Periodization Homer: historical believes and poetical freedom 

Over the years, scholars (historians as well as archaeologists) have developed several ways to date the world which Homer describes in the epics Iliad and Odyssey. The epics might be reflecting Homer's era of the 8th century BC; they might be remembering an earlier time like the Mycenaean period or they might be conflating different ages.1 These different kinds of views led to an ongoing debate in which old and new approaches are still coexisting. The traditional approaches deal with Homer's epics as historical documents which reflect the Heroic times of the Late Bronze Age, while more recent approaches make an amalgam of the poems dating to Bronze Age as well as Early Iron Age and the 8th century BC.2 All these opinions are based on the same kind of evidence provided by anthropological studies on oral poetry, philological and archaeological research; but the way scholars deal with the evidence varies considerably. This essay gives an overview of the various opinions in order to deal with more or less convincing arguments.   
Scholars with a traditional approach date Homer's world to the Bronze Age. One of them is the classicist Luce (1998), who claims that Homer's epics are historic and the Homeric picture reflects the Mycenaean period because much of the details in it derive from the period 1400 - 1100 BC. He uses philological evidence provided by studying the Mycenaean survival in the epic dialect, archaeological investigations and Korfmann's discoveries.3 His main arguments derive from the archaeological finds of shipwrecks which relate the pattern of common trade routes at sea of the 14th - 12th centuries to the routes of the Trojan heroes and the objects used in Homer's gift exchange; therefore the epics must be dated in the same time.4  
To Finley (1979) Homer's epics are, 'a picture of the Early Dark Age: the 10th - 9th centuries BC'.5  He excludes the possibility that the epics refer to the Mycenaean world, because of the Linear B tablets, which revealed a Bronze Age society that differed completely from the Early Iron Age, but also because of the absence of Mycenaean cultural 'continuities' in the Iliad and Odyssey, and far most because of the social values of Dark Age society.6 For making sense at the time, the stories must had fit in the 'set of believes' of the people who listened to the poet's songs. Even when the poems were part of a cultural tradition, this tradition was embedded in society for tradition is a social phenomenon.7 For example, the important role of gift-giving and gift-exchange in the poems is not just Homer's idea but existed in many societies at that time as comparative study revealed.8 Finley points to the weakness of the material evidence because it changed so little over time and the scarce archaeological finds disappeared with the collapse of the Mycenaean world.9  Finley excludes also the poet's own time as Homeric because many aspects of life in the epics did not change during the tenth to eight centuries and social-politic changes that did occur, such as the rise of the polis or the change in burial were, according to Finley, not reflected in the poems.10 
At the other end of the spectrum, Crielaard (1995) as well as Morris (2001) date Homer's world in the 8th or even 7th century BC.11 Contrary to Finley, Crielaard uses the archaeological evidence above all as argument. As starting-point he took a number of important phenomena which archaeological research has shown to became manifest in the 8th century BC and examined the occurrence of these phenomena in the Homeric epics.12 These are: the presence of writing in the Iliad indicating that the poem was composed after the alphabet had been introduced; Homer's description of particular objects that must have been visual recognizable for the audience; the orbit of the Homeric heroes that was as wide as what is known of the expanding world from the 9th century BC onwards; the manifestation of the polis as shown in the material record of the 8th and 7th centuries, such as transformations in cult activity by the increasing number of sanctuaries; and the evidence for hero cult, the worship of named, epic heroes at sites associated with epic figures, dating from  the later 8th century BC and which became manifest in burial.13 All these remarks led to the conclusion that the Homeric epics had intimate links with the contemporary world of the poet.14 To Morris (2001) too, the Homeric world fits in the poets own time.15  He argues that the Iliad and Odyssey are oral-dictated texts, following an oral tradition. Morris believes that the poems functioned in the 8th century as simultaneously great art and a powerful ideological weapon in conflicts tearing Greek communities apart. Homer is, therefore, less a direct source for eight-century society than for eight-century culture.16
A number of scholars see the epics as a bricolage of ancient periods. According to the historian Raaflaub (1998) linguistic and pictorial evidence indicates that the epics originated way back in the Bronze Age.17 The epics can be used as valuable literary evidence for historical identification because within the epic narrative there is much proof to show that the economic, social and political background reflect elements of a historical society, such as collective memory, historical consciousness, the role of myths and oral traditions, heroic epics and a mixture of old cultural elements. The poet combined old traditions and new developments to an 'organic amalgam', indented to be recognizable and meaningful to the singer's audience.18 Someone who connects Mycenaean times and the Dark Age was Pöhlmann (1992). To him Homer's epics were a conglomerate of the Mycenaean, Protogeometric and Geometric periods.19 His philological approach emphasise the oral traditions anchored in Mycenaean times, therefore he states that the poet's aim was to create a 'Hero world' of Mycenaean times. Pöhlmann searched for archaeological evidence for all of the  three periods in Homer's epics, like the golden cup of Nestor in Mycenae, architectural remains and the splendid burial of Patrokles.20 By combining, which he called 'Assimilation', this evidence with the discoveries by Korfmann and the philological aspects, he came to his periodization.21    
Concluding one may say that some arguments for dating Homer's world are more convincing than others. The strong archaeological evidence that points to the 8th century BC like the emerge of sanctuaries, changing burial rituals and finds that indicate contacts with a wilder world, all  indicate to be reflections of Homer's heroic world.22 Combining this with anthropological research on narrative history which explains rules of recognizable depictions for the audience and the role of collective memory, it is obvious to date Homer's world in the 8th century, although some aspects of earlier times like glorious hero fights were included. In a way, it is possible to see Homer's poems as historical documents because they show a consistent picture of heroic behaviour and reflect the social, cultural and politic circumstances also known from ancient writers as Hesiodos. At the same time one must remember that Homer was a poet indeed which consequently led to embellished stories as the tradition prescribed.  





 


1 Morris 2001, 90.
2 On the other hand, even nowadays some scholars state that Homer's work is historical. For this point of view see Luce 1998; Korfmann 2002.
3 Luce 1998, 55. Korfmann 2002, 212, 215, 218. Korfmann's archaeological research at Troy led to the conclusion that Troy was a fortified trading city larger than Mycenae. He based his opinion on the burnt deposits that pointed to warfare and, moreover, by topographical comparisons of the place with Homer's epics.
4 Luce 1998, 58, 59-60.
5 Finley 1979, 153.
6 Finley 1979, 143-144, 154. The Linear B tablets revealed that Mycenaean society had a socio-political and economic organization that differed completely from the Homeric world. At the same time Finley points out that there were of course 'continuities'.  
7 Finley 1979, 147.
8 Finley 1979, 145-146.
9 Finley 1979, 150,151, 157.
10 Finley 1979, 154-155, 158.
11 Crielaard 1995, 204; Morris 2011, 66.
12 Crielaard 1995, 208-209. He agreed with Finley that for dating the world of Homeric heroes one should not so much consider individual elements of the material setting of the poem, nor single words, phrases, passages, but rather concentrate on patterns, for instance in behaviour, values, social institutions and attitudes. 
13 Crielaard 1995, 214, 215, 219, 224, 235, 245, 247, 265. 
14 Crielaard 1995, 274.
15 Morris 2001, 66.
16 Morris 2001, 84,89.
17 Raaflaub 1998, 183.
18 Raaflaub 1998, 170, 183-186, 188.
19 Pöhlmann 1992, 196.
20 Pöhlmann 1992, 189.
21 Pöhlmann 1992, 189, 191, 193, 196. Note the comparable, but more subtle approach of Sherratt, S. (1990).  
22 Change in burial rites concerns the Early Iron Age when cremation becomes common (instead of the Myceneaen inhumation burials) and by half 8th century inhumation again came to the fore. In Homer's epics the burial of heroes concerns cremation. For a debate on this and the reflections on kingship see Morris 2000, Kistler 2004, Ulf 2007, Qviller 1981, Van der Vliet 1986.