We're reading a lot of Greek myths around here lately. We also read about the Trojan War. It was a nice trip down memory lane (AP English anyone?) for me. The boys drew pictures of the Trojan horse outside the wall of the city and also made a Trojan horse out of legos. I didn't get pictures before the lego horse was remade into a ship. When Jon got home, the boys were telling him the story of the Trojan horse and they asked if it was true. Their history book, "A Child's History of the World," called the chapter, "The Fairy-Tale War." I always believed it was a myth, but Jon was sure it was historical. The kids love a "battle of the parents" research party. This time, we learned that the historical reality of the Trojan War is inconclusive. Here is a portion of what we read on Wikipedia:
"The Ancient Greeks thought the Trojan War was a historical event that had taken place in the 13th or 12th century BC, and believed that Troy was located in modern day Turkey near the Dardanelles. By modern times both the war and the city were widely believed to be non-historical. In 1870, however, the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann excavated a site in this area which he identified as Troy; this claim is now accepted by most scholars.[1][citation needed] Whether there is any historical reality behind the Trojan War is an open question. Many scholars believe that there is a historical core to the tale, though this may simply mean that the Homeric stories are a fusion of various tales of sieges and expeditions by Mycenaean Greeks during the Bronze Age. Those who believe that the stories of the Trojan War derive from a specific historical conflict usually date it to the 12th or 11th centuries BC, often preferring the dates given by Eratosthenes, 1194–1184 BC, which roughly corresponds with archaeological evidence of a catastrophic burning of Troy VIIa.[2]"
(Wikipedia entry)
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