What is potentially one of the most exciting classical discoveries for over 130 years was revealed in London today (Thursday September 29 2005).

At a conference held at the Foreign Press Association, Robert Bittlestone (Chairman of management consultancy Metapraxis Ltd), James Diggle (Professor of Greek and Latin at Cambridge University) and John Underhill (Professor of Stratigraphy at Edinburgh University) announced that they had found new and compelling evidence in support of the location of ancient Ithaca, the island described in great detail in Homer’s Odyssey.

By deploying computer-based technology, advanced satellite imagery and 3D global visualisation techniques developed by NASA, as well as intensive field expeditions, the project team was able to analyse and visualise a mass of data, including literary, geological and archaeological clues.

Their conclusion is that Homer’s Ithaca was not the Greek island now called Ithaki but was instead located on what is believed to have been the previously separated western peninsula of today’s island of Kefallinia, an area now called Paliki (see map).


Major geological changes in landscape

This conclusion is based on a radical geological hypothesis first proposed by Bittlestone in 2003. He noticed that Homer’s description of Ithaca has puzzled scholars for millennia because it does not agree with the location of today’s island of Ithaki:

“Around are many islands, close to each other, Doulichion and Same and wooded Zacynthos. Ithaca itself lies low, furthest to sea Towards dusk [i.e.west]; the rest, apart, face dawn and sun [i.e. east].”
Odyssey 9.23-26

This presents two contradictions because today’s island of Ithaki lies to the east of the other islands, not to the west, and it is not low-lying but mountainous. Over the centuries there have been many previous attempts to explain this mismatch, including a learned treatise by William Gladstone.  The consensus has been that the contradictions occurred because Homer lived much later than the events of the Odyssey and several hundred kilometres to the east in what is now western Turkey, so perhaps he was either ignorant of or uninterested in the actual geography.

Bittlestone asked instead the question: “What if Homer has been right all along? What if this mismatch has occurred not because of geographical errors by the poet, but because of geological changes in the landscape? Could something unprecedented have altered the layout of these islands since the time of the Trojan War around 1200 BC?”

Since 2003 an international project team of geologists, classicists and archaeologists in the UK, in Greece and worldwide has been advising on this hypothesis and the results that have emerged are astonishing. The team has been able to reconstruct the former layout of these islands and it provides a compelling solution to the long-established enigma of the location of Homer's Ithaca.


Reconciliation of the Odyssey’s geographical descriptions –
Odysseus’ homeland “No longer a mystery”

Homer’s descriptions of Ithaca in the Odyssey  indicate that at that time there were two separate islands called Same and Ithaca.  Bittlestone, Diggle and Underhill believe that Same was the main part of today’s island of Kefallinia and ancient Ithaca was its western peninsula, now called Paliki. At that time they were probably separated by a narrow seaway which they have called “Strabo’s Channel” after the geographer Strabo (64BC-AD21), who also sought to identify Homer’s Ithaca and who in fact described this marine passage without realising its significance.

Over the last three millennia land-mass uplift and catastrophic rockfalls due to periodic earthquakes have filled in this region, which is now an isthmus called Thinia. This is believed to have made the single island of Kefallinia out of the former islands of Ithaca and Same.  The name of Ithaca was subsequently transferred to today’s island of Ithaki, which was formerly the “lost island” of Doulichion mentioned above.

Furthermore, almost all of the 26 locations that are described in detail in the Odyssey can be identified today in Northern Paliki and its neighbourhood.  James Diggle and John Underhill have been working with Robert Bittlestone since 2003 in the development of these radical new findings and their explanation is set out in the forthcoming book from Cambridge University Press: Odysseus Unbound: The Search for Homer’s Ithaca.4  The book records the contribution and advice of over 40 individuals, including academic experts from all over the world.


Formation of charitable foundation to carry work forward

The Odysseus Unbound authors recognise that the identification of this new location for ancient Ithaca is likely to be regarded as a matter of international interest and of national significance within Greece itself.

They are cooperating closely in this research with the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and with the Athens-based Institute of Geology and Mineral Exploration (IGME).  Deputy Minister of Culture Petros Tatoulis issued the following statement on September 26th:

“The Hellenic Ministry of Culture welcomes the release of the book Odysseus Unbound: The Search for Homer’s Ithaca (Robert Bittlestone, with James Diggle and John Underhill: Cambridge University Press, 2005). The book opens exciting prospects for future research regarding the location of Homeric Ithaca. The Ministry eagerly follows Mr. Bittlestone’s hypothesis and looks forward to staying informed about any future developments”.

IGME issued the following statement on September 28th:

“The Institute of Geology and Mineral Exploration in Athens has facilitated the geological researches of Professor John Underhill in the Ionian Islands since 1982. The results of his recent investigation of the Holocene geomorphology5 of western Kefallinia are unexpected and thought-provoking. We are pleased to be working closely with him and his team at the University of Edinburgh with the joint objective of furthering our understanding of the geological history and the tectonic setting of these islands.  We have already started on a program of collaborative marine surveys and we look forward to advancing our knowledge of this region together.”

The new charitable Foundation will form the basis for international fund-raising and sponsorship. Referring to the research conducted so far as Phase A, the team proposes a Phase B project from 2006-2007 with the objective of definitive geological assessment and non-invasive archaeology, to be followed by a Phase C project from 2008-2012 to involve archaeological excavation of the key sites, including Odysseus' palace and Ithaca city.

In the new book Robert Bittlestone asks us to consider “Are there priceless archaeological treasures to be found in Paliki? Could there be Linear B tablets? Might the Gold of Homer’s Troy be complemented by the Gold of Homer’s Ithaca? We shall learn only if we have the courage and the confidence to look.”  He adds today:

“This project represents a unique opportunity for philanthropic individuals and organisations to make a permanent contribution to society by funding research into our Bronze Age ancestors: they represent the unknown architects of our western civilisation”.