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In Why Homer Matters, historian and award-winning author Adam Nicolson suggests that Homer be thought of not as a person but as a tradition and that the works attributed to him go back a thousand years earlier than generally believed. Speaking from his home in England, Nicolson describes how being caught in a storm at sea inspired his passion for Homer, how the oral bards of the Scottish Hebrides may hold the key to understanding Homer's works, and why smartphones are connecting us to ancient oral traditions in new and surprising ways... About ten years ago, I set off sailing...

Greek archaeologists discover rare example of 2,700-year-old weaving The Associated PressPublished: May 9, 2007 ATHENS, Greece: Archaeologists in Greece have recovered a rare section of 2,700-year old fabric from a burial imitating heroes' funerals described by the poet Homer, officials said Wednesday. The yellowed, brittle material was found in a copper urn during a rescue excavation in the southern town of Argos, a Culture Ministry announcement said. "This is an extremely rare find, as fabric is an organic material which decomposes very easily," said archaeologist Alkistis Papadimitriou, who headed the dig. She said only a handful of such artifacts have...

Classical Greek and Roman literature is being read for the first time in 2,000 years thanks to new technology. The previously illegible texts are among a hoard of papyrus manuscripts. Scholars say the rediscovered writings will provide a fascinating new window into the ancient world. Salvaged from an ancient garbage dump in Egypt, the collection is kept at Oxford University in England. Known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, the collection includes writings by great classical Greek authors such as Homer, Sophocles, and Euripides. Using a technique called multi-spectral imaging, researchers have uncovered texts that include • parts of a lost tragedy...

The Vatican Library is losing its walls. Its 89,000 historic manuscripts are being made available online for access by scholars world-wide courtesy of EMC. The library, properly known as the Vatican Apostolic Library, is located in the Vatican City and is one of the oldest libraries in the world, established formally in 1475 but thought to have functioned for a long time before that. The library's function is to be a resource for scholars researching history, law, philosophy, science and theology.The Abyss of Hell by Sandro Botticelli in the Vatican Library It stores some 89,000 manuscripts, including 8,900 incunabula, manuscripts...

Epic Genes: Dating The Iliad This 3-inch-high bronze statue from Crete, dating to the early seventh century B.C.E., depicts a young boy and a blind musician. According to ancient tradition, Homer was a blind poet. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Epic Genes: Dating The Iliad This 3-inch-high bronze statue from Crete, dating to the early seventh century B.C.E., depicts a young boy and a blind musician. According to ancient tradition, Homer was a blind poet. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Amazon Warrior WomenThis painting on a Greek vase depicts an Amazon woman warrior on horseback engaged in battle.Amazons in myth: History's first mention of a race of warrior women comes in Homer's ILIAD, an account of the Trojan War, probably written in the 8th to the 7th century B.C. Homer's Amazons, a race of fierce women who mated with vanquished male foes and kept only the female children they bore, were believed to occupy the area around the Black Sea. Amazon women also crop up in other Greek myths. One of the labors of Hercules, for example, required him to...

Whoever carved the statue would not have had TV's favourite cartoon anti-hero in mind - but there is no doubting the resemblance of this stone head to Homer Simpson It was found by Rosalind and Donald McIntyre when they were clearing the bottom of their garden at their home in Fife, Scotland, earlier this year. The couple were working in their garden when Mrs McIntyre picked up the head. She took it to St Andrews Museum, and the discovery has been referred to the National Committee for Carved Stones of Scotland.

The Metaphor of the Dawn in The Odyssey Throughout Odysseus' journey, the metaphor of the dawn symbolizes his odyssey from immaturity, maturity, and fulfillment. The progression of Odysseus' development of strength is like the development of day, from dawn to dusk. The epithet, "rosy-fingered dawn" marks the beginning of Odysseus' odyssey. After his journey, the epithets "gold-throned dawn" and "bright-throned dawn" replace the "rosy-fingered dawn" however, after Odysseus returns home from his journey, he plans to rid his house of suitors, and the "rosy-fingered dawn" returns. After accomplishing the destruction of the suitors, finally, the "gold-throned dawn" replaces the "rosy-fingered...

...In the earliest days of their history, so the Greeks recorded, a city in Asia by the name of Troy had been besieged by their ancestors for 10 long years, captured, and burnt to the ground. Why? Responsibility for the conflict was pinned on Paris, a Trojan prince whose abduction of Helen, the fabulously beautiful daughter of the king of the gods, had set in train a truly calamitous sequence of events. Not only Troy had ended up obliterated, but so, too, had the age of heroes. War had consumed the world. No wonder, then, that the Greeks should have...

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...

Scientists have discovered a gene which makes mice more intelligent when it is not working. Nicknamed the ‘Homer Simpson gene’, after the hapless cartoon character, it operates in a part of the brain which regulates how animals learn and form new memories. The researchers from the Emory University School of Medicine say that deleting the gene in mice made them more skilled at navigating mazes and remembering objects. (Snip) John Hepler, PhD, professor of pharmacology at Emory University School of Medicine, said: "A big question this research raises is why would we, or mice, have a gene that makes us

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...

Greek archaeologists have claimed they have found the palace of Odysseus during excavations on the Ithaca island in the Ionian Sea. On Tuesday, the archaeologist, Thanasis Papadopulos, who has been leading the excavation team on Odysseus' home island for 16 years, said that he knew the right place of the remains since 2006. "We found the ruins of a three-level palace with a staircase carved into the rock," Papadopulos said, adding that they also found a well, dating back to 13th century BC, when the Trojan War is believed to have taken place. According to the archaeologist, the discoveries are...

The first stage of a five-year (2009-2013) excavation project in Ancient Tegea, near Tripolis, has been completed by an international team of archaeologists led by the Norwegian Institute in Athens in Collaboration with the Greek culture ministry's 38th Ephoria for Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities and 25th Ephoria of Byzantine Antiquities. The area of excavation is a field located to the west of the theatre and the Basilica of Thyrsos, where magnetometer survey 2003-2004 documented the probable location of a major north-south street and a stoa bordering the agora... Tegea was a settlement in ancient Greece, and it is also a...

ANKARA (Reuters) – Archaeologists in the ancient city of Troy in Turkey have found the remains of a man and a woman believed to have died in 1,200 B.C., the time of the legendary war chronicled by Homer, a leading German professor said on Tuesday. Ernst Pernicka, a University of Tubingen professor of archaeometry who is leading excavations on the site in northwestern Turkey, said the bodies were found near a defense line within the city built in the late Bronze age. The discovery could add to evidence that Troy's lower area was bigger in the late Bronze Age than...

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

While the Knight Rider GPS by Mio lets drivers live out their boyhood fantasies, it may also bring on a slight superiority complex thanks to the refined tones of William Daniels. TomTom users won’t have that problem now that iconic cartoon everyman Homer Simpson is onboard to guide them to the nearest bar or donut shop. Officially licensed by Twentieth Century Fox the Homer Simpson voice skin is performed by Homer Simpson himself, Dan Castellaneta, and features special words or wisdom to accompany the turn-by-turn instructions. Such gems include, “Take the third right. We might find an ice cream truck!...

The Idiossey The Not-Really-That-Epic Poem of ObamaclesRevised and Updated(with Apologies to Homer)Book the First: A question for the MuseContinued