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Where was Homer's "Ithaca"? The central character of , and Achilles and Agamemnon and Hector and the many other "heroes" of that epic, and of Homer's other epic his Iliad , all were thought by many to be simply the products of a poet's imagination -- not real people, or even based upon real people -- and the stories and locations described in the epics were thought to be imaginary as well. Yet there were many "local" claims, that some Homeric hero long ago had inhabited this or that contemporary region or village, and there were the extremely detailed geographic descriptions in the epic itself: both invited investigation of the possibility that Homer's heroes might have been real, and at least that the location of the sites described in the epics might be found. Then came at Pylos , for example, has been the subject of much scholarly research, archaeological work, and controversy. There have been many suggestions as to where, exactly, the "Ithaca" described in great detail in Homer's ever really existed, and if so where it was. Theories on the location of "Homer's 'Ithaca'" were formulated as early as the 2d c. BC to as recently as AD 2003. Each approach to identifying a location has been different, varying in degrees of scientific procedure, empirical investigation, informed hypothesis, wishful thinking, fervent belief, and sheer fantasy. Each investigator and each investigation merits interest, as an indicator both of the temper of the times in which a particular theory was developed, and of the perennial interest in Homer's Odyssey , and his character Odysseus , and the possible facts of the latter's life, or at least of a life like his might have been. The processes of theory-building and scientific inquiry change: interestingly, some of the latest "Homer's 'Ithaca'" approaches most resemble some of the earliest. But some other things -- such as interest in epics, and in their heroes -- remain the same, over time. LEADING PRECURSORS Theorists, and excavations elsewhere, on the location of "Homer's 'Ithaca'" --
AND SOME OTHER IDEAS Theories about the location of Odyssean wanderings have included: :(caveat: links here tend to go inactive periodically, and then they pop up again... every attempt will be made to keep them current, but if they're temporarily dead the entry still is retained, to show the immense variety of locations which have been proposed) REFERENCES
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