When did he come home? by Barbora Misakova

The name of Odysseus has probably the same power as it had thousand years ago. Maybe even stronger. Odysseus & a legendary Greek king from Ithaca and a husband of Penelope & known as his faithful wife. His ten years of journey to come back home were not easy. As it wasn't easy to fight ten years of Trojan War. Information about this ancient king were for lot of centuries different & while in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey he was a hero, the Romans had constructed another picture about him. They called him "dirus Ulixes" what means cruel Odysseus. There is incredible number of stories and legends about this great man, much more paintings and sculptures. But the most famous memory on Odysseus came from already mentioned Homer.

Lot of scientists and researchers were analyzing Homer's epic poems just like they feel there something behind it. They probably had a lot of questions, and normally there is just a little chance their answers will be appreciated as the truth. But I would say it is always achievement to get an answer at least on one question. This time they got an answer on one of them & when did King Odysseus returned from the Trojan War? Marcelo O. Magnasco & the leader of the whole research thinks they found out the real date of Odyssey's return which was on April 16, 1178 B.C. They came out of Homer's work particularly from his description of position of the stars and total eclipse of the sun. His descriptions were so exact, that there is no doubt that "Homer knew about certain astronomical phenomena that happened much before his time." By analyzing all of the descriptions in Iliad and Odyssey such as visibility of Venus or position of Mercury at the sky it all led to their finding. Even though the researchers believe in their discovery, they all well know there is not enough ammunitions to defend their opinion. The most important thing now is to continue reading Odyssey again and again, ponder about it and never forget that "our understanding of these texts is quite imperfect."


related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080623/ap_on_sc/sci_odyssey_dated;_ylt=AlEBWkV3z6rJFuRCg8gKJ5Gs0NUE

by Barbora Misakova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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posted by Lucia Adamova