Paliki, Homer's Ithaca : Homer's Ithaca page

 

Paliki, Homer's "Ithaca"

Homer's "Ithaca" page

M. Paliki

Map of Paliki (now) & surroundings: Homer said his Ithaca was "to the west, the furthest out to sea", and "low-lying"... (click the image to enlarge)

* Homer's "Ithaca"

"Where was Homer's 'Ithaca'?" -- The central character of Homer's epic, the Odyssey long was thought to have been fictional: Odysseus, and Achilles and Agamemnon and Hector and the many other "heroes" of that epic, and of Homer's other epic his Iliad, all were thought by many to be simply the products of a poet's imagination -- not real people, or even based upon real people -- and the stories and locations described in the epics were thought to be imaginary as well. Yet there were many "local" claims, that some Homeric hero long ago had inhabited this or that contemporary region or village, and there were the extremely detailed geographic descriptions in the epic itself: both invited investigation of the enticing possibility that Homer's heroes might have been real, and at least that the location of the sites described in the epics might be found.

Then came Heinrich Schliemann, who tracked down several of the more famous "myths & legends" surrounding these heroes: many locations around the Mediterraneanwere claimed to have been the heroes' "homes", such as the ruins at Mycenae, and the little hill in western Turkey now known as Hissarlik, at 39|57|27.94|N,26|14|19.30|E (Wikimapia), (Google Earth) -- Schliemann's work and excavations proposed, to a very sceptical world, that Homer's Agamemnon had lived at Mycenae, and that Troy itself indeed had existed at Hissarlik. Much work has been done to identify other Homeric sites, as well: the palace of Nestor at Pylos, at 37|01|39.00|N,21|41|41.00|E, (Wikimapia), (Google Earth), for example, has been the subject of much scholarly research, archaeological work, and controversy.

'Ithaca'?

Where was Homer's "Ithaca"?

There have been many suggestions as to where, exactly, the "Ithaca" described in great detail in Homer's Odyssey, the home of Odysseus, might have been located: as many, perhaps, as the theories which once fought among themselves over whether Troy ever really existed, and if so where it was. Theories on the location of "Homer's 'Ithaca'" were formulated as early as the 2d c. BC to as recently as AD 2003.

Each approach to identifying a location has been different, varying in degrees of scientific procedure, empirical investigation, informed hypothesis, wishful thinking, fervent belief, and sheer fantasy. Each investigator and each investigation merits interest, as an indicator both of the temper of the times in which a particular theory was developed, and of the perennial interest in Homer's Odyssey, and his character Odysseus, and the possible facts of the latter's life, or at least of a life like his might have been. The processes of theory-building and scientific inquiry change: interestingly, some of the latest "Homer's 'Ithaca'" approaches most resemble some of the earliest. But some other things -- such as interest in epics, and in their heroes -- remain the same, over time.

Leading Precursors : theorists, and their theories, on the location of "Homer's 'Ithaca'" --

(In order by date, earliest first:)

 

And some other ideas: theories about the location of Odyssean wanderings have includedc --

 

(Footnotes)

 

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The legal stuff:


Jack Kessler makes no express warranties or representations
and disclaims all implied warranties regarding any content of this webpage
or any resources reached using this webpage, including any regarding
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tryin' our best, here.

And re. permissions: This file has been updated and expanded since versions of two articles which I wrote originally on Wikipedia: and I was sole author of those, until March 12, 2006 anyway. So I am not certain what copyright or license permissions are necessary, or can be claimed against me by Wikipedia or anyone else, for the March 12 contents of the original two articles there, as that now appears here -- content which people there, particularly one official "Administrator", later altered, abridged, otherwise changed, re-focussed, re-named, etc., and I think finally may have obliterated entirely (I lost track) -- or certainly for the substantially altered & expanded & otherwise much-changed webpage(s) which appear here. But just in case they do, the Wikipedia license statements which I understand they feel are necessary appear below, and the Wikipedia code / HTML of the versions there as written by me and last seen there by me on March 12, and used here, appear here in the following files: paliki0312.html, hithaca0312.html. If folks at Wikipedia wish to discuss any of this with me I wish they would do so, per their brave statement, "Wikipedia is not a democracy, we seek consensus through discussion", at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NOT: which they do not do in practice, in my experience -- not the "discussion" part of it, anyway -- their "Administrators" just wade in arbitrarily, and change things, or even take them over entirely and run them however they personally and arbitrarily wish, and then let authors try to fight them about it post facto. So here I am sort of giving up on writing this "for" Wikipedia, and instead am writing it "with" Wikipedia... which may be a Good Thing, ultimately, for all concerned, and actually one of the best "next-step" developments of the overall Wikipedia effort, now that I think about it...

M.Gnu
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
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A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

 

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Document maintained by: Jack Kessler, kessler@well.com
Last update: July 1, 2008