Trojan War: Fact or Fiction?

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Trojan War: Fact or Fiction?

The question many scholars still have today is whether or not the Trojan War was fact or fiction. Throughout the years evidence has been found in favor of the war happening and evidence that it did not happen.

Hittite documents mention names such as: Wilusa/Wilusiya is perhaps Ilion, and Taruisa may be Troy. There is also an Alaksandus-Alexandros, ruler of Wilusa, a vassal of the Hittite king Muwatallis in the early thirteenth century. Some may think that Alaksandus was perhaps an ancestor to Paris-Alexandros, Priam's son, Helen's seducer and the cause of the Trojan War. Are these names a solid part of evidence that the Trojan War could have occurred, or are scholars simply connecting them to each other because they want to think the Trojan War was real. If the Ahhiyawa are the Achaeans, textual evidence for Greek presence and involvement on the west coast of Bronze Age Asia Minor for conflicts and battles between Ahhiyawa and Hittites, and at least one such conflict about Wilusa, but there is no certainty that the Hittite texts refer to "the" or even "a" Trojan War.

I am leaning towards the Trojan War being fiction. However, I still think it is a good possibility that there were wars about Troy, and I believe there are memories passed along such as the ways they fought, with chariots, and the types of weapons they used, bronze. This however does not mean the Bronze Age and the Iliad are related. Even with stories being passed down orally, no matter how good they were at oral poetry, there is a possibility that they could have gotten facts messed up over the years or exaggerated things to make the stories more interesting. I don't think we can say truthfully that there was a Trojan War because I think the evidence is not sufficient enough, and I don't think we will ever have quite enough evidence to fully justify that there was a "Trojan War". (Pg. 391-394 Raaflaub)
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