From Hittite to Homer

This book provides a groundbreaking reassessment of the prehistory of Homeric epic. It argues that in the Early Iron Age bilingual poets transmitted to the Greeks a set of narrative traditions closely related to the one found at Bronze-Age Hattusa the Hittite capital. Key drivers for Near Eastern influence on the developing Homeric tradition were the shared practices of supralocal festivals and venerating divinized ancestors and a shared interest in creating narratives about a legendary past using a few specific storylines: theogonies genealogies connecting local polities long-distance travel destruction of a famous city because it refuses to release captives and trying to overcome death when confronted with the loss of a dear companion. Professor Bachvarova concludes by providing a fresh explanation of the origins and significance of the Greco-Anatolian legend of Troy thereby offering a new solution to the long-debated question of the historicity of the Trojan War.