The Ancient Greeks: The Achaeans and The Trojans (Redacted (Improved))

The question of the tribe of Dan in relation to the Last Days is an interesting one.  Dan is not included with the other tribes of Israel--listed in Revelation 7.  An impression you get from reading scripture is that Dan (for the most part) never truly wanted to be a part of Israel; they wanted to be on their own, as witnessed by Deborah who asked: "...and why did Dan remain in ships?" (Judges 5:17)  At a time when they could have helped the rest of their Israelite brethren against their enemies, they chose not to.  Another indicator that Danites tended to think of themselves as being a people separate from the rest of Israel was their propensity to name places, rivers and towns after their father Dan.  Witness Judges 18:28-29, " And they built a city, and dwelt therein.  And they called the name of the city Dan, after the name of Dan their father, who was born unto Israel..."

The Mycenaean Greek civilization came into existence around 1600 BC.  They originated in Egypt.  You see, the first Mycenaeans or Achaeans were Israelite colonists (of the tribes of Dan and Judah) who left Egypt in ships and came upon cities of the Greek peninsula (Mycenae, Pylos, Sparta, etc.).  These cities most likely dated back to the Upper Paleolithic era (45,000-10,000 BC as About.com says), as witnessed by Plato in his account of a war between Atlantis and Athens--after which Atlantis was finally swallowed up by the ocean waters around 9600 BC.  The Athenians of that time were proto-Greeks.  These Proto-Greeks occupied Athens in the days of Atlantis. 

Now the Danites who left Egypt before the Exodus (under their leader Danaus) took the majority of the "Greek" cities: Argos, Pylos, Sparta, Mycenae and others.  The Judahites who left Egypt before the Exodus--were under the leadership of two brothers named Chalcol and Darda, whose father was Zarah, who was one of the two sons of Judah--took the city of Athens (in Attica, which is in eastern Greece) and the city of Troy (along northwestern Turkey).  Chalcol took Athens and Darda took Troy.  These two probably originated from the city of Sais in Egypt. 

The Greek cities at the time were occupied by the Prehistoric "Greeks" (who were once part of the Atlantean empire).  The Danite voyagers took over their cities.  They most likely also intermingled with the the natives.  In time these Danites came to call themselves "Danoi" or "Danaan" or "Achaeans," having completely forgotten that they were of Israel.  (We call them Mycenaeans, since Mycenae was the chief city among the Achaean Greeks.)  Apparently the Judahites who took Athens came to identify themselves with their Danoi brethren. 

And the Judahites who took over Troy probably mixed with the original inhabitants of that city--this probably happened about 1477 BC (time of the Exodus?).  You see, Darda (Dardanus) and his people were living on the island of Crete at first--after sailing from Egypt.  In time they too came to forget that they were Israelites.  (They probably arrived there after 1600 BC and then left for Troy contemporaneous with Moses leading Israel out of Egypt--or maybe some time after that (circa 1300 BC).)  It is plausible that these Judahites intermingled with the Cretans or Minoans of mainstream history--with their capital at Knossos--who dominated the Aegean Sea area.  The early Minoans were an advanced civilization (with household plumbing to rival our day).  Around 1700 BC they suffered an earthquake, which drastically affected their society.  It was sometime in the early 1400s that Dardanus and the people with him came upon the Minoans and helped them to become the dominant power in the eastern Mediterranean: Crete--from this time onward until the tsunami that hit the island (some time between 1477 BC to 1453 BC?)--entered the era in which it flourished the most.  The brethren of the Judahites on Crete--the early Mycenaean (Danaan) Greeks--were subservient to their fellow Israelites on Crete: as witnessed by the story of Theseus and the Minotaur.  The "Minoan" kingdom came to an end abruptly, resulting from the major volcanic explosion on Mount Thera around the date(s) given above (this info courtesy of Hope-for-Israel.org) that gave rise to a gigantic tidal wave. These Minoans (children of the Judahites who settled there under Dardanus) then sailed for Troy.  What could have made possible the Judahite conquest of Troy was: this same giant tsunami also severely devastated this city.  Now, this area of Northwest Turkey has been prone to earthquakes, so it may have been an earthquake that destroyed the Sixth Settlement of Troy.  According to Dr. C. Brian Rose of the University of Pennsylvania, Troy suffered a major earthquake about 1300 BC.  This disaster levelled the upper portions of the defensive wall (around the most important buildings) of the excavated level known as the Sixth Settlement (Troy VI).  (This was the Troy of Paris, also known by his political name, Alexandros--for he, being in his fifties (most likely), was the defacto ruler of Troy--since his father, Priam, was advanced in age, no longer having the stamina to preside over the affairs of state.)  Well, there is doubt as to an earthquake being responsible for the collapse of Troy VI.  And just as important, there is doubt as to the date of this destruction (of Troy VI): that it was not circa 1300 BC, but rather much later.  Now, if Troy VI was ruined by an earthquake, then that would leave the later level known as Troy VIIa as the candidate for the Troy of Homer's Iliad--for it too experienced a fiery end.  But now we have a discrepancy: Troy VIIa corresponds to the decline of the Achaean cities: the Mycenaeans of this time could not have carried out a military operation of such magnitude, seeing as they were in such decline.  So, Troy VI has no animal and human remains, which usually accompany an  earthquake.  The Sixth Settlement then must be the Troy of the Trojan War.  As for the chronology, it is becoming more obvious--with each passing day--that the events of the epoch in question have been pushed back in time, by a matter of 300 or more years.  What happened was that the dynasties of pharaonic Egypt were padded, so to speak: a given dynasty was made to last longer than it actually did, and all of this served to make every event appear to have occurred earlier on the timeline than it actually did.  You see, everything else was pegged by historians to the (erroneous) dating of the Egyptian dynasties.  This explanation for the mistake will have to suffice, seeing as I'm too lazy to elaborate any further on it.  The upshot--as far as the Trojan War is concerned--is that, more accurately, it was fought around 800 BC; this siege did not occur in 1184 BC, as the scholar Eratosthenes (of the latter half of the third century) said.  Furthermore, this posterior dating of the Trojan War explains how Homer could be so vivid in his portrayal of Troy and its surroundings (the land of Wilusa, as the Hittites called it).  The poet was a contemporary of Achilles, Agamemnon, Hector, Paris (Alexandros), Helen et al.  At most he lived a few decades after the events. 

The levels of settlement on Hissarlik Hill go back to around 3000 BC.   According to Manfred Korfmann's book, "Troy and the Trojan it was "Greek colonists" who settled Troy VI (whose end we now date to about 800 BC). If  this is true, in the sense that the Achaeans and the Trojans were brethren.  The ten-year long Trojan War commenced about 800 BC, a few hundred years later.  Though the Mycenaeans won this conflict with the Trojans (by way of stealth: Odysseus' brilliant idea for the Trojan horse), they paid a heavy price for their triumph.  All the great Mycenaean leaders had been gone from their Greek homeland for ten years by the time Troy finally fell.  A theory says that Mycenaean society collapsed due to the great stress placed upon it because it had to support a siege of a major city that was on the other side of the Aegean Sea.  After all, legend has it that the Achaeans launched a thousand ships to recover Helen for Menelaus King of Sparta: the Achaean army that landed along the shore of Troy numbered around 500,000 men, according to speculative fiction author Dan Simmons--and were not 50,000 warriors as we were taught in school.  This was no minor war: it would have massive consequences for the centuries of European history to come: for one thing the Romans were descended from Trojan refugees making their home along the banks of the Tiber River on the western side of Italy and establishing a settlement--along with some of the local people of Latium--that would later become known as the city of Rome.  Another group of Trojan refugees settled along the northern shore of the Black Sea.  They founded a city called "Asgard" (the City of Iron).  They were the people of iron: the "Aesir" and from which the Sea of Azov gets its name (the Sea of Iron).  In the 2nd century AD, in advance of the approaching Roman army (their brethren of Trojan descent), the Aesir--under their leader Odin--immigrated to Scandinavia.  These Aesir (Trojans) founded Sweden, to simply put it.  And from Sweden came the Varangians who settled among the Slavs to the east (in the 9th century AD)--forming the early Russian nation, around the city of Novgorod. 

Getting back to the Trojan War, the weary Danaan army returned to their homes, but they would soon find that peace was not to be their reward for their hard-won victory.  (Something that should be noted is that this was a society whose top men had an attitude of machismo.  These great "heroes" felt that they had to prove themselves, and they believed that they could achieve immortality through having their names persist--by way of martial accomplishments--through the centuries: Achilles, Hector, Odysseus and others.)

So not long after the occurences narrated by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey the Mycenaean cities underwent a major upheaval.  All the Mycenaean citadels were destroyed (by slaves revolting? along with the Dorians swooping in?).  It's not totally clear what happened.  Well, all of them were destroyed except for Athens.  Apparently the Achaeans living in the Peloponnesus fled into Attica (to Athens) for refuge--to escape the onslaught of the Dorian invaders.  (Centuries later, during the Classical era of the Greeks, the Athenians would claim that of all the Greeks they were the only ones left who were of pure Achaean stock.) 

Also at this time we have the rise of the Sea Peoples (Whenever there were catastrophic deluges, earthquakes, and comet strikes (the Phaethon Event of 3,102 BC) you got the after-effect phenomenon of the movement of "Sea Peoples."  Social/political chaos throughout the centuries in the Mediterranean also led to major displacements of peoples, as was the case this time: shortly after the Trojan War.).  The Sea Peoples who came into being after the Trojan War were predominantly Israelites.  It was they who attacked and crushed the Hittite empire in central Asia Minor.  My thinking is that the Mycenaeans or Achaeans (including veterans of the Trojan War?) were the greatest constituent of the Sea Peoples: 1) Mycenaeans fleeing the collapse of their cities (citadels) (and thus for a while the Greek peninsula was sparsely inhabited), 2) possibly Trojans and their allies likewise leaving behind their collapsed cities, 3) Danites living in the north of Israel (in the Bashan area) who decided to take to the sea and maybe other peoples looking for new coastal areas to plunder.  (Egypt at this time became an irresistable target for these piratical Sea Peoples.  The Egyptians were successful at repulsing this attempted invasion.)  These Sea Peoples claimed that their homeland was called "Ahhiyawa"--meaning Achaea (Greece) most likely.  Note how the "yawa" in "Ahhiyawa" resembles the Tetragrammaton: YHWH, which becomes Yahweh.  It could be that the name "Achaea" was pointing to the God of Israel: YHWH may mean "being" in that the Creator is the true being, for the Godhead is the only one who must exist--has to be. 

And what may have also begun at this time was the invasion of the Dorians--as touched on above--who came into Greece from the north.  Also around this time a group of Trojans--led by Helenus, son Priam (a form of "Ephraim"), elderly king of Troy--fled the destruction of their beloved city on ships and came upon the coast of Epirus (northwest of Greece).  They mingled with the natives (Illyrians).  And it is from Helenus that Greece got the name "Hellas," and the Greeks started to call themselves the Hellenes: starting in northeast Hellas, known as Thessaly.  (It was these Trojans or Dardanians, in combination with other Trojan refugees along the western shore of the Black Sea, who would move westward into Europe to become the federation of tribes known as the Franks.  But that is for another post perhaps.)  Going back to the Dorians--where did they come from?  Scripture gives the answer.

Over in Canaan--from around 1413 BC to about 1050 BC--was the time of the Judges.  We are told of Dan's predicament in Judges 1:34, "And the Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountain: for they would not suffer them to come down to the valley."  Further on in Judges 19:47, "And the coast of the children of Dan went out too little for them: therefore the children of Dan went up to fight against Leshem, and took it, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and possessed it, and dwelt therein, and called Leshem, Dan, after the name of Dan their father."  Judges 18 tell us this about Dan in the land of Israel: "27And they took the things which Micah had made, and the priest which he had, and came unto Laish, unto a people that were at quiet and secure: and they smote them with the edge of the sword, and burnt the city with fire. 28And there was no deliverer, because it was far from Zidon, and they had no business with any man; and it was in the valley that lieth by Bethrehob. And they built a city, and dwelt therein. 29And they called the name of the city Dan, after the name of Dan their father, who was born unto Israel: howbeit the name of the city was Laish at the first. 30And the children of Dan set up the graven image: and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land."  (What Micah had made were idols: the Danites showed quite a willingness to embrace paganism.)  Previously in Deuteronomy 33:22 we have Moses saying: " And of Dan he said, Dan is a lion's whelp: he shall leap from Bashan."  "Leshem" appears to be the same as "Laish."  Part of the Danites living in the Bashan area left for Greece, where their Danite brethren the Mycenaean Greeks were living.

These Danites that left Bashan most likely were the Dorians that are spoken of as moving into the Greek peninsula from the north, in the wake of the decline of the Mycenaean cities.  (Apparently the name "Dorian" comes from an area north of the collapsed Mycenaean empire called "Doris": which means "woodland." (Thanks to Wikipedia.)  More likely "Dorian" is related to the Gaelic (The Irish are of Greek origin.) word "doran," which means "exile" or "wanderer."  Danites from the upper Levant (Bashan) had migrated to this mountainous area full of trees.  They may have mixed with the locals, thus becoming the "Dorians."  And they may have come into the Mycenaean lands both by land and by sea--and may very well have had been closely involved with the Sea Peoples.  These Dorians took over the city of Sparta and most of the Peloponnesus (the southern part of Greece connected to the north by the isthmus of Corinth.  (It was Dorian Sparta that would later send out about 300 Spartans (aided by a few thousand auxiliary troops from some other cities) to withstand Xerxes' Persian army at the narrow pass called Thermopylae in 480 BC.) )

As for the Mycenaeans (who became the Sea Peoples) and their fellow pirates, what became of them?  Some of these Mycenaeans probably settled along the southern coast of Canaan and changed their name to the "Philistines."  Other Mycenaean raiders probably settled along the western shores of the Black Sea--later taking the name of the "Vanir" because they hooked up with a group of Gauls calling themselves the "Veneti" (Tribwatch.com): the same Vanir who, along with the Aesir (the Trojan refugees who settled along the northern shores of the Black Sea), immigrated to northern Europe in the centuries to come.  These Vanir would become the Daner of Denmark: again the name of "Dan" morphing through "Danaan" and into "Denmark."  And that's where the Danube River got its name: The Vanir (Danaans/Achaeans) named it after their father, Dan, when they traveled up that river to reach Northern Europe.

Another branch of the Dorians became the northern Greeks of Macedonia.  And Alexander became king of Macedon in 336 BC.