⚔️ Lärs Ümläüt :mugicrest: on Nostr: Just to step off it some more. I haven't read the Iliad in years so I forget exactly ...

Just to step off it some more. I haven't read the Iliad in years so I forget exactly how Homer described where Troy is located. But from memory, here's the problems you encounter by just trying to locate Troy using Homer's description.

1. Units of distance - Iirc Homer accounts all distances in archaic Greek units, some variant of 'Stadia' (forget how long it is). So you need to know what that is.
2. Descriptions of features - You have to parse Homers poetic language and pray to God you've translated his Greek correctly.
3. Account for the change in geographic features across time - There was twenty something layers of habitation to the Troy site itself before Schliemann arrived at the layer that's believed to be the Troy from the Iliad. That's just the site itself, not accounting for whatever else Homer describes that may have changed in the 3k years or so since the siege of Troy happened.
4. Poetic license - Hope Homer doesn't use much poetic license to tell his variant of the story of Troy.

That's just from the top of my head and that takes a lot of interdisciplinary knowledge to get right and a lot of earlier scholastic work as a foundation.