Holy #@%$! They found Odysseus' tomb!

[Sethik]

http://maderatribune.1871dev.com/new...w.asp?c=167178

Archeologists make historic discovery

Saturday, August 27, 2005

By Thomas Elias - Columnist - The Madera Tribune

POROS, Island of Kefalonia, Greece - The tomb of Odysseus has been found, and the location of his legendary capital city of Ithaca discovered here on this large island across a one-mile channel from the bone-dry islet that modern maps call Ithaca.

This could be the most important archeological discovery of the last 40 years, a find that may eventually equal the German archeologist Heinrich Schliemann’s 19th Century dig at Troy. But the quirky people and politics involved in this achievement have delayed by several years the process of reporting the find to the world.

Yet visitors to Kefalonia, an octopus-shaped island off the west coast of Greece, can see the evidence for themselves at virtually no cost.

The discovery of what is almost certainly his tomb reveals that crafty Odysseus, known as Ulysses in many English renditions of Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” was no mere myth, but a real person. Plus, passages in the “Odyssey” itself suggest that modern Ithaca and its main town of Vathi probably were not the city and island of which Homer wrote...

They finally found the guy who made all those damn Trojans!

[Reverend Joe]

Wow... I... it... ugh...
*drops dead of a heart attack*

Wait- do they really know it's him? If so, how?

[master of the puppets]

holy nuts!?!?!?!?! how do they know, there must have been hundreds of kings of ithica.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Wake me when they find Aragorn's.
.

[lars573]

.
Wake me when they find Aragorn's.
.

That's for next week. When they find a portal to Middle earth in a cupboard in Oxford.

[LeftEyeNine]

My friend from Atlantis just left, you missed him..

I think that legends have some roots, leaving the exagerrations out.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I think that legends have some roots, leaving the exagerrations out.

Agreed. It'll be interesting to see the what and how on this. I do hope it's more substantive than "Al Capone's vault."

Seamus

[AntiochusIII]

.
Wake me when they find Aragorn's.
.

I think Dumbledore's would be easier to find, of course.

We just need to find castle Hogwarts first...

My reliable friend told me that his friend's friend (a famous archaeologist, from what I heard) believed Minas Tirith is buried somewhere beneath the Ionian sea, and that he heard it from a fellow famous archaeologist.

And this discovery is interesting, though I retain a healthy skepticism, as the article doesn't really provide much information.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.

My reliable friend told me that his friend's friend (a famous archaeologist, from what I heard) believed Minas Tirith is buried somewhere beneath the Ionian sea, and that he heard it from a fellow famous archaeologist.

That's neat but Mordor would interest me more.
.

[LeftEyeNine]

.

That's neat but Mordor would interest me more.
.

I bet it was burnt down by Vesuvius into the waters filling bay of Naples..

...

No, I did not mean that Italians were Orcs..Heh..Erm..Look at the beautiful Rome, how can they be ?

(Damn, I'll not try to push geographical jokes again..)

[Templar Knight]

you forgot Narnia!

[Kraxis]

Come on guys... Be just a vee tad serious here.
If you don't believe it is the tomb of Odysseus then say so and leave all this nonsence out.

What do they base their opinion on? I mean, have they foun an insciption saying: "Here lies king Odysseus, loyal vassal of king Menelaos and smiter of Troy." The tomb does contain a large amount of royal burials, and a man or several men that went to Troy might be buried there.
But as to say that Odysseus is buried there is too much for me. While Homer does say a lot of things important I'm not certain we can trust his geographical comments too much. Though I have to admit that the geographical comments for Troy fit all too well (since we know the sea was much closer then than now).

[LeftEyeNine]

Kraxis

we sound serious enough, mate. I was just imitating the ones who were making fool of Schliemann when he told that he would seek Troy (hmm, not such a convincing excuse..). Archeology was one of my ambitions in teenagehood, however it is Turkey that studying archeology has a very low success rate to offer to you for a living.

Also as I said before, legends somehow have a basis. So many different and apart cultures meet at the same point of legend of Noah's Ark (in different definitions, of course), even the religions based on holy books tell of it. I bet it is really around somewhere on Earth. Actually, Mount Of Cudi which is located in the southeastern part of Turkey is a general focus of study to find the ark by many archeologists. Some say it is around Black Sea, some say it landed on Mount of Agri - highest peak of Turkey, though.

[caesar44]

"The discovery of what is almost certainly his tomb reveals that crafty Odysseus, known as Ulysses in many English renditions of Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” was no mere myth, but a real person. Plus, passages in the “Odyssey” itself suggest that modern Ithaca and its main town of Vathi probably were not the city and island of which Homer wrote..."

Did you know that scholars have now proven that the Iliad wasn't written by Homer, but rather by another Greek with the same name...

Now seriously , we should be a little skeptic about that and wait for more research to come

[edyzmedieval]

Holy #$%&^!!! They found it....

Great job for them.

[Del Arroyo]

The article doesn't provide much information so yes I'm quite skeptical.

But still, I believe that the Illiad especially and perhaps even the Odyssey have more truth in them than we might think. The Illiad especially rings true to me, I think they both ring true and probably have a lot of factual basis.

DA

[Mikeus Caesar]

Also as I said before, legends somehow have a basis. So many different and apart cultures meet at the same point of legend of Noah's Ark (in different definitions, of course), even the religions based on holy books tell of it. I bet it is really around somewhere on Earth. Actually, Mount Of Cudi which is located in the southeastern part of Turkey is a general focus of study to find the ark by many archeologists. Some say it is around Black Sea, some say it landed on Mount of Agri - highest peak of Turkey, though.

Actually, Noah's Ark was a small rowing boat, with one senile old man and a donkey which went across a duck pond, only to run aground on the island in the midle.

[LeftEyeNine]

So the whole world was consisted of prehistoric paparazzis that exagerrated the "little Noah down the river" thing into a legend ?

I bet Noah paid for that celebirty news..

Come on..

[Kraxis]

Noah himself I doubt existed, he was just the vessel of religion and its fiting of the flood into the world.

The 'true' flood is now being considered the breakthrough to the Black Sea. It was about half its current size when it was a lake, but within days it got filled. The areas covered were flat and endless, the water could cover it in no time with even a slight rise of waterlevels (in this case we talk about more than 100 meters).

Imagine all the people that when they went to bed they had plains all around them as far as they could see. Safe and sound in their beliefs that tomorrow would be just another day. The next day they wake up with water splahsing around their feet, they step out and can't see any land anywhere. Scary? It would be scary even today! They wouldn't know where to go, for few people had been more than a few km from their birthplace, so they didn't know where safe land was. A few people living near rivers would have boats and could thus expect to survive longer, but even they wouldn't know were safety was. Many would sail around for a long time, some not making it. Some would pehaps have had a kind of barge (for transporting cattle or other livestock) across the bigger rivers. They would logically try to save their animals, if not for the sake of them or even the propects of surviving when landfall was made again, then for surviving the near future. Remember that any bread or grain would likely have been contaminated by the water.

Survivors would be far more noticeable when they come in floating with various animals, telling tales of their great ordeals. Is it then hard to imagine that the story would be linked to religion? And that it would be so traumatic that humanity would have a collective memory of it.

[Casmin]

Hmm. There's nothing convincing in that article. The only piece of evidence it lists is a brooch that fits the description "Homer" wrote. That's pretty weak in my opinion. Perhaps that style brooch was in vogue at the time. But without more details we can't really say. All I'm saying is is that the article doesn't give us much.

However, in all honesty this sounds like another instance of Agamemnon's death mask or John the Baptist's tomb. It seems like whenever they find an artifact they link it to the biggest celebrity of that time and place. I mean everytime they dig up a sandal in Israel people say "Could this be one of Jesus' sandals?" Which soon after turns into "We found Jesus' sandal!"

Could Odysseus have existed? Sure why not? But that article isn't showing me the money.

PS - I'll do some research on this and see what some other articles have to say.

Ok, I just checked out some other news sites and they give different stories. First off, they don't claim as the Madera Tribune does in the first sentence of the article to have found the tomb of Odysseus. They only claim to have POSSIBLY found Ithaca, where Odysseus was purported to live.

e.g.

"Robert Bittlestone, a management consultant, said yesterday that the peninsula of Paliki on the Ionian island of Cephalonia, near Ithaki, was the most likely location for Odysseus’ homeland."

Something interesting:

"Traces of small Mycenaean settlements have been located on Ithaki, but nothing big that could be associated with the palatial structure one would expect as the seat of a Mycenaean king such as Odysseus. However, a cave on Ithaki yielded a votive offering with the inscription “My vow to Odysseus.” This indicates the Homeric king was the object of a local hero cult." (ekathimerini.com)

And a note about "Homer's" details on Ithaca that match the island:

"But Bittlestone said dozens of features of Paliki match the description of Ithaca.

"If you walk around armed with a copy of the Odyssey, you can see 60 or 70 clues about topographical relationships. Every single one of them corresponds with this island. And you have to ask yourself, can that be coincidental?" (Reuters)

[VAE VICTUS]

[B]B]

Did you know that scholars have now proven that the Iliad wasn't written by Homer, but rather by another Greek with the same name...

now then, wouldnt it still be homer who wrote it?

[Kaiser of Arabia]

Now to find Achilles, and Agamemnon, and Menelaus, and Archimedes, and Leonadis (wait..they found that one)...

Sweet!