Mark Gagnon

basically mention a place called Wailusa.

Many scholars believe that this is the Hittite name for the city of Troy, corresponding to the Greek Ilios or Ilion.

These same records mention a kingdom called Ahiawa, which most specialists think referred to, you know, broadly the Mycenaean world, though not everyone agrees.

Hittite texts do not name specific Greek cities, and the identification, while widely accepted, is not...

settled amongst every scholar.

One Hittite text, known as the Alexandu Treaty, records this agreement between the Hittite king and the ruler of Wailusa, this man named Alexandu.

Now, Alexandu, interesting, sounds a lot like Alexander.

Anyway, that's a little side fact.

And Paras, the guy from Troy, his other name in the Greek tradition was Alexander.

You see what's happening?

You have the Alexandu Treaty, right?

Alexandu, and then you have Paris, and his name is Alexander.

Now, many scholars see this as a genuine linguistic connection, a possible historical kernel behind this Paris tradition.

Yet others caution that it might be just completely coincidental and it was just a common naming pattern in the region.

But either way, we have Hittite records mentioning a place that sounds a lot like Troy, ruled by a man whose name is literally Paris's or Paris's alternative name in diplomatic contact with people who sound a lot like the Greeks of Homer's story.

Now, again, none of this proves that the Iliad is literally history, but it strongly suggests that the Trojan War legend was rooted in real Bronze Age conflicts between the Mycenaean Greeks and the peoples of Western Anatolia.

And then, around 1200 BC, the entire system collapsed.

Within a span of roughly 50 years, nearly every major civilization in the Eastern Mediterranean was either destroyed or just severely diminished.

The Hittite Empire fell.

Mycenaean Greece was devastated, and the great palaces burned down, writing lost, trade networks destroyed.