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http://www.livescience.com/history/0806 ... lipse.html
Date Determined for Eclipse in Homer's Odyssey
By Charles Q. Choi, Special to LiveScience
posted: 23 June 2008 05:01 pm ET
<<In the epic "Odyssey," one of the cornerstones of Western
literature, the legendary Greek hero Odysseus returns to his queen
Penelope after enduring 10 years of sailing the wine dark sea. Now
scientists have pinned down his return to April 16, 1178 B.C., close
to noon local time, according to astronomical references in the epic
poem that seem to pinpoint the total eclipse of the sun on the day
that Odysseus supposedly returned on.
The "Odyssey" is a millennia-old epic said to be composed by the blind
poet Homer. In modern times, the "Odyssey" is typically seen as
fiction. Still, Homer's earlier epic, the "Iliad," was centered on the
war against Troy, and scientists first uncovered physical evidence of
Troy in the 19th century. This has long raised questions as to what
other historical facts the epics might refer to.
In the "Odyssey," after the decade-long Trojan War, King Odysseus of
the island Ithaca contends with monsters and witches after he draws
the wrath of the sea god Poseidon. After he finally returns home,
Odysseus slays more than 100 unruly suitors all of whom wish to marry
Penelope. The possible solar eclipse comes up in the 20th book of the
"Odyssey," as the suitors begin their final lunch. At this point, the
goddess of war Athena "confounds their minds," making the suitors
laugh uncontrollably and see their food spattered with blood. The seer
Theoclymenus then foresees the death of the suitors, ending by saying,
"The sun has been obliterated from the sky, and an unlucky darkness
invades the world."
The Greek historian Plutarch suggested the prophecy of Theoclymenus
referred to a solar eclipse.
More recently, astronomers Carl Schoch and Paul Neugebauer computed in
the 1920s that a total solar eclipse occurred over the Ionian islands
— of which Ithaca is one — about noon on April 16, 1178 B.C., and
would have coincided roughly a decade before the most often cited
estimate for the sack of Troy — about 1190 B.C.
Still, a great deal of skepticism remains over whether Theoclymenus
refers to this or any eclipse. To shed light on the issue, researchers
Marcelo Magnasco and Constantino Baikouzis at Rockefeller University
in New York decided to analyze other passages in the "Odyssey" for
astronomical references without assuming an eclipse.
The scientists first created a rough chronology of events depicted in
the "Odyssey." First, 29 days before the supposed eclipse and the
massacre of the suitors, three constellations are mentioned as
Odysseus sets out from the island of Ogygia, where he has spent seven
years as a captive of the beautiful nymph Calypso. Odysseus is told to
watch the Pleiades and late-setting Boötes and keep the Great Bear to
his left. Next, five days before the supposed eclipse, Odysseus
arrives in Ithaca as the Star of Dawn — that is, Venus — rises ahead
of the sun.
Finally, the night before the eclipse, there is a new moon.
Also, the messenger of the gods, Hermes, is sent west to Ogygia by the
king of the gods Zeus to release Odysseus and then immediately returns
back east roughly 34 days before the eclipse. The researchers
conjecture this trip refers to an apparent turning point of the motion
of the planet Mercury. (Mercury was the Roman name for Hermes.)
Backward planet
Mercury completes its orbit around the sun in just roughly 88 days,
compared with the year it takes Earth to do so. This means that
Mercury and Earth are somewhat like two cars moving along separate
lanes of a racetrack at different speeds. The effect of these motions
is that Mercury occasionally appears to go backward or retrograde in
the sky from our point of view, Magnasco explained. This happens for
roughly three weeks at a time, about three times a year.
The scientists then searched for potential dates that satisfied all
these astronomical references close to the fall of Troy, which has
over the centuries been estimated to have occurred between roughly
1250 to 1115 B.C. From these 135 years, they found just one date
satisfied all the references — April 16, 1178 B.C., the same date as
the proposed eclipse.
"That's just one day out of about 50,000 days," Magnasco told
LiveScience. "If our findings are correct, it would be pretty
spectacularly strange. How could Homer have known about this eclipse,
about planetary positions that happened some 100 years before him? If
this is all true, it would change the timetable of what we think they
knew about astronomy then." Homer, if he really existed, is said to
have composed the "Odyssey" sometime near the end of the ninth century
B.C.
Magnasco and Baikouzis detailed their findings online June 23 in the
journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/5MCSEmap/- ... -04-16.gif
Code: Select all
Solar System: Wed -1177 Apr 16 17:57
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Solar
.
. Right Distance From 38°N 70°W:
. Ascension Declination (AU) Altitude Azimuth
Sun 0h 52m 22s +5° 42.9' 1.015 53.235 33.430 Up
Moon 0h 52m 26s +6° 19.0' 58.0 ER 53.784 33.846 Up
Mercury 0h 13m 24s +0° 5.5' 1.269 43.596 42.176 Up
Venus 22h 12m 55s -12° 35.3' 0.938 15.039 60.246 Up
Mars 23h 27m 47s -4° 31.6' 2.313 33.282 50.752 Up
Jupiter 3h 44m 11s +20° 4.4' 5.920 62.813 -55.403 Up
Saturn 4h 2m 31s +20° 17.1' 9.662 59.876 -61.974 Up
Uranus 22h 41m 16s -9° 16.4' 20.807 22.226 57.305 Up
Neptune 10h 44m 6s +10° 12.6' 29.510 -21.994 -123.928 SetPinpoint The Fall Of Troy
Submitted by News Account on 23 June 2008 - 12:00pm. Astronomy
Homer's Odyssey, be it history or fiction, had one potentially true
part that has fascinated readers throughout the ages - namely whether
Odysseus returned home to experience a total solar eclipse.
Total eclipses, when the moon briefly but completely blocks the sun,
happen pretty rarely. In fact, they're so rare that if what Homer
describes is truly an eclipse, it could potentially help historians
date the fall of Troy, which was purported to occur around the time of
the events described in the Iliad and the Odyssey.
After arguing about the point for hundreds of years, historians,
astronomers and classicists finally agreed that there was no
corroborating evidence and tabled the discussion. Now, Marcelo O.
Magnasco, head of the Laboratory of Mathematical Physics at
Rockefeller, and Constantino Baikouzis of the Proyecto Observatorio at
the Observatorio Astronómico in La Plata, Argentina, believe they have
found some overlooked passages that, taken together, may shed new
light on the timing of an epic journey.
The researchers combed through the Odyssey to find specific
astronomical references that could be precisely identified as
occurring on specific days throughout Odysseus's journey. Then, they
aligned each of those dates with the date of Odysseus's return, the
same day he murders the suitors who had taken advantage of his long
absence to court his wife.
Magnasco and Baikouzis identified four celestial events. The day of
the slaughter is, as Homer writes more than once, also a new moon
(something that's also a prerequisite for a total eclipse). Six days
before the slaughter, Venus is visible and high in the sky. Twenty-
nine days before, two constellations -- the Pleiades and Boötes -- are
simultaneously visible at sunset.
And 33 days before, Homer may be suggesting that Mercury is high at
dawn and near the western end of its trajectory. (Homer actually
writes that Hermes -- known to the Romans as Mercury -- traveled far
west only to deliver a message and fly all the way back east again;
Magnasco and Baikouzis interpret this as a reference to the planet.)
Astronomically, these four phenomena recur at different intervals of
time, so together they never recur in exactly the same pattern.
Therefore Baikouzis and Magnasco looked to see whether there was any
date within 100 years of the fall of Troy that would fit the pattern
of the astronomical timeline.
There was only one: April 16, 1178 BCE, the same day that astronomers
had calculated the occurrence of a total solar eclipse.
"Not only is this corroborative evidence that this date might be
something important," Magnasco says, "but if we take it as a given
that the death of the suitors happened on this particular eclipse
date, then everything else described in The Odyssey happens exactly as
is described."
Magnasco acknowledges that their findings rely on a large assumption:
Although the association of planets with gods was a Babylonian
invention that dates back to around 1000 BCE, there's no evidence that
those ideas had reached Greece by the time Homer was writing, several
hundred years later. "This is a risky step in our analysis," he says.
"One may say that our interpretation of the phenomena is stretching
it, but when you go back to the text you have to wonder."
Ultimately, whether they're right or wrong, the researchers are
interested in reopening the debate. "Even though there are historical
arguments that say this is a ridiculous thing to think about, if we
can get a few people to read The Odyssey differently, to look at it
and ponder whether there was an actual date inscribed in it, we will
be happy," Magnasco says.
"Poor men, what terror is this that overwhelms you so? Night shrouds
your heads, your faces, down to your knees -- cries of mourning are
bursting into fire -- cheeks rivering tears -- the walls and the
handsome crossbeams dripping dank with blood! Ghosts, look, thronging
the entrance, thronging the court, go trooping down to the realm of
death and darkness! The sun is blotted out of the sky -- look there --
a lethal mist spreads all across the earth!" -- Homer (translation by
Robert Fagles)
