Argo
But come now, give me a swift ship and twenty companions who will help me complete my journey there and back. For I will go to Sparta and to sandy Pylos to learn of the homecoming of my father.
Now that we have turned over the last page of 'The Odyssey' it doesn't mean we've cleared up every issue in Homer's books. We probably never will, but one thing has become abundantly clear, the geography in Homer's books is rock solid.
So far we've been able to pinpoint every location mentioned by Homer, starting with the island Scheria and ending with the leap at Capo Dukato.
Now let's try and see if we can get the geography right for more locations in the Odyssey, because although we discussed half of it, we haven't even touched Odysseus' Odyssey itself .
We'll start at the beginning of the book with Telemachos' trip to Pylos and Sparta. As I mentioned earlier, there are some issues with the route between Pylos and Sparta and with how long it took to get there over land, and of course with the time it took to cross the sea from Ithaca to Pylos. This are troublesome issues in Homers directions.
So far we've been able to pinpoint every location mentioned by Homer, starting with the island Scheria and ending with the leap at Capo Dukato.
Now let's try and see if we can get the geography right for more locations in the Odyssey, because although we discussed half of it, we haven't even touched Odysseus' Odyssey itself .
We'll start at the beginning of the book with Telemachos' trip to Pylos and Sparta. As I mentioned earlier, there are some issues with the route between Pylos and Sparta and with how long it took to get there over land, and of course with the time it took to cross the sea from Ithaca to Pylos. This are troublesome issues in Homers directions.
Odyssey Book 2 line 204-208 Barry B Powell
Odyssey Book 3 line 1-9 Barry B Powell
Odyssey Book 3 line 1-9 Barry B Powell
First the ship. Telemachos said to the suitors:
Apparently, Telemachos is looking for a small ship for Mentor and himself, plus another 20 men, Well, such a ship was rebuilt 40 years ago: a replica of the famous ship Argo. The ship from the legend 'Iason and the Golden Fleece' is like Telemachos' ship a 20-oared ship.
It measures about 15m in length at the waterline. The formula used to calculate the maximum hull speed of a ship, which is the square root of its length multiplied by 4.49, which makes 17.4km/h.
Assuming that the ship runs at an average speed of about 2/3 of its maximum hull speed, i.e. 11.6km/h, it would take the ship more than 19 hours to reach modern Pylos, which lies at a distance of 221km from the harbour of Ithaca.
It measures about 15m in length at the waterline. The formula used to calculate the maximum hull speed of a ship, which is the square root of its length multiplied by 4.49, which makes 17.4km/h.
Assuming that the ship runs at an average speed of about 2/3 of its maximum hull speed, i.e. 11.6km/h, it would take the ship more than 19 hours to reach modern Pylos, which lies at a distance of 221km from the harbour of Ithaca.
We can estimate the time of arrival at Pylos.
Ithaca-Pylos
The sun rose out of the very beautiful sea, into the brazen heaven.., ...The Ithacans came to Pylos, in the well-built city of Neleus, where the people of the town were sacrificing all-black bulls at the edge of the sea to Poseidon.
It's the next day and there's a party going on. It's the feast of Poseidon. The rituals of slaughtering huge amount of animals is familiar to us and there are more similarities.
Ithaca
Pylos