Archaeology - A team of Greek university has been working for sixteen years
"found the palace of Odysseus
Homer was right" to Ithaca
ceramics and the remains of a Mycenaean palace source
Archaeology - team of a Greek university has been working for sixteen years at Ithaca
ceramics and the remains of a Mycenaean palace source
Bust of Homer of the Capitoline Museums (Ansa)
F bears would be more honest to call it "building Penelope" , as Ulysses, between wars, travel, spiteful and cunning necessary dislikes of the gods, in that house there was very little, but whatever you call it, the traces of a Mycenaean-era building, discovered in Ithaca by a group of Greek archaeologists have a story intended to return the light it deserves so many dark years of work of these scholars. The protagonist of the discovery is Professor Athanasios Papadopoulos, University of Ioannina, which for sixteen years with his team digs Ionian island, on the trail of the palace described by Homer. The finding was done Exogi, a town north of the island: here revealed the structures of a building with three levels. The elements which would identify him as the palace of the son of Laertes are basically three: the shape, due to other Mycenaean palaces, with steps carved into the rock fragments of pottery from the same period (the first records speak of porcelain, but it is likely that this is a translation error, since the porcelain is much later), a fountain, which archaeologists have dated to the thirteenth century BC, that is the time when it would be Ulysses lived.
Papadopoulos - according to the Ansa agency reported from Athens - said the building is similar in size and structure to those already attributed to Agamemnon, Menelaus and Nestor at Mycenae, Pellana, Pylos, Tiryns. The latest discovery is similar to 2006 when Professor Yannos Lolos brought to light at Salamis and the house that would have been Ajax. And again in Ithaca a few years ago Papadopoulos Kontorli Litsa and her colleague had discovered a tablet engraved with a scene from the Odyssey: Ulysses tied to the mast of his ship to resist the siren song. Even then, the two archaeologists announced they had to "be near" the discovery of the palace where Odysseus had to exterminate the suitors.
The news has renewed the excitement that follows each finding in the footsteps of Homer's story, beginning with the discovery of Troy by Schliemann. "What matters is the discovery of a Mycenaean-era building - confirmation Andrea Carandini, who has been digging the Palatine in Rome - and the dating of the fountain can help to define the context. And if it postpones the myth of the Odyssey is easy to become the palace of Odysseus. " "What is Homer's excavations on inspiration is understandable - added Adriano La Regina, Rome Archaeological Superintendent for decades - but now the important news is just the building, as has happened for the palace of Nestor at Pylos. Whether it's Ulysses or no interest to a certain point, we now know that Ithaca was a Mycenaean king. And I hope that you can also find the archive: very important for writing Mycenaean tablets that we are now able to decipher and can give valuable information. "
the link between the archaeological and the Homeric poems of the seventh century, pays more attention to the historian Luciano Canfora, "We have a reductionist view of Homer's epic, as a mere repository of legends. But the historicity of the story, from the siege of Troy to the figure of Agamemnon, the dispatch of Greek princes and their tormentatissimi returns, are not debatable. Archaeology is looking for something that perhaps there was, despite flukes and misunderstandings. It is like looking for the Shroud. And Homer - Camphor insists - is not a poet. He offers us a historical novel written in hexameters, because that was the only form of communication. "
The only to be disappointed by the discovery of Papadopulos Robert Bittlestone, British businessman lover of antiquity, who a few years ago was convinced that the real Ithaca is not at all the tiny island that still bears his name. For him the real Ithaca over thousands of years had transformed the peninsula of Paliki on the northwest coast of Cephalonia close and to prove it had expended much energy and sophisticated satellite photographs. But perhaps in Ulysses (and Penelope), this latest move house did not like.
Paul Fallai
August 24, 2010 ©
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