Odyssey's End?: The Search for Ancient Ithaca

[On the Road]

Odyssey's End?: The Search for Ancient Ithaca
A British researcher believes he has at last pinpointed the island to which Homer's wanderer returned and a new wealth of data supports his thesis
By Fergus M. Bordewich
Smithsonian magazine, April 2006

Editor's Note, Sept. 3, 2008: For more than 2,000 years, scholars have been mystified—and intrigued—by a question central to our understanding of the ancient world: where is the Ithaca described in Homer’s Odyssey? The descriptions in the epic poem do not coincide with the geography of the modern island of Ithaca, one of the Ionian islands off the western coast of Greece.

Since 2003, an interdisciplinary team of geologists, classicists and archaeologists has proposed a paradigm-shifting answer to that longstanding mystery. Their breakthrough thesis—that the peninsula of Paliki on the Ionian island of Cephalonia is the site of ancient Ithaca—was revealed in Odysseus Unbound: The Search for Ancient Ithaca, published to acclaim by Cambridge University Press in 2006.

Today, in the journal Geoscientist, the team of pioneering scholars releases detailed results and photographs from research conducted during the first year of sponsorship by FUGRO, the global geotechnical, survey and geoscientific service company. The wealth of new data provides dramatic support for the thesis that Paliki is indeed the site of ancient Ithaca.



http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/ithaca.html?c=y&page=2

From The Smithsonian, no less. I love historical disputes like this.

[DCKit]

1. I'd rather listen to scientists argue than theocrats pontificate.

Call me crazy.

[On the Road]

2. Kick for Non-Nightowls nt

[Sequoia]

6. I'll join you. Two for the Crazy Scientists Club !!

I totally enjoyed reading "The Illiad" and that wiley ole Homer with tricks galore up his sleeve. Haven't totally read Homer's adventures since it's always played out as a movie time after time.

[patriotvoice]

3. Link to Google Map of the island

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Cephalonia&ie=UTF8&ll=38.248427,20.567093&spn=0.434091,0.567856&t=p&z=11&lci=lmc:panoramio&layer=c

[RufusTFirefly]

4. Just as long as they have Purity ice cream. n/t

[King Coal]

5. I think it is in New York.