Madeleine happy under the Lion Gate at scary Mycenae
Madeleine at Mycenae with Clay figurines
The Pleiades where Meriope lives for now
My new novel, And The Stars Began to Fall, to one group of would-be readers, is, because I write of other-worldly visitors at Troy and elsewhere, interpreted as a wanna-be Sci-Fi thriller.
But THAT it is not. And any who read it thinking that's what it's all about will be quite disappointed.
I say this because, while there are strange happenings in my story, And The Stars Began To Fall, it is based on Historic and Archaeological facts. Not the writings of Homer.
Let's review Homer's telling of the 1215 B.C. meeting at Troy between King Nestor and the Greeks and KIng Priam and his people.
In Homer's ILLIAD, suddenly "gods" arrived on the scene from high up out there, from high above, in the Troiad. They arrived from maybe, according to Homer, as high up out there as Mount Ida. And these gods did not come for Peace. Homer's "gods" arrived suddenly from up high in the clouds and they fomented havoc and enmities and deaths between the Trojans and the Greeks. I think maybe Homer got these things really wrong and that actually the havoc was instead between the the Trojans - and their guests The Greeks - and these new gods?
Those are questions I introduce and answer only fleetingly in this novel: And the Stars Began To Fall is not about Homer. Instead I will address the writer Homer and his ideas about gods from on high in my current work-in-progress.
For now, my current novel is drawn from what I have deduced after extensive research at Bronze Age excavation sites, and from fervent research in libraries and archives about the end of the Bronze Age in the Peloponnesos.
And the resulting story is not a simple one; it is quite involved, from many angles, featuring an Archaeologist and the interesting and strange things that happen to her... things which in fact happen to most field archaeologists. This seems especially to be true when working at such a thrilling and mysterious a site as Mycenae, - as does my archaeologist, Margaret Benson.
Thrilling and mysterious are not novel in archaeology. Most non-archaeologists are often surprised by how strange things can get around a discovery from the past. And Mycenae has a very strange and bloody and long past. I would not want to spend the night up at the citadel there. Especially not when those mountains rumble!
So if you wish to come on my adventure and discover what these strange things are jump in and put on your archaeologist shoes, and pick up your pick and brush, and participate actively in the story.
While I say that this story is not sensational Sci-Fi, some Ancient-Aliens theorists might be intrigued by the novel. While it may in places border on sensational, it is actually a serious delving into archaeology, and the Bronze Age society that abruptly ended in 1185 B.C.
I do postulate, in one portion of the story that, indeed ghastly things did happen at Troy suddenly, and so utterly strange were the fomenters of the ghastly, that, instead of peace, there was no victor declared in this unwanted war. And the end result took ten years to try to clear up.
From what Homer wrote, -- though he misinterpreted a lot, -- he does show that the end was unresolved. Indeed the Trojans themselves left their homeland right in back of the Greeks, Aeneas taking his people far away to new homes. Some Trojans stayed at the refueling points in Egypt and then in Kidonia, Krete, joining the Greeks who did as well. Including maybe also Aeneas? Eventually Aeneas resettled most of his Trojans in Italy, founding Rome.
The Trojan war should not have happened. It was not intended. And it was not caused by earthlings.
Whatever it was that happened at Troy was not a war between Greeks and Trojans. That "War" was was a prelude to the ending of the greatest scientifically advanced and peaceful society that did exist in the Peloponnesos and in Attica at that time.
Was there a link between such peace and prosperity and the dreadful end? My story does postulate that these Interfering Creatures were so dissatisfied with the results at Troy they returned again to interfere, this time at Mycenae in 1214 B.C., and then in Pylos in 1205 B.C, and now in Mycenae in 2021 A.D.
This is all just background in my story in my novel And The Stars Began to Fall.
My story was really begun to answer a question of a friend, Archaeologist Lisa Wace French. Lisa was searching to find out why so many clay figurines of girls, posing in three distinct positions, were made for over a thousand years, made in such quantities, and cherished by some of the most important leaders of those decades, in many countries around the peaceful Mediterranean, principally in the Peloponnesos. Indeed there are conferences of archaeologists who meet to discuss just this one thing: Who were these girl figurines and why were they so well loved for so very long by all, including the great and famous? In 1214 B.C. and in 1205 B.C. these girls actually saved their societies from a great deal of the interfering and destruction.
Can they do so again in 2022? That is the question answered in And The Stars Began TO Fall.
The story is also based on known facts of the stunningly humanitarianly and scientifically advanced society that existed in the Peloponnesos in 1225 B.C., the society when these girl figurines were created and loved, and that ended precipitously in 1185 B.C.. In the story I try to answer why this seemingly stable and far-more-advanced than we are today society suddenly disappeared. It does seem that there was a confluence of forces: forces of nature from the earth and from the sea converging with perhaps the so-called Sea Peoples. But there was such destruction that this whole part of the Mediterranean, the Peloponnesos and Attica went into a mini Ice Age and people who survived lived for decades as "cave people". All infrastructures had been utterly destroyed; people hunted and gathered what they could find to survive. And at night when sharing what they had gathered, they told their stories about what an amazing life they had led. And why they thought it ended. The version I postulate for what happened is And The Stars Began To Fall. While it definitely deals with the other-worldly, and any readers who think they are purchasing a little sci fi thriller will be sorely disappointed.
Archaeologists can tell you that in their work they often touch the infinite and enter other worlds.
You too will do so, along with protagonist archaeologist, Margaret Benson, if you enter the world of - And The Stars Began To Fall. Madeleine de Jean June 7, 2022.