In search of the Trojan war - The Singer of Tales (3/6) 

In my view this is the best documentary series the BBC ever made.

The Gold standard of documentary film making.

Imagine it being 500 BC, somewhere on the coast of the Aegean Sea. It's a cool clear night with a gentle breeze blowing in from the sea. No light pollution: the night sky is alive with starlight. You're sitting with your family and other families around a roaring fire, listening to a poet recount the rage of Achilles from memory.

The scenes of him happily travelling around rustic Turkey are great fun.

Nine years after this was uploaded to RU-vid and possibly about thirty years after the TV series here I am in 2022 enjoying every second of it.

I just adore the sound of the ancient Greek. OMG when the Professor starting reading it and then got to...."Diomedes, Good at the War Cry"!!!! I've been watching, this series several times a year for many many years! Awesome!

They don't make documentaries like this any more.... Just superb

One of my favourite recollections of watching this excellent and wonderful series when it was broadcast was this episode's featuring of the Irish bard and especially the two singer/musicians from Armenia/Turkey area. I was struck by the romance of their occupation, the dignity of their bearing, the skills of their performance, and the attention of their audience. Seeing this again after so long has not diminished my admiration.

the 80s - a golden era for all UK tv

I wonder if there any more Gaelic storytellers like the one featured in this documentary. The guy doesn’t even speak English,How epic is that?

Michael Wood is a great TV historian. He always pitches it perfectly, and focuses on the human aspect, which is what history is all about. 'History is ourselves'.

I love this ep because Peters drawings are so romantic and he's so into it. Along with Michael they bring it to life.

Michael Wood is right when he states as to why a tiny, abandoned ruin in north - west Anatolia would be chosen for the centre of the most famous and iconic Greek heroic saga unless the story was based on historical fact ! It would be as if a village in Kent would be the centre of English mythology, but otherwise completely unknown and buried for thousands of years. It just doesn't make sense unless the story of the Trojan War is authentic in its basic roots. 😜

This documentary is as great of the legend of Troy itself!!!

I can sleep so good to this.... thank you

As Robert Boyle says, this series about the Trojan War is one of the best docu's done. Remember now this was done in 1985, 30 years ago. And we are now in 2015, many new things about Troy has been found inbetween time I think, still this series stands still tall today.

Outstanding. A clear and accurate account of the rediscovery of Troy, beautifully written, presented and filmed.

Fantastic stuff, Wood is such an inspiring writer, his parallels between the Galipolli Campaign and the Illiad are genius.

And the beautiful music compliments this presentation brilliantly!

Props! to whoever suggested including that clip from the War Requiem near the end. Completely appropriate, and completely unexpected.

Any history buffs who are interested in Troy, listen to the very old pontic Greek songs. Bring a fluent pontic Greek speaking person with you. The history is all there.

It is such a pity that these old bards shown here must have passed away long ago, and most probably the thousands of years old tradition of oral story telling along with them. It is also great to see the brilliant historical reconstruction artist and historian Peter Connolly, whose groundbreaking work in reconstructing ancient Greek and Roman architecture, weapons and armour - amongst many other things - is unforgettable. His artwork brought the Greek and Roman world alive for countless young and old, more so than many historians in their written works. He will always remain the grand master of historical reconstruction and he is sadly missed by his fans and followers. For those who have never read his books (which are often mistaken for children's books due to their format and at times simplified texts), you should just read his book on Pompeii - you will never want to miss it again once you do (and that goes for practically every book he wrote) ! 😘

The chap at 33:30enthusiastically demonstrating this new slashing sword to Michael Wood by attempting to slice his left arm off :)

That was blooming good. thankyou for sharing, Michael wood is still as good today as when he was a young man.

Professor Wood has Sharif Tashliova interviewed again in his EPIC doc. In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great. One of the top 50 documentaries ever per the great Bettany Hughes and SHE ain't to shabby either.

What a blessing. I really appreciate ... Wait that old dude is Istanbul looked like Bard John from Ireland. Hat&all!

I had just read the Iliad when this series came on TV. Just brilliant

"I remember, outside Mersa Matruh, when there had been a battle all day..." Yeah, this fellow could have been at Troy 3,000 years ago. What a great series.

Michael Wood: Excellent, engaging, informative.

This is such a spectacular series that if Wood and his crack team had produced only this, they'd still be considered MASTERS.

This is the best chapter so far.

Even though this series is an old interpretation. It was very enjoyable. And, with even more fact that has been uncovered to date. How enjoyable would it be if John Wood was to do an updated version. Thank you to all that was involved in the making and bringing this series to RU-vid today.

Those who think the significance of Homer's Iliad, for one, is about war miss a major point about the Homer literature. Homer is constantly using nature observations to understand the war. There's little science or mathematics in Pre-Classical Greece; but, with Homer, we can see some kind of curiosity, and looking to be interested in something more than war.

Hilarious how Wood thinks that the most beautiful woman in the world Helen, could have had dry skin through the region's ghastly winds. Love Wood's thinking and his production quality for the time. Thank you BBC.

Wood quotes a couple of times from this poem: www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57324/i-saw-a-man-this-morning The poet, Patrick Shaw-Stewart, was a British officer waiting to go to Gallipoli when he wrote the poem on the island of Imbros. He survived Gallipoli, but not the war.

Just think, the "foundational piece of literature in western history," and Cambridge were recently going to strike it off their Classics course...how times have changed. :(

These and John Romer's documentaries do indeed represent high water marks, not just in documentaries, but in audiences. Michael Wood's much later and more lavish The Story of India was also well-recieved but triggered all sorts of political interpretations and rude bile. On a brighter note, I especially noticed Terry Oldfield's varied and interesting soundtrack this time around. It truly fit the material.

I don't agree with the Cambridge professor who said the bards "improved" the story, or forgot it. Among American Indians, the historians of the Tribe had to learn the oral history verbatim and were not allowed to change a word. I imagine it was the same among other ancient cultures. Before the printing press, for example, Roman lawyers had to memorize the details of each case they tried. They had mnemotic techniques by which they memorized each case. As soon as reading became widespread, these mnemotic techniques and great feats of memorizing were lost. I'm sure that even the Irish and Turkish bards would concur that their ballads are not changed but are memorized verbatim.

Erin Brockovich actually memorizes well. After all, she had most, if not all, of her law firm's client list memorized for the big initial case that made her famous (see the film or the DVD extras for more info). Oral traditions can be as real as our modern day written methods. I see them that way, anyway. Ancient people weren't all a bunch of knuckle dragging fools. Some people's memories work as shown in this video. This is one fascinating series.

There is a video on RU-vid of Robert Ballard giving a talk about his work. He speaks of when the National Geographic Society commissioned him to survey the wrecks of French and British warships sunk at Gallipoli. The shops were easy enough to find. But they also found a number of stone circles with higher stone structures at their centers. The last time they were above water was some 8000 years ago. One interpretation is they were shrines or temples. Instead perhaps they were the communal houses of early farmers on what was once a broad plain before the seas rose at the end of the last glacial advance. One wonders what songs were sung for those neolithic chiefs and their retainers.

Brilliant. Managed to get a DVD copy off Ebay. Just so good.

thank you for (re)posting!

It is a fascinating and yet sad thought, that with that old gealic speaking story teller a century old tradition and culture died out. This is from the 1980s and we have come a long way, but we might have also lost so much on that way :-(

Having visited Ireland in '08, I am familiar with the pub scene and the craich. I'm quite sure John O'Henry enjoyed a pint or two of Guinness in his day. We are going back in March. I think I'll add Kilgalligan to our agenda. We prefer the small towns and countryside over the touristy stuff.

Really nicely done.

The old man from Ireland is probably long dead by now... :-(

Finding 40 places of the catalogue of the towns that gave ships to the war and finding Mycenean shreds of pottery and other signs of settlements from the Bronze Age, and even if there were only 3 details of Troy, about its look or parts of that Homer's contemporaries could have never seen, plus all the names of the heroes who died and details of nearly everything that took place, plus the fact that any old man asked abut the Homeric places in these small insignificant settlements in our modern days, could help the filmmaker to find them, coupled with the research showing that there are bards even today, who can sing ancient stories; and it is the 21st century, to me is just as plain as proof as the many proofs of the Bible and its places characters and happenings. To make up a non-existent Trojan war with its heroes naming many of them perhaps even a hundred, I mean when I was reading it it seemed all I am doing is reading the names and the manner of the death of these heroes forever, shows to me that it is true. Mind you, just reading The Illiad convinced me of its historicity. But I am a careful reader one that is thinking deeply about what she reads. In fact, there are many details in the story which give accurate descriptions of the heroes war equipment: their helmets and swords and shields, these things change in time so it is not just that we write down what we see now and believe it was like that in ancient times. Think of clothes: they date the time and the place and the population, and the same way a soldier's armour does that too. Anyway, to doubters no amount of evidence would suffice. If a warrior of that time was brought back to life, they would even doubt him.

love you too Sharif!!!!

I know we're lucky to have what we do but just think of all those other poems and accounts of the Trojan War now lost forever...the epic cycle.

the mechanism of memory all comes down to feeling the rhythms, really feeling them and feeling what comes next by what was just finished

Great series. I thought Peter was going to hack Michael Wood with that bronze sword of his

Iphigenia 1977 is a must watch film for anyone interested in this part of the legend. 49:40.

If you think this is good... his book is even better.

The BBC should make the soundtrack of this available.

Michael Wood's incredible documentaries inspired me to create my own channel. Head on over for videos on Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Ancient History and much more. New videos uploaded weekly.

Does anyone know about those 40 so visited and identified sites Michael Wood mentions in this episode, is there any list available from that 80’s Myceneaen fortresses hunt?

It's odd that Mycenaeans would organize all their resources in persuit of just one princess. However, if you read Herodotus you realize that such abductions were quite common and Myceneans were constantly inconvenienced having their princesses stolen by unexpected raiding parties from neighbouring kingdoms and city states. So Helen's abduction was sort of the last straw that broke the camel's back, and the expedition against Troy was to send a signal to everyone that Myceneans would no longer tolerate it.

The fact that the smaller details seem to marry up with what homer said fascinates me...not the big extravagant passages about the gods and the mighty heroes...although these could well be based on actual people just massively exaggerated

Love John Henry!!!!!!!!

41:00 KKE is graffitied on the wall in the back. Because if communists don't deface a wall who will?

One of the bards Sharif Tashliova is also in Wood's "In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great"! Just insanely interesting all of it but Alexander?????OMG I think he was a damn God!!!!!!

Can someone transcript please what is saying the old Galic man? Where can I find the transcription of what is he telling? Thank you!

if you accept that in the time after locked-in printing was invented, that what Shakespeare wrote 420 years ago has been "improved" (and believe me, it was, and still is, with almost every production), and that the greek tragedies, with 2000 years of production history, are also very little like they were all those centuries ago... is it any wonder that something oral, like the Iliad and the Odyssey would bear little resemblance to how they started out? or that they, like Shakespeare's plays, are amalgams of older stories?

Anyone know if people like Sharif Tashliova are still active in Kars of anywhere else in that region (where it might be possible to travel at this time) ?

Goed verhaal

Also check out the lecture by Brian Rose Great Battles: Was there really a Trojan War? From the Penn museum!! Fabulous! Brian Took over after Manfred Korfmann RIP and some others from University of Tubingen and Penn who are excavating now!! Other interesting docs on Troy...lectures by Andrea Berlin!! I love history and archaeology. I just cannot get enough. As I also said below a TRUE MUST WATCH IS MICHAEL WOODS "In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great!!!! It was taken off youtube once and now it's back. Named one of the 50 best docs by BBC etc Love MW!!!!!!

Is that the only place you could film in front of a machine making so much noise?

15:55 onwards love that part

Wow. Ancient Greece had joined up writing.

most warfare especially in olden times was for LOOT gold armaments art women young girls and boys that is what the warriors fought and risk their lives for because without war there was little chance of them acquiring those riches

He contradicts himself, first he says the Romans thought Homer didn't write down the Iliad, then later he says the ambiguous sentence about the ancients thinking he did write it down...make up your mind.

It is very interesting, as was the end of the Bronze Age. I might let you guys know, in Saudi Arabia and other parts of the Arabic world, young boys will memorize the Quran, the whole book, and there are contests for the boys, and there's a prize. Look into that, you should know about that.

What instruments are the Turks playing? It looks akin to the Russian balalaika.

Anybody else here because of the Simpsons, and now you feel stupid?

Well.... maybe

Anyone know if a translation f the lyrics to the music is available?

Mr. Keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeil.

I have a few "penguin publishing" books....all of them chock full of misspelling's and bad punctuation. not a good company to buy from.

Here you can see when the mi6 BBC started working with Turkish intelligence service.... FACT

To bad it's so out of date as I understand now the city they show is known to be the main palace area and most of the plane was the city.

What puzzles me is that if the Trojan War really did last ten years, how did the Trojans manage to feed themselves for a decade while the Greeks besieged their city ?

30:50

Maybe I'm a bit off topic here but apparently there were no Australians at Gallipoli? We were just part of the 'empire'?? I find his exclusion insulting and outrageous.

Why is Ajax an earlier legend? What is the basis? I wish he had told us?

who here cuz Vignol lol

A ton of filler. But once you get through the wall of fluff, the 25 or 30 minutes of content in each episode is excellent.

Mr Wood needs to refer to Herodotus instead of Homer. Herodotus spoke against Homer saying Homer LIED knowingly all for the sake of story telling. Why does he not mention a historian?? Instead he quotes Homer. He should explore both sides.

very interesting but hard to understand and video quality is bad

I am a Ukrainian, and therefore I would like to thank all the allied countries for helping my country (Ukraine) in the war against the occupier and international terrorist, Russia

Tying the trojan war (in research) to Homer makes no sense. Not just in tv but in actual "research"... He(?) wrote that (also questioned) at least 500 years and one major civilisation collapse later. There is no reason to trust his sources, EVEN if it was not just a fictional plot injected in a vaguely remembered historical event anyway. We have after a century of archeology and analyses probabaly much better data to work with than Homer. We found a matching city with a matching size and war stuff lying around. That is probably the side of "the trojan war" wether we find the bones of Achilles or not. But since science is not fiction, there might be new discoviers, putting that in question. But the need also evidence, not some crzy person just making something new up. I always imagine the Illiad as a sort of Forrest Gump. You take legendary(i.e. mostly fictional) heroes and put them into a real historical event for your story. The elusive Homer would probably be baffled and amused that people take it literally in "research." As would likely be the assemblers of the hebrew bible about creationists and other people who do "history" by taking it literally.

This is one of the great ones. Another BBC doc. was some sexist nightmare that could not get past an obsession with Helen and Feminism.

gay

Minstels would have had to keep the tale alive for 200 generations. I don't buy it

Total Turkish sausage fest @ 19:00 I guess the laydeeez aren't interested in the classics!

Turkey is not European.

Satan's stories...a liar

Probably dated by now. What annoys me about Michael Wood is how often he resorts to a sentence that begins with "Could it not be". This isn't saying anything. As a result most of his commentary is mere conjecture.

Peter connelly was getting into it yo