Paul Kelbie: Amateur British Historian Claims To Locate Home of Odysseus
After a two-year odyssey of his own, an amateur British historian claims to have located the mythical land of Ithaca " the island homeland of Homer's legendary Greek hero Odysseus.
For centuries, scholars the world over have argued over the whereabouts of the lost kingdom, ruled over by one of the Greek heroes of the Trojan war.
Now thanks to 21st-century computer technology, space photography and the obsession of a management consultant from Surrey, the riddle may have been solved.
Robert Bittlestone, backed up by two classical experts, believes the island described in the epic poem is now part of the Ionian tourist destination of Kefalonia.
Using satellite imagery and 3D global visualisation techniques developed by Nasa to look for clues, Mr Bittlestone, the chairman of the UK management consultancy Metapraxis, came up with his theory after undertaking field trips in western Greece and using his computer to analyse literary, geological and archaeological data.
He enlisted the help of James Diggle, professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Cambridge, and John Underhill, professor of stratigraphy at the University of Edinburgh, who agreed with his findings.
Details of what has been called 'one of the most important classical discoveries since the unearthing of Troy in north-western Turkey in the 1870s' have now been revealed in a book.
For centuries, scholars the world over have argued over the whereabouts of the lost kingdom, ruled over by one of the Greek heroes of the Trojan war.
Now thanks to 21st-century computer technology, space photography and the obsession of a management consultant from Surrey, the riddle may have been solved.
Robert Bittlestone, backed up by two classical experts, believes the island described in the epic poem is now part of the Ionian tourist destination of Kefalonia.
Using satellite imagery and 3D global visualisation techniques developed by Nasa to look for clues, Mr Bittlestone, the chairman of the UK management consultancy Metapraxis, came up with his theory after undertaking field trips in western Greece and using his computer to analyse literary, geological and archaeological data.
He enlisted the help of James Diggle, professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Cambridge, and John Underhill, professor of stratigraphy at the University of Edinburgh, who agreed with his findings.
Details of what has been called 'one of the most important classical discoveries since the unearthing of Troy in north-western Turkey in the 1870s' have now been revealed in a book.