LINK WITH HOMER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 140, 16 June 1932, Page 8

LINK WITH HOMER

ISLAND OF ITHACA. IMPORTANT EXCAVATIONS. REMAINS OF ANCIENT CITY. The spade has proved that the legendary land of Ithaca, in which Homer set the immortal Odyssey, really is the modern Ithaki, one of “the fair isles of Greece.” Great controversy had raged among scholars about th© identity of the island of the Odyssey, but recent explorations can hardly leave any doubt, not only that modern Ithaki is the Ithaca of Homer, but that the poet himself must have had an extraordinarily good local knowledge. Sir Retmell Rodd, who founded the Ithaca Excavation Fund, told an English reporter recently that work will be- resumed there in August, which it is hoped, will complete the chain of evidence. “Excavations have proved,” Sir Rennell said, “that an ancient settlement existed on Ithaca above the Bay of Polis—the city—long before the time of Homer, if the accepted date of the Odyssey be approximately correct. The researches of Mr. W. A. Heurtlcy, assistant director of the British School of Archaeology in Athens, have revealed a widely-ex-tended area of early occupation, for evidence of which we are chiefly dependant on pottery found in graves. Burials were carried out apparently under the houses themselves, and interesting examples of Helladic pottery have been found. “The houses of the prehistoric city, destroyed apparently about 1000 B.C-. were evidently built of wattle and daub, as is evident from lumps of mortar with wood markings which are found there. The repeated references in Homer to the ‘ threshold of stone’ rather seem to suggest that the early houses themselves were not stone built. “The household objects found are simple in character —kneading stones for crushing grain, stone axes, some rough figures, a cow in terra-cotta from a child’s grave, a little bronze and a good many blades of obsidian. “Wehave definite evidence that in a cave sanctuary besides the Bay of Polis Odysseus received offerings as a local demigod. A fragment of a tablet bearing the words in Greek ‘A prayer to Odysseus’ has been found there. To me this discovery was in itself a sufficient justification for the adventurt of Ithaca,”