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The Troy Game (History)
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Mick Harper
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The Troy Game
[Various of our threads (even the Neandertals!) have led us to, via or past Troy. But whether this is the Troy of Homeric myth or the Troy on the banks of the Dardanelles or the Baltic Troy or the East Anglian Troy or some other Troy entirely which has no connection with the place except by etymological accident is something we'd like to nail down. Komorikid can start us on firm(ish) ground with this]

Spirals and Labyrinths

Are you aware that prehistoric carvings of spirals and labyrinths are still called 'Troy Towns' or 'Walls of Troy' in England, 'Caerdroia' in Wales and 'Trojaborg' in Scandinavia. In Northern Europe, the treading of the maze is still called 'the Game of Troy' which suggests a common characteristic between the circular Troy town labyrinths or 'unicursal' and the circular hillforts of Bronze Age Britain; both protect something at the centre. Wandelbury Hill just happened to pop into my head.

To which I might add my own:

And while we're playing Golden Oldies, I have still not had a sensible explanation for why there is

a) Troyes (i.e. Troy) in France
b) Paris (i.e. the Hero of Troy) next to it in France and
c) The Trinovantes (i.e. New Trojans) just over the Channel in Britain.
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Ishmael


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Here is an interesting link with our "Salt" Quest.

The word "Hellespont" combines two of our favourite nouns. On one side we have "helle" which is somehow connected with salt (and Helen of Troy, and Lot's Wife) and on the other side we have "pont" which is related to our super-root-word "pon" that has something to do both with water and with the sound of words.

Why is it that "pon" shows up as "punt" -- a type of boat or (according to one poster) a "bridge" -- and "pond", and shows up as "Phon" in "Phonetic" and "Pun," as in a humorous play on words?

What in heck is going on?

And while we're at it, where is the real Hellespont? Literally, the name means "Sea of Helle" which, according to our group's accumulated wisdom, would seem to mean "Sea of Salt."

Scholars say this "Sea" is nothing more than a river-width connector between the Aegean and Black seas. Of course, if "pont" means "bridge" then the connection makes better sense -- for the traditional Hellespont is a "bridge" between the Black Sea and the Agean.

If Homer's story is not set in Turkey however, there must have been a real "Sea of Salt" somewhere else -- and apparently, it was very hard to swim. Even Lord Byron might have had a time of it.

One thing I am now conviced of is this: the "h" in Helle is mispronounced. Somehow, the sound of the "h" symbol has been transcribed to the English "h" false-consonant. The letter "h" in "Helle" is actually pronounced like our letter "s." How or why the transcription took place is a mystery but "Helen of Troy" was clearly known to her close friends as "Selen" or "Selene."

And for some reason, "Selene" of Troy had the same name as the Moon. Was then the face that launched a thousand ships merely the serene face of the Moon?
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Mick Harper
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[From KOMORIKID]

To find the Hellespont one should look for remnant of it name in the area where it existed. Consider the following clues:

Helli Ness, Ellon, Hull, Ellesmere, Helvellyn, Helladon, Helvick Head, Helford, Helston, Hellesbeor, Helmingham, Elton. - British Isles

Hoelnes, Hellesylt, Hell, Helleland, Helli - Norway

Helsinki - Finland

Hel - Poland

Hellevad, Hellum, Helleback, Helsinger, Hellerup, Hellestad, Heenaes - Denmark

Heligoland, Hellwege, Hellendoorn, Helder, Ellicom, Hellevoctsluis, Hellegat, Helviot, Helmond, Holland - Netherlands (the very name is a giveaway)

Hellenthal, Hellimer , Helsdorf, Hellburg- Germany

Ellikon, Helvetia - Switzerland

Helfaut, Hellemmes, Elboeuf, Houlgate, Ellen, Helleville, St Hélier, Bro-Hellean, Chenal de la Helle, Elle River, Heloup, Hélette - France

Hellin - Spain

The Hellespont = The Helle Sea = The North Sea + the Bay of Biscay + The English Channel

In Nordic mythology Hel was the Kingdom of the dead.

Of his goods each man decides only until a certain day, for at a given time every man has to go from here to the house of Hel. - The Edda

In ancient times the other world (The Neither Lands) or Hel was symbolised by the sea; the cold dark, wine dark, cold green, grey sea, black sea, misty sea, salty, turbulent, dangerous and immense. These are all descriptors used by Homer to describe the Helle Sea. Nowhere does he describe it as BLUE the overwhelming colour of the Aegean in particular and the Mediterranean in general.

Komorikid
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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Finland = Phon-land
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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What was the name of Lot's wife?
The Bible does not tell us.
No fear. Homer did.
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Oakey Dokey



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Eurydice wife of Orpheus. She was killed but given a second chance but it was Orpheus who looked back not his wife, and his wife was lost (again) because of it.
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DPCrisp


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We've seen lots of interconected meanings for Hel, not just salt. How about Hellespont = Sun/Moon Bridge?

Maybe the Rainbow Bridge to Asgard? I dunno the details, but making a perilous journey to the land of the dead isn't an uncommon theme!

More literally, there are lots of places around Britain and Denmark (or within the Baltic) where someone could swim across, but only with difficulty. Some of them are even white (Dover).

PS. I have just read that the Sea of Marmora adjoins Asgard!
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Ishmael


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What does "Helen" mean?
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Oakey Dokey



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Torchlight?

Or bright one!

Interestingly she's born from an egg (begat by Zeus). Check out the world stories on the 'phoenix'. And birds like the Rorag, Roc, Raven, Horus and many more :P

Another reference in the Bible is Jesus's 'Salt of the earth'.
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Ishmael


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Well, if "Hal" means "Salt" then "Helen" means "of salt."

Helen, therefore, is a woman of salt.
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Tani


In: Fairye
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Yes, now we can all brainstorm about the possible implications on Homer's Iliad - the Trojan War - the general conflict/ hostilities between the Greeks and the Trojans etc

AND looks what creeps up again: Troy is in today's Turkey - Catal Huyuk is in Turkey - Mick and Dan might remember some early email exchanges about Catal Huyuk and that I had the feeling back in 2003 that somehow we should keep an eye on Catal Huyuk....
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Ishmael


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My question is this: What is Helen of Troy doing married to Lot, the friend of Abraham? And why is she fleeing the destruction -- not of Troy -- but of Sodom?

Helen fleeing Sodom is actually a double salt reference. A Woman of Salt flees a City of Salt.

Yes, now we can all brainstorm about the possible implications on Homer's Iliad - the Trojan War - the general conflict/ hostilities between the Greeks and the Trojans etc AND looks what creeps up again: Troy is in today's Turkey

I do not beliveve that Troy was in Turkey at all. I think the Acheans are Vikings.

On the subject of Troy, apparently, there is a city named "Trier" in western Germany that might make a good candidate. Its inhabitants claim it is the oldest city in Europe!

I do wonder how certain we can be that these ruins are Roman in origin?

Of further interest, the word "Stadt" is associated with Trier.

Oh...regarding pillars of salt...

As the Dead Sea recedes (apparently, the water level is lowering) it leaves standing above the water (these are actually in Utah) that once stretched from the sea floor to the original surface level. Is that a clue to the Biblical reference regarding Sodom? Interesting thing about Sodom too is that changing a couple of vowels and the word becomes Sodium.

Hmm...here's an idea!

What if the ancient word for "Salt Pillar" was "Helen?" A salt pillar "rises forth" from the sea. It reaches "toward the sun."

Interestingly....there is a place called "Helam" on the east side of the River Jordan.
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Tani


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Just googled a bit on salt and Turkey. Remember, Troy is in Turkey and the one found by Schliemann, supposedly the one with the famous war, was one of eight or nine settlements, one biult on top of the other on the same site, the oldest from Neolithic times if I remember right.

Now, Catal Huyuk is situated just southwest of the modern town of Konya in Anatolia. West of Konya is the region of Cappadocia, where we find large salt deposits. There is a very convenient track today linking Konya with Izmir (today the railway runs on it), and from Izmit you just travel up the coast or take a boat and get to Troy. Trade route.

So let's say just for argument's sake that the traders collected salt in Cappadocia and brought it to Catal Huyuk, which was a big trading centre (not only salt), the stuff then gets transported via that very convenient track to the coast and Troy was a coastal trading centre, possibly a colony of C.H. and heavily involved in trading with Greece... some war breaks out, maybe about salt, war gets mythologized and some Greek geezer later writes a beautiful piece on that war, personalizing one of the main characters into a beautiful woman...
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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'Ere, Sel = Selene.

Not only does salt mean Sun, but it also means Moon?
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admin
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[From KOMORIKID]

I found the text but I don't have the original reference notes so I can't tell you what publication it comes from. Maybe you can find the source from the names of the two doctors.

Like almost all-raw gold, the metal the people of Sardis panned for in the Pactolus and other nearby rivers came mixed with silver and traces of copper. The new evidence, Dr. Ramage and Dr. Craddock said, shows how the Lydians placed the raw material in small bowl-shaped hearths in the ground and, fanning hot coals with bellows, heated it in combination with lead to remove the trace metals. Then the remaining material, mixed with common salt, was subjected to prolonged heating in earthenware vessels until the gold was completely separated from the silver

Komorikid
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