The explanation:

(1)Tradition and a new beginning:

Raoul Schrott shows in his book “Homers Heimat” (Homer’s Homeland)

the rootedness of the Iliad stories in Cilicia, in the Greek cities of Cilicia. These Greek cities were threatened by the expansion of the Assyrian Empire in the 8th and 7th centuries BC and successfully defended themselves.

A second theme of Schrott’s book is the parallels to the Gilgamesh epic and to other Ancient Oriental traditions, which have already been observed, but for which he provides many new proofs. Schrott sees the abundance of parallels as confirmation of the Iliad’s dependence on Ancient Oriental tradition.

Schrott concludes: “The author Homer is obviously so familiar with ancient oriental culture and literature that he, the Greek-born Homer, must have been a scribe and scholar of the Assyrians. So far Raoul Schrott’s theses are plausible and I too agree with them.

The unusually large size of the Iliad’s scrap leads to another question. For what purpose was the Iliad created? For the mere recitation for entertainment at celebrations, the seal is too extensive. What could have been its task?