The Homeric Odyssey takes some time to describe to us the construction of an improvised craft that will carry Odysseus on an eighteen-day journey from Ogygia. The story tells how Kalypsō selects the trees. Odysseus then cuts the trees and axes them smooth. He bores holes in them. He configures them into a raft that is as wide “as the beam of a large vessel.” We compare the description of… Read more
"But he [Kinyras] made a gift of a breastplate for Agamemnon, who was not present; and vowing to send fifty ships, he sent one ... And molding the rest out of clay, he launched them into the sea." This story of modeled ships starts with Kinyras, a King of Cyprus; then continues with evidence of votive offerings in Crete. Read more
In the forum, we observed that Doric and Mycenaean elements came back quite openly in the geometric art of the Homeric age. The decorative band of alternating “triglyphs” and “metopes” on the sides of the Middle Geometric kraters were recognized as a memory of the wooden constructions in ancient Doric temples, and Mycenaean elements return in the images of animals. What is missing is the memory of the Minoan element,… Read more
