The Nordic Origins of the Iliad and Odyssey

An Up-to-date Survey of the Theory

Dados Bibliográficos

ID9367367
AutoresFelice Vinci (Oldham Council, autor correspondente)
Ano2017
Volume3
Fascículo2
Páginas163-186
Data de publicação2017-03-31
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAthens Journal of Mediterranean Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 2407-9480 • E-ISSN: 2407-9480
EditoraAthens Institute for Education and Research ATINER (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.30958/ajms.3-2-4
OpenAlexW2899703157
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas3
Referências citadas5

An up-to-date survey of the theory proposed in "The Baltic Origins of Homer's Epic Tales" is presented here.The real setting of the Iliad and Odyssey can be identified not as the Mediterranean Sea, where it proves to be undermined by many incongruities, but rather in the north of Europe.The oral sagas that originated the two poems came from the Baltic regions, where the Bronze Age flourished in the 2nd millennium BC and where many Homeric places, such as Troy and Ithaca, can still be identified today.The blond seafarers who founded the Mycenaean civilization in the Aegean in the 16th century BC brought these tales from Scandinavia to Greece after the end of the climatic optimum.These peoples then rebuilt their original worldwhere the Trojan War and many other mythological events had taken placefarther south in Mediterranean waters, transferring significant names from north to south.Through many generations, they preserved the memory of the heroic age and the feats performed by their ancestors in their lost Hyperborean homeland, until the oral tradition was put into written form around the 8th Century BC, when alphabetical writing was introduced in Greece.This new prospect can open new developments as to the European prehistory and the dawn of the Greek civilization

Geography · Classical Antiquity Studies · Historical and Literary Analyses · History · Linguistics and language evolution