Ithaca Tiles Bearing Odysseus Name Undercut 20-Year Kefalonia Homeland Theory
Updated
Updated · The Independent · Jul 15
Ithaca Tiles Bearing Odysseus Name Undercut 20-Year Kefalonia Homeland Theory
3 articles · Updated · The Independent · Jul 15
Summary
Newly reviewed finds from Agios Athanasios on Ithaca include roof tiles inscribed with Odysseus’s name, adding fresh evidence against claims that Homer’s hero came from neighboring Kefalonia.
The discovery comes from boxes of unsorted material left after excavations stalled in 2011, while Greece’s culture ministry has now confirmed the site as a 2nd-century BC place of hero worship for Odysseus.
That evidence further weakens Robert Bittlestone’s roughly 20-year Paliki theory: geologist John Underhill has acknowledged any separation of Kefalonia’s peninsula occurred 400,000 to 290,000 years ago, not in Odysseus’s era.
The Ithaca site still remains half-excavated and poorly protected after storm damage in 2020, with archaeologists and supporters pressing for funding, conservation and safer public access.
The find also builds on wider Ithaca discoveries, including a 2,400-year-old Odysseus sanctuary reported this week, reinforcing the island’s long-standing association with the hero.