Homer's Home

Homer and the Trojan War – myth or reality? While working on his translation of The Iliad, to be published by Hanser in the fall of 2008, Raoul Schrott discovered a sensational fact: The roots of the legend are not to be found in Troy.
The Trojan War is the mythical event that stands at the beginning of European history, and to which Homer's Iliad bears magnificent testimony. But what is true in this story, and what is fiction? Who was Homer, the mythical bard, in reality?
Raoul Schrott's large-scale treatise contains a wealth of data, facts, references and evidence, reconstructing, for the first time in more than 2,500 years, not only the contemporary background of The Iliad but also Homer's origin and personality. The literary sources of The Iliad, assembled from diverse cultures, point to a territory and a people that counted itself among the Danaians and Archians: to Kilikia.
Raoul Schrott has examined Kilikian sources for the gods and heroes portrayed in The Iliad. Travelling across Kilikia, he discovered the real story which Homer projected onto the ancient legend of Troy, and the historical models for immortal characters such as Paris, Helena, Hector, Achilles and Priam. Finally, he leads us to the site on which Homer modelled his city of Troy: the mountain fort of Karatepe, the brightest flower of Kilikian culture.