Durham JOHN BENNET SUSANNE HOFSTRA Department of Archaeology, University of Minneapolis, MN Sheffi eld KATHLEEN M. LYNCH MARGARET H. BEISSINGER Department of Classics, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Cincinnati Princeton University ALEXANDER MAZARAKIS AINIAN STEPHANIE DALLEY Department of History, Archaeology and Social Oriental Institute, University of Oxford Anthropology, University of Thessaly JACK L. DAVIS DIAMANTIS PANAGIOTOPOULOS Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati Institut für Klassische Archäologie, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg OLIVER DICKINSON Department of Classics and Ancient History, SUSAN SHERRATT University of Durham Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffi eld PAUL HALSTEAD Department of Archaeology, University of ANTHONY SNODGRASS Sheffi eld Clare College, Cambridge AArrcchhaaeeoollooggyy aanndd HHoommeerriicc EEppiicc..iinnddbb vviiii 1111//3300//22001166 55::0088::4433 PPMM Introduction Susan Sherratt and John Bennet The relationship between the Homeric epics and archaeology has suffered mixed fortunes over the course of the last century and a half, swinging between ‘fundamentalist’ attempts to use archaeology in order to demonstrate the essential historicity of the epics and their background at one extreme, and outright rejection of the idea that archaeology is capable of contributing anything at all to our understanding and appreciation of the epics at the other. Although narrow questions of historicity, particularly in relation to the Homeric Trojan War theme, have been revived in recent years (see especially Latacz 2004), we have chosen in this volume to concentrate rather on exploring a variety of other, perhaps sometimes more oblique, ways in which we can use archaeology, and also philology, anthropology and social history, to help off er insights into the epics, the contexts of their possibly prolonged creation (cf. Snodgrass, chapter 1), aspects of their ‘prehistory’ (Sherratt, Panagiotopoulos, Mazarakis-Ainian, chapters 4, 6–7), and what they may have stood for at various times in their long oral and written history (Dickinson and Davis and Lynch, chapters 2 and 5). The eff ects of the Homeric epics on the history and popular reception of archaeology, especially in the particular context of modern Germany, is also a theme that is explored here (Haubold, chapter 3). We have thus, on the whole, attempted to move beyond the old dichotomies between historicity and irrelevance and to bring a multi-disciplinary approach to the Homeric epics (and in some cases other epics both ancient and more modern — see the contributions by Dalley, Beissinger and Beaton, chapters 8–10) by exploring not only their varied relationships to the archaeological record and the practice of archaeology, but also a variety of other issues, either explicitly or implicitly. These include such diverse questions as the relationships between visual and verbal imagery and the role of both of these in refl ecting or enhancing elements of social and political ideology, the social contexts of epic (or sub-epic) creation or re-creation, the roles of bards and their relationships to diff erent types of patrons and audiences, the ability of story-patterns, ideological elements and linguistic formulae to cross linguistic and/ or cultural boundaries in general (and Near Eastern contributions to Homeric epic in particular), the construction and uses of ‘history’ as traceable through both epic and archaeology, the nature of ‘historical memory’ and its manipulation, linguistic and material-cultural stratigraphy as detectable in epic, composition-in-performance of oral history and its transmission and transformation, the relationship between ‘prehistoric’ (oral) and ‘historical’ (recorded in writing) periods, and the history of AArrcchhaaeeoollooggyy aanndd HHoommeerriicc EEppiicc..iinnddbb vviiiiii 1111//3300//22001166 55::0088::4433 PPMM Introduction ix ‘Homeric archaeology’ and other ‘epic archaeologies’ in general. Throughout, our emphasis is above all on context and its relevance to the creation, transmission, re- creation and manipulation of epic in the present (or near-present) as well as in the ancient Greek past. The Dating of Homer’s Epics: Late 8th Century BC and Later For long it was received wisdom among Classical scholars that the Homeric epics, whatever their earlier ‘prehistory’ (see below), were created, or at least emerged or crystallised in a more or less recognisable form, sometime around 700 BC, give or take a few decades on either side. This was despite the knowledge that the texts, as we know them, were divided into books and heavily edited by Alexandrian scholars. In recent decades, however, this view has been challenged - for example, by Minna Jensen (1980), who argued that the epics did not take on any recognisable form until they were written down in Athens in the Peisistratid period of the later sixth century BC, and by Gregory Nagy (e.g. 1995; 1996: 29–64), who sees the epics, as John Myres (1930) saw the Greeks themselves, as ‘ever in the process of becoming’ through several distinct stages of formation, from the Bronze Age right down to the Hellenistic period. The question of writing is often brought into this debate. There are some who believe that writing was essential for the ‘crystallisation’ of the epics, and that, if they were products of the late eighth century, they must have been written down at the fi rst opportunity. Indeed, Barry Powell (1991) has argued that the Greek alphabet was adopted and adapted specifi cally to write down the Homeric epics in the later 8th century. Others (e.g. Kirk [1962]), by contrast, believe that it is not impossible to conceive of the epics being transmitted orally in comparatively stable form by rhapsodes for a couple of centuries before being committed to writing. In this volume, Snodgrass (‘Homer, the moving target’, chapter 1) argues that nothing recognisable as defi nitively ‘Homeric’ is likely to have emerged by the end of the eighth century, even if cycles of epic poetry, including some story-patterns of the sort familiar from the Homeric epics, were already in circulation. Fully accepting Nagy’s long-term evolutionary model for the epics and its implications of a long period of fl uidity of creation and re-creation, at least before commitment to writing in the sixth century BC, he suggests that looking for chronological correlates in the archaeological record for particular passages is the equivalent of shooting at a moving target over a very long run, in which widely separated chronological circumstances may have produced similar archaeological eff ects, particularly since many Homeric descriptions can in eff ect be interpreted in a variety of diff erent ways. Nevertheless, the target (or rather, perhaps, a whole series of diff erent targets) is an important one, and for individual passages or elements of these we should not give up the search to fi nd some context or contexts that might explain what gave rise to these and their inclusion. This, in Snodgrass’s words, may turn out to be a much more stimulating sport than tackling the ‘stationary’ target of an assumed late eighth century ‘Homer’. AArrcchhaaeeoollooggyy aanndd HHoommeerriicc EEppiicc..iinnddbb iixx 1111//3300//22001166 55::0088::4433 PPMM

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The relationship between the Homeric epics and archaeology has long suffered mixed fortunes, swinging between 'fundamentalist' attempts to use archaeology in order to demonstrate the essential historicity of the epics and their background, and outright rejection of the idea that archaeology is capab
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