INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR

“Toija and the roots of European civilization”

Homer in the Baltic(“The Baltic Origins of Homer’s Epic Tales”)

by Felice Vinci

Toija, Finland, 10 August 2007

Why Homeric geography could still be an interesting topic? Ever since ancient times, scholars noticed that Homeric geography was undermined by a lot of anomalies: the Peloponnese is flat, the location of Ithaca is wrong, many islands and peoples are misplaced or not to be found, weather is usually cold and bad, and so on.Recently, after the English architect Michael Ventris interpreted the scripts on the Mycenaean tablets (the so-called “Linear B”), this topic has come up again and extended to searching for the relationship between the Homeric world and the Mycenaean civilization, that fluorished in Greece between 16th and 12th century B.C.

Mycenaean geography and Homeric geography

Prof. Chadwick claims “the complete lack of contact between Mycenaean geography as now known from the tablets and from archaeology on the one hand, and from Homeric accounts on the other”(Finley, The World of Odysseus)

“As to the correspondence between Homeric geography and the Mycenaean one, many steps backwards were taken, so far as people stress divergences now” (Montanari, Introduction to Homer)

The thesis expounded in “Homer in the Baltic”

The sagas that gave rise to the Iliad and the Odyssey came from the Baltic regions, where the Bronze age flourished in the 2nd millennium BC, and many Homeric places, such as Troy and Ithaca, can still be identified. The blond Achaean seafarers who founded the Mycenaean civilization in the 16th century BC brought these tales from Scandinavia to Greece after the decline of the “climatic optimum”. There they rebuilt their original world, where the Trojan War and many other mythological events had taken place.

The starting point: a key-statement by Plutarch

“A certain island, Ogygia, lies a long way off in the sea”. It is situated “five days’ sail from Britain”. Beyond it other islands are to be found, that are “inhabited by Greeks” and, farther on, one comes to “the great continent, which surrounds the ocean”.

In those “external islands” the Summer Sun “disappears for less than an hour per night, over a period of thirty days”. (Plutarch, De facie quae in orbe lunae apparet, chap. XXVI)

The Northern Atlantic and the Faroe Islands

Faroe Islands

Baltic Sea

Atlantic Ocean

The Faroe Islands: Ogygia and mount Høgoyggj

Stóra Dímun

1 km

Stóra Dímun: Calypso’s island?

Høgoyggj

Crossing from Ogygia to Scheria

“The bright goddess Calypso told him

to keep [the Bear] on his left-hand while sailing across the sea.

He sailed through the sea for seventeen days…

(Od. V, 276-278)

“He sailed through the sea for seventeen days…

Atlantic Ocean

Ogygia

Baltic Sea

…and on the eighteenth the shadowy mountains/ of the Phaeacian land appeared, which grew very close to him/ and looked like a shield on the misty sea” (Od. V, 279-281)

The North Wind carries Ulysses toward the Phaeacian land

Here a violent storm breaks, and the goddess Athena goes to Ulysses’ rescue:

“She locked the ways of the other winds,told them to stop and go to sleep, then called for the North Wind and broke the waves in front of him, so that he reached the Phaeacians, who are keen on ships”(Od. V, 383-386)

Going to Scheria, along the coast southward

Ogygia

Going to Scheria, along the coast southward

Ogygia

Scheria

Scheria, the land of the Phaeacians

“Scheria,” has no meaning in Greek but is very close to a Old Norse word: “skerja,” which means “sea rock” (“skjær” in modern Norwegian, similar to scar and skerry).

Thus “Scheria” could be the “rocky land”, which squares with Homer’s descriptions, such as:

“There were no coves or harbors for ships,

only sheer cliffs, rocks and reefs”

(Od. V, 404-405)

Ulysses’ “prodigious” landing

“By swimming he reached the mouth of a fine river

which seemed to him to be the best place

as it was free of rocks (…)

It stopped its current at once, halted its flow,

became still, and drew him to safety

into the mouth of the river”

(Od. V, 441-443, 451-453)

This phenomenon is easily explainable with the Atlantic

high tide.

The mouth of the Figgjo, Nausicaa’s river

The rock in the shape of ship before the harbour

Archaeological finds in Figgjo’s area

Figgjo’s area is one of the richest in Bronze Age finds in Norway: graves and rock carvings that often portray ships. Actually, Homer calls the Phaeacians “renowned navigators” (“ναυσικλυτοι ανδρες”).

Ithaca’s archipelago

“I live in bright Ithaca; here there is the famous

Mount Neriton with its rustling leaves; many islands

lie hereabouts, very close to each other,

Dulichium, Same and wooded Zacynthus.

But Ithaca lies down there, the last in the sea towards the night,

whereas the others lie towards the dawn and the Sun”

(Od. IX, 21-26)

The Ionian Islands, Greece

The so-called “Ithaca” in the Ionian Sea is not the westernmost in its archipelago. Same (which is called “Samos” in the Iliad) is not there.As to Dulichium, the “long” island often mentioned by both the Iliad and the Odyssey, it is not to be found anywhere.

The islands near the Homeric Ithaca

1. There are three main islands: Dulichium, Same, Zacynthus;

2. Dulichium is a “long” island (“δολιχος”) facing Peloponnese;

3. Ithaca is the westernmost island;

4. Same is close to Ithaca;

5. there is a small island in the strait between Ithaca and Same;

6. Dulichium faces Elis, a region of the Peloponnese;

7. the Homeric Peloponnese lies east of Ithaca. It is level.

There is a “long island” in the South-Fyn archipelago (Denmark)

Scheria

Baltic Sea

The South-Fyn archipelago is the only one in the world perfectly complying with Homer’s indications

Langeland-DulichiumAerø-

Same

Tåsinge-Zacynthus

Lyø-Ithaca Avernakø-

Asteris

The flat “Pelops’ Island” east of Ithaca

Ithaca

Same

Zacinthus

Dulichium

Peloponnese

Elis

Pylus

Lacedaemon

Epirus

Echinads

Baltic Sea

Argolis

Arcadia

Analogies between Baltic Sea and Aegean Sea

Baltic Sea

Aegean Sea

The Homeric Peloponnese is level; the Greek one is uneven and, on the other hand, it is not an island, despite of its own name. What is similar is their position, south-west of their respective bassins.

The map of the Ionian Ithaca

“Even the topographical detail of Odysseus’ home island of Ithaca can be shown to be in a jumble, with several essential points appropriate to the neighboring island of Leucas but quite impossible for Ithaca”

(Moses Finley, The World of Odysseus )

“Regarding the identification of the places described in Homer’s poems, if the hypotheses put forward about Thiaki are puzzling, then those regarding Leucas are not convincing either”

(Treccani Italian Encyclopaedia)

Lyø, the westernmost island of the South-Fyn arcipelago…

1 km

…is Ulysses’ Ithaca, “the last in the sea towards the night”

1 km

First Point (πρωτη ακτη)

Town and harbor

Ulysses’ housePhorkys’

harbor

Nerituswood

fields

Raven’s Stone

Eumaeus’ hut

The “Raven’s Stone” near Eumaeus’ hut

“It always rains here and there is plenty of moisture”

In Ithaca weather is always bad; the sun is never mentioned

Throughout the entire fourteen books that the Odyssey dedicates to Ithaca, one never once finds mention of the sun or its warmth, despite of the fact that it is the sailing season.

The swineherd Eumaeus, when Ulysses went to bed, “set a couch for him/ by the fire (…)./ Here Ulysses lay down and he covered him/ with a large thick cloak, which served as a change,/ he wore when a heavy shower pelted down.”(Od. XIV, 518-522).Soon afterwards, before going out in the open, Eumeus wore “a very thick cloak to protect himself from the wind.” (Od. XIV, 529).The next morning Ulysses complains: “I wear inadequate clothes and the frost at daybreak (“stíbe hypeoíe”)/ might kill me.”(Od. XVII, 24-25). Eumaeus expresses a similar concept a little further on: “Most of the day has already gone by/ and soon it will be most cold this evening.”(Od. XVII, 190-191)

Tåsinge – Zacynthus

Langeland, the “long” island (“Dulichium”)

Suitors and islands

According to the Odyssey, 24 Penelope’s suitors came from Same, 20 from Zacynthus, and 52 from Dulichium (Od. XVI, 247-250)

From these numbers one could infer that:

Same (24 suitors) is larger than Zacynthus (20);

Dulichium (52) is larger than Same (24) and Zacynthus (20) together

Areas of the three islands adjacent to Ithaca • Aerø (Same, 24 suitors): 88 kmq (6800 inhabitants) • Tåsinge (Zacynthus, 20 s.): 70 kmq (6000 inh.) • Langeland (Dulichium, 52 s.): 185 kmq (15000 inh.)The proportion between suitors and areas is remarkable

DulichiumSame

ZacyinthusTåsinge

AerøLangeland

The fair-haired Ulysses

“I am removing your blond hair (“ξανθάς τρίχας”) from your head”

(Od. XIII, 399)

Pindar mentions the “fair-haired Danaans” in his IX Nemean

A statement from Tacitus

“Ceterum et Ulixen quidam opinantur longo illo et fabuloso errore in hunc Oceanum delatum adisse Germaniae terras”

(Tacitus, Germania, 3, 2)

“Some people believe that Ulysses too, in his long and fabulous wanderings arrived at this Ocean and visited the lands of Germany”

The “Mycenaean” swords found in Nebra, Germany

The Nebra disk ...and Achilles’ shield

“There he portrayed the earth, the [sky and the

sea,

The tireless sun and the full moon,

And all signs crowning the sky,

The Pleiades…”

(Il. XVIII, 483-486)

The Northern origin of the Mycenaean civilization

Bertrand Russell claims that the Mycenaean civilization originated from fair-haired Northern invaders taking the Greek language along with themselves.(Russell, History of Western Philosophy, Chap. 1)

“A very important discovery was made in a chamber tomb at Dendra. It seems to have been a cenotaph (...) Their similarity with the menhirs, known from the Bronze Age of Central Europe, is striking, and their identity with these sacred stones seems hardly possible to deny. If this is so, it is a very striking corroboration of the northern origin of the Mycenaeans”(Nilsson, Homer and Mycenae)

The Mycenaean architecture

“…Owing to many of these characteristics (gable roofs, closed buildings, fixed fireplaces) the Mycenaean palaces recall the cold and damp northern countries, from which they undoubtedly came (…) They are very different from the typically Mediterranean architectural conception of the buildings of Crete”

(Lévêque, Greek Civilization)

The Mycenaean megaron

“The structure of the megaron, i.e., the main hall of the Mycenaean buildings, was also very well suited for a chief surrounded by retainers and table companions, and is identical with the hall of the old Scandinavian kings” (Nilsson, Homer and Mycenae)

Analogies between Achaeans and Vikings

“(…) The dreadful Kere seized now a warrior who had just been wounded, now another unhurt,now she dragged a corpse by its foot in the fight. She wore a cloak around her shoulders, which was red with human

[blood”(Il. XVIII, 535-538)The Homeric Kere is identical to the Valkyries, who carry the souls of the warriors fallen in battle to Valhalla.Moreover, there are amazing analogies between Homeric Achaeans and Vikings, in the fields of their mythologies, social relations, interests, lifestyles and so on.For example, the Homeric sea-god called Aigaion, whose name is found in the Aegean Sea, corresponds to Aegir, the Norse Lord of seas.

Viking ships and Achaean ships

There are remarkable analogies between the technical features of Viking and Achaean ships, such as the flat keel, the double prow and the mast that can be dismantled.

The metal art in Northern Europe during the Bronze Age“This civilization managed to fashion this material into extraordinary objects: “The variety of Germanic bronze objects was amazing: there were precious swords, valued ornaments, gold-plated cult discs, clips, buckles, helmets, shields, chokers and even shaving, ear and manicure sets (…) 1500 years before the arrival of the Romans in the Northern territories, there were already such very high standards of living and civilization, that they can only be compared to the Greek civilization of the same period” (Fischer-Fabian, The Germans)

Axes

This civilization “took advantage of increasing trade, and reached a remarkable development (superior to that of the corresponding Bronze Age civilization of southern and western Germany) especially as far as the noble fashioning and taste in decoration of bronze objects are concerned, which attest a very high standard of living (…) The art of founding reached a level of perfection that could only be compared to the best works of the Aegean-Mycenaean civilization”

(Treccani Italian Encyclopaedia)

Shields, spears and swords

“Spiral bracelets, hair-bands and necklaces” (Il.XVIII, 401)

The great grave near Kivik, Sweden (75 m diameter)

Kivik’s entrance

The carvings on Kivik slabs

The carving of the chariot

Homer, Mycenaeans and Northern Europe

“The nobility of the (Homeric) hexameters should not deceive us into thinking that the Iliad and the Odyssey are other than the poems of a largely barbarian Bronze Age or Early Iron Age Europe. ‘There is no Minoan or Asianic blood in the veins of the Grecian Muses... they dwell remote from the Cretan-Mycenaean world and in touch with the European elements of Greek speech and culture’, Rhys Carpenter remarked; ‘behind Mycenaean Greece… lies Europe.’”

(Piggott, Ancient Europe)

Cloaks and tunics of the Northern Bronze Age

The heavy clothes of the Homeric heroes

In the episode where Telemachus and Peisistratus were guests of Menelaus in Sparta, they got ready for lunch after a bath: “They wore thick cloaks and tunics/ and sat down on chairs” (Od. IV, 50-51)

The same goes for Ulysses, at Alcinous’: “They dressed him in a fine woollen cloak and tunic;/ he left the bath and joined the lords/ who were drinking” (Od. VIII, 455-457)

When Uysses was in Crete, he wore “a thick and double cloak” (Od. XIX, 225)

Nestor’s cloak was “double and large; a thick fur stuck out” (Il. X, 134)

What about Schliemann, who found Troy in the Anatolian hill of Hisarlik?

Strabo and geology

“Strabo reports that the plain had been an inlet of the sea at the time of the Trojan War and that since then it had been filled in by silt brought down by the river. Schliemann was eager to disprove this statement, for it was one of the chief arguments against the Troy-Hisarlik theory. If the sea had come up to the walls of Troy, how could the Greeks and Trojans have ranged back and forth on the plain between the city and the sea, as Homer tells us? (...) Thanks to a series of core samples taken in 1977 we now know that in prehistoric times the plain was covered by an extensive arm of the sea, which reached up to Hisarlik (...) Strabo therefore was correct and the findings of Schliemann, Burnouf and Virchow, based as they were on inadequate samples, were in error”(Traill, Schliemann of Troy)

The Hisarlik site during the Bronze Age (Kraft)

Here is the bay that in ancient times extended up to the base of the hill of Hisarlik.

One should also note that Homer mentions the point where “the Simoïs and the Scamander mix their waters” (Il. V, 774). This is impossible in this set, where the two rivers are at least 2 km far.

Aegean Sea

Dardanelles

Ancient bay

today’s coastline

Scamander

Simoïs

Moses Finley on the puzzling Hisarlik

“Not a single scrap links the destruction of Troy VIIa with Mycenaean Greece, or with an invasion from any other source. Nor does anything known from the archaeology of Greece and Asia Minor or from the Linear B tablets fit with the Homeric tale of a great coalition sailing against Troy from Greece (…) nor is a Trojan War mentioned

(Finley, The World of Odysseus)

The Homeric “boundless Hellespont”

Troy was lying near a wide sea called Hellespont:

“In the whole of the country that is bounded by Lesbos

upper Phrygia and boundless Hellespont”

(Il. XXIV, 544-545)

In other passages where Hellespont is mentioned the adjective “πλατυς”, “wide” is found.

It is very difficult to identify this wide sea with the narrow Mediterranean Hellespont, i.e. the Straits of the Dardanelles.

The northern Hellespont quoted by Saxo Grammaticus

“After these events, Regner, who was preparing an expedition against the Hellespontians, convened a meeting of the Danes (…) After a series of repeated attacks, he defeated and subjected Hellespont and its King Dian.

(Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum)

Therefore, it is very likely that in Northern Europe there was another Hellespont, that is, the wide sea mentioned by Homer, which afterwards was transposed into the Mediterranean as it happened to the Peloponnese.

Correspondence between Aegean and Baltic “Hellespont”

Aegean Sea

Baltic Sea

Troy’s location with respect to sea

“I am going to arouse a violent storm

of Zephyrus and bright Notus from sea”

Zephyrus is the West Wind, Notus is the South Wind. This implies that sea lay south-west of the city. Thus Troy probably lay north-east of sea, in an area facing the Gulf of Finland.

Looking for Troy

Homeric Hellespont

Baltic Sea

Troy?

“Homeric” placenames in Southern Finland

Ellesponto omerico

Mar Baltico

Troia?

“Homeric” placenames in Southern Finland

Other placenames: Toija

July 11th, 1992: on the way for Toija

The “beach” (“aigialos”) near Troy

“The ships lay very far from the battlefield,/ on the shore of the grey sea. [The Achaeans] had drawn the first as far as the plain/ and had built the wall facing the sterns,/ since the beach (αιγιαλος) could not hold all the ships,/ even though it was wide; the soldiers were crowded./ So they arranged them in close rows and filled up the big mouth/ of the shore, bounded by the headlands”(Il. XIV, 30-36)

Land rising in Finland

Southern Finland’s land is rising about 40 cm/century, pushing back the sea. This is why Aijala is no more by the sea.

The Finnish “Troas”

The area around Toija and Aijala

Batieia Hill

Achaean camp (“aigialos”)

Flooded plain

SimoïsScamander

Scaean Gates

Troy

Batieia Hill

Aerial view of the area of Toija

Aerial view of the area of Toija

Troy

Aerial view of the area of Toija

TroyBatieia Hill

The hill where Troy probably stood

“The plain was all filled with flooded water” (Il. XXI, 300)

Troy Batieia Scamander flooded plain “aigialos” Simoïs

The anomaly of the night battle

In the longest battle of the Iliad there are two middays. This implies an interposed night, that is actually recorded:

“Zeus spread a dreadful night out over the strenuous battle

so that the effort of the fight around his beloved son was [dreadful”

(Il. XVI, 567-568).

What is anomalous here is that the night does not stop the battle, that goes on nonstop until the following night. This is very strange in a Mediterranean set.

The clear night

In the area of Toija, at about 60° latitude, the June nights are quite clears (according to Plutarch, this phenomenon is also found in Ogygia. Actually, Faroe Islands’ latitude is similar to Southern Finland’s). This phenomenon is recorded in the Iliad:“When it was still dimly-lit night [“αμφιλύκη νύξ”], before dawn

[broke,then a group of Achaeans gathered by the pyre,and made a tumulus over” (Il. VII, 433-435). One should note that the Homeric term “amphilyke” is extremely uncommon in Greek literature. It is only found in the Argonautics by Apollonius Rodius, in a passage where the Hyperborean Apollo is mentioned (Arg. II, 671).

The concomitance with the flood of the Trojan riversThe clear night in June, that allows to fight until the day after, squares with the overflowing of the River Scamander during the following battle (overflowings of the Northern rivers usually occur in May or June owing to the spring thaw)

The rigorous climate in the Homeric world

“The night was bad, after the north wind dropped,

and freezing; then snow grew above like icy rime

and ice congealed on our shields”

(Od. XIV, 475-477)

When Achilles left for Troy, his mother prepared him

a trunk “filled with tunics,/ wind-proof thick cloaks and

blankets” (Il. XVI, 223-224)

Fog on the battlefield

“You were not able to say

whether there was still the Sun or the Moon;

in the battle fog had closed in upon the strongest men”

(Il. XVII, 366-368)

“I am not able to see any of the Achaeans!

Men and horses are shrouded all and sundry in the fog.

Thou, Father Zeus, free the sons of the Achaeans from the fog,

make the sky clear and allow us to see!”

(Il. XVII, 643-646)

Archaeological finds in the area of Toija

A Bronze Age grave near Toija

Homeric and Northern graves Hector undertakes to give back the corpse of his opponent “so that the long-haired Achaeans can bury him,and erect a mound for him on the broad Hellespont;and some day one of the men to come,sailing with a multioared ship on the wine-dark sea, will say:This is the mound of a man slain in ancient times”(Il. VII, 85-89)

In the Beowulf the tomb of the protagonist is “a mound on the headland over the sea which will rise over Whale Capeso that sailors will later call it‘Beowulf’s mound’ when they drivetheir ships beyond sea’s mist”(Beowulf, 2803-2807)

Homer’s “grassy Scamander”

The second river of Toija (the Simoïs)

The rises on the shoulders of Troy (the Homeric Ida)

Tantalus, the mithical king of Lydia

According to Greek mythology, Tantalus, King of Lydia – a region adjacent with the Troas – had his tomb on Mount Sipylus. 100 km far from Toija Tanttala lies; south of it we find Sipilänmäki (“Hill of Sipilä”). West of Tanttala, Tammela recalls both Tmolus, Tantalus’s father, and the Mount Tmolus, whence a contingent of allies of the Trojans came, whose leader was Mestles: his name recalls today’s Mestilä.

Sipilänmäki

Troy’s destiny after the War

“Aeneas’ power will reign over Trojans,

and the sons of his sons and the ones who will come after”

(Il. XX, 307-308)

One should also note the similarity between the name of Aeneas (“Aineias” in Greek) and “Aeningia”, the Roman name of Finland (Pliny, Natural History IV, 96)

Norse literature claims that Troy was linked with Odin: one could infer that he was a northern King dating back to the Early Bronze Age, who later was deified.

The route of the Achaeans from Aulis to Lemnos and Troy

AulisLemnos

Troy

Chios

HellasEllespontos

Thracian Sea

Samothrace

Boeotia

Thebes

Cyprus

Phocis

Thrace

Kos

The Norrtälje bay (Aulis)

Lemland - Lemnos

Remains of a Bronze age defence wall in Åland

Homer’s world reconstructed in Northern Europe

Ogygia

Aeolia

Syria

Ortygia

Temese

Helike

IthacaPelop.

Aetolia Crete

AthensEuboea

Egypt

Naxos

Thebes

AulisTroy

Scheria

Thracian Sea

Hellespont HellasKos

Phthia

Pharos

Chios

Cyprus

Curetes

Libyans

Rhodes

Iolcus

CentaursLapithae

Pieria

Olympus

Ethiopians

Aeaea

Charybdis

Colchis

Laestrygonians

CyclopesHypereia

Phocis

Locris

Thrace

Emathia

Boeotia

Tartarus

The mystery of Pharos

“There is an island in the boundless seain front of Egypt; people call it Pharos,as far-away as a ship in a whole day sails,which a howling wind pushes from behind.” (Od. IV, 354-357)Menelaus stopped there on his return journey from Troy. In the Mediterranean, Homeric Pharos was identified with the little island where, in the Hellenistic period, the famous “lighthouse” (“faro” in Italian) signalled the entrance to the Port of Alexandria to sailors. However, the fact that it stands close to the Egyptian coast, and not in the open sea, has given rise to one of the most famous incongruities of Homeric geography. Moreover, Homer stresses that the course between Pharos and Egypt is “long and difficult” (Od. IV, 483).Actually, in the center of the Baltic there is an island, 200 sea miles away from the Polish coast, exactly north of the mouth of the River Vistula (“in front of Egypt”), which is called Fårö.

Fårö – Pharos: the island of the seals

“When the Sun reaches the middle of the sky,/ then the truthful Old Man of the Sea surfaces from the sea,/ under Zephyrus’ blow, hidden in a dark shiver,/ and once out, he rests in the hollow caves;/ around him the flipper-footed seals of the nice sea daughter/ sleep close together as they come out from the foamy sea,/ giving off the strong smell of the sea depths.” (Od. IV, 400-406)

The Baltic Zeus

As Professor Prampolini states, scholars found in the Eastern Baltic area “the figure of a supreme god called Dievas in Lithuania and Dievs in Latvia. In local folklore he curiously shows features typical of both Hellenic Zeus and the Christian God.”

The genitive case of “Zeus” in Greek is “Dios” (Διoς). If we consider the usual loss of the digamma (F), that is, “v”, between two vowels, the word Dios was originally Di(v)os—quite similar to Dievas and Dievs.

Curians and Curetes

Saxo Grammaticus in his Gesta Danorum identifies an area in the eastern Baltic called Curetia – now Kurland, a district of Latvia – whose name derives from an ancient people of Finnish origin known as the Curians. Saxo calls its inhabitants “Curetes”. It seems more than natural to associate them with the Homeric Curetes (Iliad 9.529–89), who are also found in Greek mythology, though they cannot be located in the Greek world geographically. Curetes are strictly connected to Zeus’s birth.

The “Climatic Optimum” in Northern Europe

It was “the best climatic period Scandinavian countries have ever known, which justifies the high cultural level reached in Scandinavia around 2500 B.C. (…) This long, favourable climatic period saw the development of the Northern culture, including the Maglemose and Ertebölle civilizations, the dolmens, the ‘passage grave’ tombs and the Bronze Age culture”However, afterwards “the temperature dropped (…) The beech trees spread and leafy flora migrated from northern Sweden to more southern areas (…) This cold climate, whose peak coincides with the Iron Age, blocked the northern culture’s most promising energies. The legendary Fimbul-Winter spread poverty and death with its chill, thus forcing the peoples to migrate” (Zambotti, The Most Ancient Northern Civilizations)

The end of the “climatic optimum” and the Indo-European diaspora

In the first half of the second millennium B.C. many Indo-European peoples settled in their historical seats, almost at the same time:

the Hittites in Anatolia;

the Cassites in Mesopotamia;

the Aryans in India;

the Hyksos in Egypt (some scholars tend to consider them Indo-Europeans now);

the Thocarians in Turkestan.

In the same period the Bronze Age started in China, between the 18th and the 16th century B.C. (“Shang” dynasty), the “Nuraghe People” settled in Sardinia, and the Mycenaeans settled in Greece.

The migration to the Aegean Sea: the River Dnieper’s way

Dnieper

Western Dvina Baltic Sea

Mar Nero

Aegean Sea

Ulysses’ wanderingsThey are set in the Atlantic islands and coasts of Norway, skirted by the Gulf Stream, that is, the Homeric “Ocean River”. Polyphemus is a “troll”; the Aeolian Island is one of the Shetland; Circe is an Arctic shaman living in the Lofoten Islands (where there are the “Dawn Dances” and the midnight sun); the “Sirens’ Song” is a sort of Norse kenning. As to Charybdis, it is the famous whirlpool called Maelstrom, which is bounded southward by a tricuspid island (the “Thrinacia”).

Ogygia

Aeolia

Scheria

(1) The Norwegian branch of the Gulf Stream

HypereiaCyclopes

Laestrygonians

Charybdis

SirensCirce

(1)

Itaca

Baltic Sea

Atlantic Ocean

Cyclopes in the North

Adam of Bremen (a German historian of the XI century) puts the Cyclopes in the area of the Ripheians (or Ripeians) Mountains, also mentioned by ancient geographers, who put them in the far north, in the country of the Hyperboreans.

Charybdis’ whirlpool“Charybdis absorbs the dark waters;/ three times a day it spews them, three times absorbs them” (Od. XII, 104-105). Near the Lofoten Islands the Atlantic tide triggers the Maelstrom whirlpool, well known from ancient times: “Not very far from that coast, towards its western side, where the boundless ocean opens, there is the very deep water chasm that people call the sea navel. They say that it swallows the waters twice a day, then it vomits them again (…) Virgil calls “Charybdis” a similar whirlpool.” (Paul the Deacon, Historiae Langobardorum, I, 6)

Charybdis and the strait between the “two rocks”

Maelstrom

“There are two rocks; the one reaches the sky (…) The second is lower/ close to each other, within bowshot” (“κεν διοϊστευσειας”; Od. XII, 102). Actually, at the foot of the steep southernmost point of Cape Lofotodden (the rock that “reaches the sky”) an oblong islet (the “lower” rock) called Rödöya lies parallel to the coast, separated from it by a very narrow passage, Reidsundet. Circe advises Ulysses to get through the “strait” between the two rocks, “by sailing quickly close to Scylla’s rock” so as not to be sucked under by the whirlpool, which extends beyond the islet. It is remarkable that, many years after Circe’s directions, the British Admiralty recommends the same course to sailors ploughing those waters: “It is advisable to keep near to Lofotodden” (Norway Pilot).

Maelstrom500 m

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Lofoten Islands

Here is the Reidsundet, that is…

Ulysses’ strait

Scylla

lower rock

strait →

Thrinacia

Charybdis

Scylla’s cave near the Maelstrom-Charybdis

This cave, where there are human traces dating back to prehistoric times, is found near the Maelstrom. Its orientation squares with Homer’s description. It probably was used by those ancient populations as a ceremonial center; maybe there were initiation rites, such as the ones known by ethnologists (one should only think of the terrible three-headed “Sisiutl” of the Kwakiutl rites in British Columbia).

(Foto Michieli)

The “Thrinacia” islandThe peculiar three-pointed silhouette of the Mosken Island is unmistakable in the background of the Maelstrom area : it is the Homeric “Thrinacia”, that is, “the Trident”.

Back to Ogygia

After escaping from Charybdis, Ulysses succeeds in reaching Ogygia.

Plutarch’s key-statement about the position of that island, “five days’ sail from Britain,” was the starting point to the Homeric world.

The book was published in USA in 2005

“It is hard to overstate the impact, both scholarly and imaginative, of Vinci’s compellingly argued thesis…. Scholars will be rethinking Indo-European studies from the ground up and readers of Homer’s epics will enter fresh realms of delight as they look anew at the world in which Homer’s heroes first breathed and moved.”(Professor William Mullen, Department of Classics, Bard College, NY)

AbstractThe real scene of the Iliad and the Odyssey can be identified, not in the Mediterranean Sea where it proves to be undermined by many incongruities, but in the north of Europe. The sagas that gave rise to the two poems came from the Baltic regions, where the Bronze age flourished in the 2nd millennium BC, and many Homeric places, such as Troy and Ithaca, can still be identified. The blond seafarers who founded the Mycenaean civilization in the 16th century BC brought these tales from Scandinavia to Greece after the decline of the “climatic optimum”. There they rebuilt their original world, where the Trojan War and many other mythological events had taken place. The memory of the heroic age and the feats performed by their ancestors in their lost homeland was preserved and handed down to the following ages through many generations. This oral tradition was given a written form in the VIII Century BC, when alphabetical symbols were introduced into Greece.