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Welcome to this week's instalment of /r/AskHistorians' Sunday Digest (formerly the Day of Reflection). Nobody can read all the questions and answers that are posted here, so in this thread we invite you to share anything you'd like to highlight from the last week - an interesting discussion, an informative answer, an insightful question that was overlooked, or anything else.

I read a recent viral Twitter thread with this eye-catching claim and was wondering if anyone here could verify it and/or could provide some more context to the state of maternal death and medieval/Renaissance midwifery in Europe.

At the risk of getting laughed at / thrown out, I am curious about Iman Wilkens and his theory that Troy was not located in Turkey but in the Atlantic (he places Troy in England).

I grew up on a classical education (Latin, Ancient Greek in high school) though I was definitely not the best scholar and ended up pursuing other careers. But I read the Iliad, Aeneid, and Odyssey when I was young and was fascinated by Schliemann discovering Troy with barely more than his wits. But I was also quite aware of some of the problems with the site, that digs couldn't confirm it. And that 400 year timespan between the events and the first written account always boggled my mind, even if the poems were composed to be easily remembered.

Discovering Iman Wilkens and his theories was therefore fascinating for me. I didn't even know that, for example, Thucydides in 400 BC had raised concerns around anomalies in Homer's texts. Wilkens conclusions seem quite out there (though fun to read), no doubt, but he also raises good points I haven’t seen raised or answered. There seems to be little online on the subject. Wikipedia basically says nobody took him serious. The end.

I was curious if there is more research here. Or maybe some resources that explain the discrepancies and clarify why the story we all learnt in school must be the right one.

Quick recap of some of Wilkens’ discrepancies that I found most interesting:

• Tides. Homer talks of tides not common in the Mediterranean
• Weather. Homer talks of days of rain and even fog and snow.
• Horses. Greeks and Romans did not use horses in battle (vaguely remember this from school too) but seems to be used in the Trojan war and Priam was said to have 3,000 horses
• Homer talks of oysters which are found in the Atlantic
• Schliemanns Troy location seems incorrect. Seems there is agreement here (age, size, location of plane etc)
• Trees. Homer seems to refer to seasons and leaves falling from the trees and forests which doesn’t really fit Turkey.
• The towns that supposedly went to war cannot have been big enough at the time to provide that kind of armada. Wilkens thinks the city names have the same origin as the ones that actually went to war (and were somewhere else).
• Beards. Homer's heroes seem generally bearded which is less common for Greeks and later Romans.
• The dead were cremated in big fires with sacrifices, including humans (Trojan prisoners? Achilles kills 12 at the funeral of Patroclus?) which is more reminiscent of Northern tribe religions (Wilkens talks about proto-Celts) than anything Greek.
• The term “Greek” is never used by Homer (?)

There are a bunch more but these seem bigger, harder ones to explain away.

And again, Wilkens jumps to a host of conclusions that seem a bit whacky to say the least. But some of the thought experiments seem interesting. Or is the assumption that they don’t matter in the grand scheme of things, errors that made their way into the poems before Homer wrote them down? I would love get some pointers to learn more. Thanks!

PS: I refer to Wilkens' Where Troy Once Stood.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3q1vyv/how_were_murder_investigations_conducted_in_the/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/54qebz/was_elizabeth_b%C3%A1thory_framed/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ga2810/can_we_assume_infamous_premodern_serial_killers/frsif6i/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

These topics gave me the idea for how high-profile cases worked, but I'm really curious as to what remote populations would do in tight-knit communities.

https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/how-southern-baptists-became-pro-life/

So my question is what happened to prompt thsi shift? The article linked explains it was a grassroots movememnt within the SBC that eventually led it in more pro-Life direction.

Can any historians comment.

I understand a similar question was answered here, but that was specifically about Greece, and essentially stated that their death didn't matter because there was very little strategy. But Alexander the Great and Napoleon both only won so much through very clever battle tactics(understatement I know but whatever), and if they died then well, they can't strategize anymore.

From what I know, these men could command such loyalty because they fought alongside their men. But how did they not die? Clearly their enemies would see who's commanding everyone, and focus on them, right? Or maybe try some clever assasination manuever where they send a small team to like flank him and focus on killing him? Clearly I'm not a military strategist, but if an entire army is focused on killing one man, that man is dead, right? No amount of soldiers trying to protect him can stop a well-placed and very lucky shot that statistically, would be bound to happen at least once.

Zelensky is a modern day example, but it's different. I mean no disrespect to the man, he is incredibly brave and will probably be remembered in history with the same legendary status of men like George Washington, but his presence is a morale booster. He is not a brilliant military strategist like Napoleon, if he lives or dies, his men get a morale boost either way and still have their generals to do tactical stuff. If Napoleon dies in battle, all the generals left probably aren't anywhere near as brilliant military-wise as he is.

And if these generals didn't fight with their soldiers and I'm incredibly mistaken, how did they command such loyalty and respect?