Greeks ‘discover Odysseus’ palace in Ithaca, proving Homer’s hero was real’
An 8th BC century palace which Greek archaeologists claim was the home of Odysseus has been discovered in Ithaca, fuelling theories that the hero of Homer’s epic poem was real.
Odysseus – known to the ancient Romans as Ulysses – famously took 10 years to return home to Ithaca after the fall of Troy.
On his journey, he was twice shipwrecked and encountered a cyclops, the spirit of his mother and tempting Sirens before returning to Ithaca, where he found his wife, Penelope, under pressure to remarry from a host of suitors who had invaded the royal palace.
With the help of his father, Laertes, and his son, Telemachus, he slaughtered his rivals and re-established his rule.
But despite the fantastical details in the Greek epic, a team of archaeologists has claimed the tale is anchored in truth – and that they have discovered his home on the island of Ithaca, in the Ionian sea off the north-west coast of Greece.
Nearly 3,000 years after Odysseus returned from his journey, the team from the University of Ioannina said they found the remains of an extensive three-storey building, with steps carved out of rock and fragments of pottery. The complex also features and a well from the 8th century BC, roughly the period in which Odysseus is believed to have been king of Ithaca.
Egypt discovers 3,500-year-old oasis trading post
Egypt’s antiquities department announced Wednesday the discovery of a 3,500-year-old settlement in a desert oasis, showing the existence of vibrant desert trade routes that stretched from the Mediterranean down into Sudan from the early days of the Egyptian civilization.
The settlement at Umm el-Mawagir in Egypt’s Kharga Oasis, more than 300 miles (500 kilometers) south of Cairo, has been excavated for the past year by a Yale University expedition, whose initial findings suggest it was an administrative post with massive baking facilities, possibly to feed local troops…The ancient routes stretched from the Darfur region in Sudan through the oases and the Nile Valley up to the ancient Palestine and Syria, with long caravans of donkeys bringing wines, luxury goods and wealth along with them. It would at least be 1,000 years before the camel made its appearance.
“Lost” Language Found on Back of 400-Year-Old Letter 
Notes on the back of a 400-year-old letter have revealed a previously unknown language once spoken by indigenous peoples of northern Peru, an archaeologist says.
Penned by an unknown Spanish author and lost for four centuries, the battered piece of paper was pulled from the ruins of an ancient Spanish colonial church in 2008.
But a team of scientists and linguists has only recently revealed the importance of the words written on the flip side of the letter.
The early 17th-century author had translated Spanish numbers—uno, dos, tres—and Arabic numerals into a mysterious language never seen by modern scholars.
Ballet dancing agent leaked battle plans to Nazis
A beautiful and refined Russian ballerina working as a Nazi spy helped to turn the course of the first major conflict of the Second World War, newly released files from MI5 disclose.
Marina Lie – who also used the names Marina Goubonina, Marie Alexevna, and Luise Lohmann – stole plans that helped turn the campaign in Norway against the Allies just as they were about to claim victory.
The defeat led to the resignation of Neville Chamberlain and his replacement as prime minister with Winston Churchill.
MI5 files released to the National Archives first record Lie as a “probable German agent” in Madrid in August 1941, saying she “had fair hair, scraped back in a large bun” and adding, “only make up a thin layer of lipstick; well-dressed; rings on both hands and blue enamel earrings.”
“History is Herstory, too” ~ who gets dibbs on saying it first? Probably Eve.
The women’s libbers beat you to it–they created the term in the 1970s 🙁
Interesting about Odysseus. There are other places they have found that match up with the Epics of Homer. I can’t remember the details but they are described by Donald Kagan in his lecture series on Ancient Greece on I-tunes U. He is excellent. Nobody knows if Homer was real or if it was just one person who composed it. I like the idea Virgil had when he wrote the Aeneid. He wrote about the history of Rome in the style of Homer. It would be really cool if someone could write something similar about American history. Orson Scott Card came close in his Alvin Maker series about American folk magic and history (and some mormonism) but it was not in the form of an epic.
Here is Donald Kagan talking about prehistoric Greece. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDNTsdtbKy8
Around the 14 minute mark is where he talks about homer.
Is Mr. Kagan related to someone we know?
there is no proof of an individual called’ homer’ much less that one person could have penned both the iliad and the odyssey. many sites are said to fit the locations mentioned . and the greeks are all sorts of biased about this sort of thing- there is a long standing scholarly discussion( that causes much hysteria still) that the origins of the the odyssey are Sicilian (read: Phoenician, a culture taken over by the greeks) and could have been written by a woman.
i was chewed out by random greeks, by no means scholars, for obliviously wearing a -t-shirt from a conference on ‘ the sicilian origins of the odyssey’. it’s like macedonia- best not mentioned in certain company. ( and the macedonians get in on the odyssey too- bringing it with them from the baltic sea.) the greeks ain’t gonna give up homeboy ‘ homer’. uh uh. that would be like the Sex Poodle giving up the global warming.
oral tradition written down then made into what the dominant culture at any given time wills and colors something to be. the winner/ conqueror decides what is the ‘ history’ , the truth , and defines the narrative. power not truth. there is no way to prove any of it. i might as well claim eric clapton wrote the odyssey for what its worth because a version is on a cream album.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BGlFsf9DM8
The Authoress of the Odyssey, Samuel Butler
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/aoto/index.htm
( the scared text site is awesome and free and their cd’s and dvds which support the site are a bargain buy- 1000s of books on one dvd.)
The Sicilian Origin of the Odyssey, L.G. Pocock
http://amzn.com/0893045934
The Baltic Origins of Homer’s Epic Tales and the Migration of Myth, Felice Vinci
http://amzn.com/1594770522
that sheet of paper is like a mini rosetta stone. the spanish destroyed most extant writings in any ancient tongue in the americas- although a few did some translations that survive. such a loss. when your language is lost or destroyed your history and the very meaning of your existence is expounded by others in and according to their terms. your native language effects the very way you view the world, let alone write about it.
power not truth is what history is all about.
I read a story a few years ago that archaeologists had uncovered the remains of woolly mammoths that had roamed the lands of Greece long before human settlement. The skull of a mammoth, like the elephant, has two easily missed eye sockets on the sides, but a huge hole in the upper center of the face where the trunk attaches. This hole gives the appearance of a single, enormous eye socket. It was speculated that these enormous skulls, with the large cranium and single “eye”, were the origin of the legend of the giant Cyclops.
That makes sense.
that is a theory propounded around 1914 upon finding a small mammoth skull. a theory by 20th century humans trying to explain poetry that has its roots in an archaic period in greece and other cultures we have no access to whatsoever.
these are ancient myths far more steep in symbolism that anything we know in the modern world outside of bad freudian psychology and creepy new age dream interpretation. in the pagan world eyes are a powerful metaphor and in the Odyssey the cyclops is symbolic of a primitive backward godless people( who none the less help found greece), perhaps a backhanded slap at the sicilians , an alien culture that was conquered.:
“The race of Polyphemus naturally reminds of the cyclopes Arges, Brontes, and Steropes, who were the children of Gaia; for Polyphemus and those like him, having a single eye in their forehead, are also called Cyclopes. But whereas the children of Gaia were like the gods and gave Zeus the thunderbolt, Hades a helmet, and Poseidon a trident, the race of Polyphemus was formed by a fierce and uncivilized people, who never planted or ploughed, nor had any assemblies for the making of laws. Instead they lived in caverns, not caring a jot for their neighbors or the gods. And as those who live with an empty mind in a black hole not seldom are very satisfied with themselves, it was perfectly natural for Polyphemus to say:
‘We Cyclopes do not concern ourselves over Zeus … nor any of the rest of the blessed god, since we are far better than they …'(Polyphemus to Odysseus. Homer, Odyssey …
And so, being persuaded of their own superiority, they continued their long journey through ignorance and mischief, deprived of all benefits that trades and crafts may provide, and living the lives of cannibals and brutes… This is what Polyphemus and the other Cyclopes had achieved so far in their island, which some say it was Sicily. “-Carlos Parada and Maicar Förlag.” Greek Mythology Link, http://www.maicar.com.”
cannibals… brutes… empty minds, black holes….myopic and living in a cave… godless… sounds like liberals or radical islamists.
Yep Socrates found out the hard way.
“And to those who disobey, let the law about impiety be as follows:-If a man is guilty of any impiety in word or deed, any one who happens to present shall give information to the magistrates, in aid of the law; and let the magistrates who. first receive the information bring him before the appointed court according to the law; and if a magistrate, after receiving information, refuses to act, he shall be tried for impiety at the instance of any one who is willing to vindicate the laws; and if any one be cast, the court shall estimate the punishment of each act of impiety; and let all such criminals be imprisoned. There shall be three prisons in the state: the first of them is to be the common prison in the neighborhood of the agora for the safe-keeping of the generality of offenders; another is to be in the neighborhood of the nocturnal council, and is to be called the “House of Reformation”; another, to be situated in some wild and desolate region in the centre of the country, shall be called by some name expressive of retribution. Now, men fall into impiety from three causes, which have been already mentioned, and from each of these causes arise two sorts of impiety, in all six, which are worth distinguishing, and should not all have the same punishment. For he who does not believe in Gods, and yet has a righteous nature, hates the wicked and dislikes and refuses to do injustice, and avoids unrighteous men, and loves the righteous. But they who besides believing that the world is devoid of Gods are intemperate, and have at the same time good memories and quick wits, are worse; although both of them are unbelievers, much less injury is done by the one than by the other. The one may talk loosely about the Gods and about sacrifices and oaths, and perhaps by laughing at other men he may make them like himself, if he be not punished. But the other who holds the same opinions and is called a clever man, is full of stratagem and deceit-men of this class deal in prophecy and jugglery of all kinds, and out of their ranks sometimes come tyrants and demagogues and generals and hierophants of private mysteries and the Sophists, as they are termed, with their ingenious devices. There are many kinds of unbelievers, but two only for whom legislation is required; one the hypocritical sort, whose crime is deserving of death many times over, while the other needs only bonds and admonition. In like manner also the notion that the Gods take no thought of men produces two other sorts of crimes, and the notion that they may be propitiated produces two more. Assuming these divisions, let those who have been made what they are only from want of understanding, and not from malice or an evil nature, be placed by the judge in the House of Reformation, and ordered to suffer imprisonment during a period of not less than five years. And in the meantime let them have no intercourse with the other citizens, except with members of the nocturnal council, and with them let them converse with a view to the improvement of their soul’s health. And when the time of their imprisonment has expired, if any of them be of sound mind let him be restored to sane company, but if not, and if he be condemned a second time, let him be punished with death. As to that class of monstrous natures who not only believe that there are no Gods, or that they are negligent, or to be propitiated, but in contempt of mankind conjure the souls of the living and say that they can conjure the dead and promise to charm the Gods with sacrifices and prayers, and will utterly overthrow individuals and whole houses and states for the sake of money-let him who is guilty of any of these things be condemned by the court to be bound according to law in the prison which is in the centre of the land, and let no freeman ever approach him, but let him receive the rations of food appointed by the guardians of the law from the hands of the public slaves; and when he is dead let him be cast beyond the borders unburied, and if any freeman assist in burying him, let him pay the penalty of impiety to any one who is willing to bring a suit against him. But if he leaves behind him children who are fit to be citizens, let the guardians of orphans take care of them, just as they would of any other orphans, from the day on which their father is convicted. – Plato, Laws, Book X[
What we need is the fossil of a large cyclops! AND with a bad eye!
I love history. I think it’s fascinating, too, how archiology continually proves the Bible true.
I always believed he was real.