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Letter by Dr.Martin L.West, FBA. 

Dr.West is Professor for Greek and Neareastern Poetry at Oxford University.
The letter was printed by "The Times " on August 23:

   Academic spat over Troy project 

   Sir,
   The academic world is by no means “in a tizzy” over the spat between German academics reported by Roger Boyes (Times 2, August 17). It has followed attentively Manfred Korfmann’s excavations at Troy over 12 seasons. So far as I know Korfmann has never made extravagant claims about the significance of his findings. He has limited himself to presenting the archaeological results and left it to historians and philologists to draw inferences. 
   It is monstrous to compare him with Erich von Daniken, as Professor Frank Kolb is reported to have done, or to suggest that academic standards have been compromised for sensational results. Korfmann has shown a flair for publicity, but it is publicity for his excavation that he has sought, not for himself. 
   Hisarlik is the major prehistoric site in northwest Anatolia, even if it does not compare with Ugarit or Babylon. There is no doubt that it is “Homer’s Troy” at least in the sense that the poet of the Iliad knew the place and assumed its topography in his narrative. There is archaeological evidence that it had been destroyed by an enemy force in the 12th century BC. Nearly all scholars accept that the Greek tradition about the Trojan War is based on some memory of this. 
   On the other hand, we know that an epic tradition is liable grossly to distort the facts, and to be all but worthless as a historical source. We must therefore remain sceptical on such questions as who exactly destroyed Troy, in what circumstances, and from what motive. 
   To ask whether the city was “big enough to pose a threat to the Greeks and justify a decade of war and siege” is to misconceive the problem. Troy probably fell to a much smaller group of attackers in a much shorter time. 

Yours sincerely,

M. L. WEST,
All Souls College, 
Oxford OX1 4AL.

August 20.

Letter by Prof. J.D.Hawkins, FBA.

Prof. Hawkins is a leading English authority on Anatolian Languages. Besides other important translations of Hittite and Luwian texts and inscriptions he has translated the Luwian bronze seal found at Troia (Troia VIIb context).
The letter has not been printed so far in "THE TIMES": 

Dear Sir,

I was disturbed to read your article “Is this truly Homers Troy?" by Roger Boyes (17 August 2001), reporting attacks made in the German press on the present excavator of Troy, Professor Manfred Korfmann. It is a perfectly fair summary of a quite unfair situation. I have not myself seen these attacks, though I hear on good authority that they are both intemperate and vituperative, as emerges from your report. As Professor of Anatolian Languages, I am familiar at first hand both with the excavations and with Korfrnann' s presentation of his results. He is an experienced, well-known and highly respected archaeologist, who has worked at the site for more than ten years, and has lectured several times in this country, usually at the British Academy. The lectures are always exciting occasions, but Korfmann is scrupulous in maintaining the distinction between his archaeological material and his interpretation. It is indeed the archaeologist´s public duty to tell us not only what potsherds and wall-fragments he has found but also how he sees these remains as relating to the wider picture.

Your correspondent reports that a classicist colleague of Korfrnann´ s has compared him to the fantasist von Daniken. If this was indeed said, it is a simply outrageous charge against a reputable archaeologist, and could have no place in a serious academic criticism.

It is unfortunately the case that, with some honourable exceptions, classical scholars are simply unaware of the rapidly expanding body of information currently becoming available from Anatolian archaeology and Hittite texts of the 2nd millennium BC, which offer such an important background to the early phases of classical civilization. Another classical critic of Korfmann has recently published a book, which is particularly weak in this regard, showing little grasp of the texts or knowledge of recent developments.

The fact is that in the context of the Anatolian Bronze Age, the mound of Hisarlik is a typical citadel of a major centre of the period, fully comparable with other sites, from Bogazkoy to Carchemish. It is one of Korfmann´s  important achievements to have established the existence of a contemporary lower town, albeit with difficulty by means of scattered soundings through the heavy Hellenistic and Roman overlay. Such a discovery was certainly to have been expected, but its verification is nonetheless welcome.

To imply, as the earlier critic is quoted, that Troy was "at the margins of civilization" betrays a woeful, Hellenocentric ignorance, which should not be expected of a modern classical historian.

Yours sincerely,

J.D. Hawkins 
School of Oriental & African Studies
University of London 
London WC1H OXG

22 August 2001

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Date Last Modified: 29/Aug/01
By: HGJ