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The exact date when the Greeks used the Trojan horse to raze the city of Troy has been pinpointed for the first time using an eclipse mentioned in the stories of Homer, it was claimed today. # The truth about an epic tale of love, war and greed Scientists have calculated that the horse was used in 1188 BC, ten years before Homer in his Odyssey describes the return of a warrior to his wife on the day the "sun is blotted out of the sky". The legend of the fall of Troy is mentioned in Virgil and Homer's poems...

“Now when did Odysseus return to Penelope? The date is given with a precision most unusual in epic poetry.” "Because the lines describing the alleged eclipse are considered suspect, we shall use other passages in the Odyssey to shed some light on the issue, without assuming an eclipse. Given an interpretation of certain passages in the Odyssey as describing astronomical phenomena, we will look for dates in which the phenomena match. We shall find that the most likely day matching these other phenomena is 16 April 1178 B.C., suggesting there may be corroborating information in the epic for the eclipse...

Top 10 Rejected Obama Mission Names Apparently the White House tossed out a number of perfectly good names before arriving at "Operation Odyssey Dawn":10.Operation Nine Months In The Senate Didn't Prepare Me For This 9. Operation Organizing for Libya 8. Operation Double Standard 7. Operation FINE! I'll Do Something 6. Operation Enduring Narcissism 5. Operation So That's What the Red Button Does 4. Operation France Backed Me Into A Corner 3. Operation Start Without Me 2. Operation Unlike Bush Wars This One Is Justified Because Hey Look A Squirrel 1. Operation Aimless Fury Other ideas for Mission names: Operation...

Recent political developments in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the prevalence of Libyan fighters in Iraq, and evidence of a well‐established smuggling route for Libyans through Egypt, suggests that Libyan factions (primarily the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group) are increasingly important in al‐Qa’ida. The Sinjar Records offer some evidence that Libyans began surging into Iraq in larger numbers beginning in May 2007. Most of the Libyan recruits came from cities in North‐East Libya, an area long known for jihadi‐linked militancy. Libyan fighters were much more likely than other nationalities to be listed as suicide bombers (85% for Libyans, 56% for all others).

Spanish doubloons meant to fund wars, solid gold bars bound for Europe's royalty and bronze cannons that protected it all now sit scattered across the ocean floor from shipwrecks. But in a new investment plan by Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc., those long-ago sunken treasures could soon be part of investor portfolios. The Tampa, Fla., company, whose work has been documented on the Discovery Channel and on the pages of National Geographic, plans to allow investors a chance to purchase a share of a treasure hunt and split the spoils. Think of it as a romantic play on all-time highs in...

German archaeologists have made new discoveries at modern day Hisarlik, northwest Turkey -- ancient Troy. The finds further confirm the area occupied during the Bronze Age was not limited to the citadel; Troy VI and VII were much larger than originally thought. The three year research project at Troy -- lead by Prof. Ernst Pernicka, from the University of Tubingen's Institute of Pre- and Early History -- sees scholars focus on the analysis and publication of materials found since the university started excavations at the site in 1988... smaller excavations... in combination with geophysical surveying and the drilling of test...

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...

Search 'locates' Homer's Ithaca An amateur British archaeologist says he has located Ithaca, the homeland of Homer's legendary hero Odysseus. Robert Bittlestone - backed by two experts - claims the rocky island depicted in The Odyssey is part of Greek tourist destination Cephalonia. He used satellite imagery to match the area's landscape with descriptions in the poem about the return of the man behind the wooden horse of Troy. Many experts had stated Homer was referring to the island of Ithaki. They had explained geographical inconsistencies in The Odyssey by suggesting that Homer lived much later than the events portrayed...

Scholars have long agreed that ancient and modern Zachynthos are one and the same. Similarly, ancient Same was certainly the main body of modern Cephalonia, where a large town named Sami still exists. But modern Ithaca—a few miles east of Cephalonia—was hardly "the farthest out to sea," and its mountainous topography doesn't fit Homer's "lying low" description. (Bittlestone believes ancient Doulichion became modern Ithaca after refugees came there following an earthquake or other disaster and changed its name.) "The old explanations just felt unsatisfactory," says Bittlestone. "I kept wondering, was there possibly a radical new solution to this?" Back home...

Most people think the modern-day Ionian island of Ithaki is the location. But geologists are this week sinking a test borehole on nearby Kefalonia in an attempt to test whether its western peninsula of Paliki is the real site. The scientists hope to find evidence that the peninsula once stood proud, separated from Kefalonia by a narrow, navigable marine channel. It is only within the last 2,500-3,000 years - and long after Homer's time - that the channel has been filled in, the team contends. "We can't prove the story of the Odyssey is true, but we can test whether...

If you hear the siren's song, traveler it won't be long. You'll fall prostrate at her feet so bewitched that you can't eat. Won't you fill your ears with wax before siren's song attacks? Have us tie you to the mast; otherwise you will not last. You'll forget all in her voice; step back while you have a choice. Go home to your worried wife. Beauty hopes to end your life. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZwnAbMMV6U

Florida deep-sea explorers who found $500 million in sunken treasure two years ago say they have discovered another prized shipwreck: A legendary British man-of-war that sank in the English Channel 264 years ago. Odyssey Marine Exploration hasn't found any gold this time, but it's looking for an even bigger jackpot. The company's research indicates the HMS Victory was carrying 4 tons of gold coins that could be worth considerably more than the treasure that Odyssey raised from a sunken Spanish galleon in 2007, co-founder Greg Stemm said ahead of a news conference set for Monday in London. So far, Odyssey...

There is no science to validate the thesis that follows, no academy to adjudicate it, and little hope of convincing the Obama faithful even to consider it, let alone concede its validity.  That much said, the evidence is self-evident, accessible to all, and overwhelming.  The thesis is simple enough:  Bill Ayers served as Barack Obama's muse in the creation of Obama's 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father.  Ayers breathed creative life into this ungifted amateur, who had written nothing of note before, and reconceived him as a literary prodigy.  "I was astonished by his ability to write, to think, to...

The Not-Really-That-Epic Poem of Obamacles (with Apologies to Homer) Continued

Ancient Eclipse Found in "The Odyssey," Scientists SayRichard A. Lovett for National Geographic NewsJune 23, 2008 "The sun has perished out of heaven, and an evil mist has overspread the world." With those words in The Odyssey, Homer laid down not a prophecy of doom but a description of a real-world total solar eclipse, scientific sleuths announced today. It has been known for decades that there was only one such eclipse during the time period Homer wrote about in the ancient Greek poem—on April 16, 1178 B.C. The blackout even occurred at noon, as described in the epic poem. But...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An orbiting spacecraft has found evidence of what look like seven caves on the slopes of a Martian volcano, the space agency NASA said on Friday. The Mars Odyssey spacecraft has sent back images of very dark, nearly circular features that appear to be openings to underground spaces. "They are cooler than the surrounding surface in the day and warmer at night," said Glen Cushing of the U.S. Geological Survey's Astrogeology Team and Northern Arizona University. "Their thermal behavior is not as steady as large caves on Earth that often maintain a fairly constant temperature, but it...

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has discovered entrances to seven possible caves on the slopes of a Martian volcano. The find is fueling interest in potential underground habitats and sparking searches for caverns elsewhere on the Red Planet. Very dark, nearly circular features ranging in diameter from about 100 to 250 meters (328 to 820 feet) puzzled researchers who found them in images taken by NASA's Mars Odyssey and Mars Global Surveyor orbiters. Using Mars Odyssey's infrared camera to check the daytime and nighttime temperatures of the circles, scientists concluded that they could be windows into underground spaces....

Investors are dancing in the Streets in Tampa, Florida, and it is not even the Gasparilla Festival yet. Treasure salvers occupy a beloved place in Florida lore, and the work of high tech salver Gregg Stem has hit stratospheric heights with today's announcement. In what is believed to be the largest collection of coins ever excavated from a shipwreck, Odyssey Marine Exploration (Amex symbol OMR) has recovered over 500,000 silver coins weighing more than 17 tons, hundreds of gold coins, ......

Nasa release on the topography of the south polar region of Mars Scientists studying pictures from Nasa's Odyssey spacecraft have spotted what they think may be seven caves on the surface of Mars.The candidate caves are on the flanks of the Arsia Mons volcano and are of sufficient depth their floors mostly cannot be seen through the opening. Details were presented here at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas. Temperature data from Mars Odyssey's Themis instrument support the idea. The authors say that the possible discovery of caves on the Red Planet is significant. The caves...

LOS ANGELES - Mars' southern polar ice cap is believed to erupt in a violent fit of heated gas every spring in a process that helps explain why the Red Planet has dark spots in that region, scientists said Wednesday. Jets of carbon dioxide gas burst from the ice cap as it warms every spring, carrying dark sand and dust that fall back to the surface as dark splotches, concluded Phil Christensen of Arizona State University, who analyzed images from NASA's Odyssey orbiter. "If you were there, you'd be standing on a slab of carbon dioxide ice," he said in...