Solidrariol Am I Missing Something?

Sharkflei Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Robert J. Maxwell Speaking from the point of view of a virtual dummy, I found this enlightening but meandering and dull. Michael Wood seems a likable enough guy but, whew, this was a long and sometimes technical slog.I've read the Iliad a number of times, sat through an internet auditing of David Kagan's course on the history of ancient Greece, and got an "A" in my class on archaeology, but it was tough going. I loved the Mediterranean scenery and was amused by Wood's contagious enthusiasm for the subject. The three-dimensional maps are extremely helpful. The many talking heads, well, mezza mezza. Most of the comments added up to something like, "Yes, Troy 6 could have been destroyed by an earthquake -- but I don't know. Nobody knows. Nobody will ever know." (I only recognized one name: Colin Renfrew.) Of course these comments were made in 1985 and, at least judging from one other review, a lot of new stuff has been found since then.The myth per se is pretty much skipped over. This isn't about literature. It's about what one preserved piece of literature can tell us about the historical reality of events that happened five hundred years earlier. There's considerable material too on earlier written sources like Cretan Linear B, and there's an entire episode on the neighboring Hittites that I thought was tangential.Anyone interested in the subject has heard of Schliemann who managed to rape an archaeological site out of a passion he couldn't overcome, the Paris of his age. But it was nice learning about the handful of diggers who followed him and did a more exacting job.For those who don't know the story, the Greeks from a couple of city-states managed to form a fragile alliance and demolish the city of Troy and its inhabitants in what is now Turkey. That was around 1250 BC -- or BCE, if you prefer. Then the alliance fell apart, the Greeks went to war with one another, the civilization of the time fell apart, literacy was lost, and hundreds of years of Dark Ages followed, with the story of the Trojan war only preserved in the oral traditions of singers like Homer. Greece rose, Phoenix-like, out of the Dark Ages. Then the city states went to war with one another again, perhaps because of population pressure, among other things, and today they are all begging the rest of Europe to save their economy from failure.

suessis Michael Wood does an outstanding job in this multi-part documentary of proving that there was some historical fact to the epic poetry of Homer. The research is meticulously done following every lead that is presented with amazing results. Wood takes us back and forth across the Aegean at a dizzying pace to uncover the truth and he does so with great thought and logic. Along the way, Wood introduces us to a world only scholars have really known with adventure, political intrigue, and epic war.My only dismay is that it wasn't done 20 years later. How much greater the technology used to illustrate things would have been.

mstreeter In this update interview on the DVD Michael expressed how much he'd love to make an update. Its time only because so much has happened since, and there is so much more evidence to examine. NO REDO OF THE ORIGINAL! Its fine as it is. But the stratigraphy studies on the Plain, the marine sites of bronze age ships, the discovery of the Mycenaean funerary sites, the update on the lower town and the defensive ditch and update the location of the recently discovered Mycenaean palaces on Salamis and re-identifying Ithaca. There is material enough for at least two hours of screen time, maybe three. And there is also Fagel's exceptional translation to refer to. Michael, we're hungry for more. Lets go.

winandine Friend rented this DVD from a local eclectic video shop. The title made it sound very dry, but we started with the special feature of Michael Wood's commentary on the making of the original television series. His enthusiasm was contagious, and the series proved to be very satisfying.Wood started in Berlin where some artifacts from Troy remained after the devastation of World War II. From there he traveled to the Mediterranean, Turkey, and Wales to explore how much truth was in the oral story told by Homer in the Iliad. Even for non-archeology buffs, Wood brings to life the heartbreak and duplicity of Schliemann, the first to excavate (and possibly destroy portions of) Troy. This is followed by Wilhelm Dörpfeld, Schliemann's heir, who explored further around the site, exposing what might be the Troy described by Homer. Thirdly discussed is the influential Britan, Arthur Evans, who unearthed Minos at Minos at Knossos. Lastly, we learn about Carl Blagan, an American who extracted further evidence from Troy.This series includes a fascinating look into a young science, archeology, and the role that speculation and interpretation plays in archaeological investigations. It is interesting to hear that some of Wood's speculation has since become accepted as a probable historical version.I was a little disappointed that the series did not venture further into the 'cracking' of the Linear B hieroglyphics. However, it does a great job of proving that the Iliad was based upon fact: There was a Trojan society, and that for example, Hector and Paris were real people. From the written history of the Hittites, we gain a tantalizing first- and second-hand documentation of Greek and Trojan history. Who knew that cuneiform writing could be so interesting?