To complicate things even further, you have to consider the literary influences on the Iliad. There's plenty of evidence that it can be traced back to Indo-European story structures; it's been compared to the Mahabharata, for example. Both texts originated as orally transmitted epics, so it's hard to trace an exact age or mode of development.
IMO it seems most likely that storytellers took the stories they knew and set them in the place they were living. It's not that different from, say, setting the story of the Odyssey in Mississippi with Odysseus as an escapee from prison. The story structure is recognizable even when all of the details change. People might have incorporated actual historical events as they told their stories, just like O Brother Where Art Thou incorporated the KKK, but trying to learn about real historical events from fiction is tricky at best.
I've never heard any theories about wheat or trade routes with the Black Sea being involved with the Iliad, but that's the thing about analyzing art. It tends to reveal more about the person doing the analysis than anything else, so anything that's in your head can show up in your reading. You end up writing a whole new story.
As much as I'm interested in the archaeology, I doubt if we'll ever find a single truth to the Iliad.
I haven't given up trying to find "answers" (in quotes because are they actual answers?) to the inspirations for the Iliad. I love the connection with Gilgamesh, for example. I think the bottom line for me is that creativity is always diverse, so there's going to be a lot of sources that went into the construction of the Iliad.
To complicate things even further, you have to consider the literary influences on the Iliad. There's plenty of evidence that it can be traced back to Indo-European story structures; it's been compared to the Mahabharata, for example. Both texts originated as orally transmitted epics, so it's hard to trace an exact age or mode of development.
IMO it seems most likely that storytellers took the stories they knew and set them in the place they were living. It's not that different from, say, setting the story of the Odyssey in Mississippi with Odysseus as an escapee from prison. The story structure is recognizable even when all of the details change. People might have incorporated actual historical events as they told their stories, just like O Brother Where Art Thou incorporated the KKK, but trying to learn about real historical events from fiction is tricky at best.
I've never heard any theories about wheat or trade routes with the Black Sea being involved with the Iliad, but that's the thing about analyzing art. It tends to reveal more about the person doing the analysis than anything else, so anything that's in your head can show up in your reading. You end up writing a whole new story.
As much as I'm interested in the archaeology, I doubt if we'll ever find a single truth to the Iliad.
Thank you for reading and your thoughtful answer!
I haven't given up trying to find "answers" (in quotes because are they actual answers?) to the inspirations for the Iliad. I love the connection with Gilgamesh, for example. I think the bottom line for me is that creativity is always diverse, so there's going to be a lot of sources that went into the construction of the Iliad.