SOMMARIO: "L'Estetica della Sinestesia" di Giovanna Alfano On the theory and history of synaesthesiae L'Estetica
Transmodale
|
Synesthesia
and Homer's world
There
is also the question of the location of Ithaca, which, according to very
precise Odyssey's indications, is the westernmost in an archipelago which
includes three main islands, Dulichium, Same and Zacynthus. This does
not correspond to the geographic reality of the Greek Ithaca in the Ionian
Sea, located north of Zacynthus, east of Cephalonia and south of Leucas.
And then, what of Peloponnese which is described in both poems as being
a plain? In
other words, Homeric geography refers to a context with a toponymy with
which we are quite familiar, but which, if compared with the actual physical
layout of the Greek world, reveals glaring anomalies, which are hard to
explain, also considering their consistency throughout the two poems.
For example, that "strange" Peloponnese appears to be a plain
not sporadically but regularly, and Dulichium, the "Long Island"
(in Greek "dolichòs" means "long"), which is
located by the Odyssey in the vicinity of Ithaca, is repeatedly mentioned
also in the Iliad, but cannot be found in the Mediterranean. Thus we are
confronted with a world which appears actually closed and inaccessible,
apart from some occasional convergence, although the names are familiar
(which, however, tend to be more misleading than helpful in solving the
problem). A
possible key to finally penetrating this puzzling world is provided by
Plutarch (Greek author, 46-120 A.D.). In his work De facie quae in orbe
lunae apparet ("The face that appears in the moon circle"),
chap. 26, he makes a surprising statement: the island of Ogygia, (where
Calypso held Ulysses back for a long time before allowing him to return
to Ithaca) is located in the North Atlantic Ocean, "five days by
ship from Britain". Plutarch's
indications allow us to identify Ogygia with one of the Faroe Islands
(where we also come across an island with a curiously Greek-sounding name:
Mykines) and, starting from here, the route eastwards, which Ulysses follows
(Book V of the Odyssey) in his voyage from Ogygia to Scheria allows us
to locate the latter, i.e. the land of the Phaeacians, on the southern
coast of Norway, in an area perfectly fitting the account of his arrival,
where archaeological traces of the Bronze Age are plentiful. In addition,
on the one hand in Old Norse "sker" means a "sea rock",
on the other in the narrative of Ulysses's landing Homer introduces the
reversal of the river current, which is unknown in the Mediterranean world
but is typical of the Atlantic estuaries during flood tide. From
here the Phaeacians took Ulysses to Ithaca, located on the far side of
an archipelago, which Homer talks about in great detail. At this point,
a series of precise parallels makes it possible to identify a group of
Danish islands, in the south of the Baltic Sea, which correspond exactly
to all Homer's indications. Actually, the South-Fyn Archipelago includes
three main islands: Langeland (the "Long Island"; which finally
unveils the puzzle of the mysterious island of Dulichium), Aerø
(which corresponds perfectly to Homeric Same) and Tåsinge (ancient
Zacynthus). The last island in the archipelago, located westwards, "facing
the night", is Ulysses's Ithaca, now known as Lyø. It is astonishing
how greatly it coincides with the indications of the poet, not only as
far as its position is concerned, but also its topographical and morphological
characteristics: for example, one can identify the ancient "Phorcys's
Harbour" and the "Crow's Rock" (which corresponds to a
Neolithic dolmen standing in the west of the island). And here, amongst
this group of islands, we can even identify the little island "in
the strait between Ithaca and Same", where the Penelope's suitors
tried to waylay Telemachus. Moreover,
the Elis, i.e. one of the regions of Peloponnese, is described as lying
to the east of Ithaca and in front of Dulichium. It is easily identifiable
with a part of the large Danish island of Zealand. Therefore, the latter
is the original "Peloponnese", i.e. "Pelops's Island",
in the real meaning of the word "island" ("nêsos"
in Greek)! On the other hand, the Greek Peloponnese (which is located
in a similar position in the Aegean Sea, i.e. in its southwestern side)
is not an island despite its denomination. This contradiction, which is
inexplicable unless we suppose a transposition of the name, is very significant.
Furthermore, the details reported in the Odyssey regarding both Telemachus's
quick journey by chariot from Pylos to Lacedaemon, along "a wheat-producing
plain", and the development of the war between Pylians and Epeans,
as narrated by Nestor in Book XI of the Iliad, have always been considered
inconsistent with Greece's uneven orography. They fit in perfectly, however,
with the reality of the flat Danish island. Now
let us turn to the region of Troy. In the Iliad it is located along Hellespont
which is systematically described as being a "wide" or even
"boundless" sea. We can, therefore, exclude the fact that it
refers to the Dardanelles, where the city found by Schliemann lies. The
identification of this city with Homer's Troy continues to raise strong
doubts: we only have to think of Finley's criticism in the World of Odysseus.
On the other hand, the Danish Medieval historian Saxo Grammaticus in his
Gesta Danorum often mentions a population known as "Hellespontians"
and a region called Hellespont, which, strangely enough, seems to be located
in the east of the Baltic Sea. Could it be Homer's Hellespont? We can
identify it with the Gulf of Finland, which is the "geographic counterpart"
of the Dardanelles (as a matter of fact, both of them lie to the Northeast
in their respective seas). Since Troy, according to the Iliad, was situated
Northeast of the sea (here is another reason to dispute Schliemann's location),
then it seems reasonable, for the purpose of this research, to go over
a region of southern Finland, where the Gulf of Finland joins the Baltic
Sea. In this area, west of Helsinki, we find lots of name-places which
astonishingly resemble those mentioned in the Iliad and, in particular,
those given to the allies of the Trojans: Askainen (Ascanius), Reso (Rhesus),
Karjaa (Caria), Nästi (Nastes, the chief of the Carians), Lyökki
(Lycia), Tenala (Tenedos), Kiila (Cilla), Kiikoinen (Ciconians) etc. There
is also a Padva, which reminds us of Italian Padua, which was founded,
according to tradition, by the Trojan Antenor and lies in the region of
Veneto (the "Eneti" or "Veneti" were allies of the
Trojans). What is more, the place-names Tanttala and Sipilä (the
mythical King Tantalus, famous for his torment, was buried on Mount Sipylus)
indicate that this matter is not only limited to Homeric geography, but
seems to extend to the whole world of Greek mythology. What
about Troy? Right in the middle of this area, half way between Helsinki
and Turku, we discover that King Priam's city has survived the Achaean
sack and fire. Its characteristics correspond exactly to those given to
us by Homer, i.e. the hilly area which dominates the valley with its two
rivers, the plain which slopes down towards the coast and the highlands
in the background. It has even maintained its own name nearby unchanged
throughout all this time. Today, "Toija" is a peaceful Finnish
village, unaware of its glorious and tragic past. This
northern collocation also explains the huge anomaly of the great battle
which takes up the central books of the Iliad. The battle continues for
two days (XI, 86; XVI, 777) and one night (XVI, 567). The fact that the
darkness does not put a stop to the fighting is incomprehensible in the
Mediterranean world. Instead, the faint night light, which is typical
of high latitudes during the summer solstice, allows Patroclus's fresh
troops to carry on fighting through to the following day, without a break.
This interpretation - which is confirmed by the overflowing of the Scamander
during the following battle, given that in the northern regions these
phenomena occur just in that period owing to the thaw - allows us to reconstruct
the whole battle in a coherent and logical manner, dispelling the present-day
perplexities and strained interpretations. Furthermore, we even manage
to pick out from a passage in the Iliad the Greek word used to denominate
the faintly lit nights characteristic of the regions located near the
Arctic Circle: the "amphilyke nyx" (VII, 433) is a real "linguistic
fossil" which, thanks to the Homeric epos, has survived the transfer
of the Achaeans to Southern Europe. Let
us now examine the so-called Catalogue of Ships from Book II of the Iliad,
which lists the twenty-nine Achaean fleets participating in the Trojan
War together with names of their captains and places of origin. This list
unwinds in an anticlockwise direction, starting from Central Sweden, travelling
along the Baltic coasts and finishing in Finland. If we combine this with
the directions contained in the two poems, as well as in the rest of Greek
mythology, we get to completely reconstruct the Achaean world around the
Baltic Sea, where, as attested by the archaeology, a thriving Bronze Age
was flourishing in the second millennium B.C., favoured by a warmer climate
than today's. In
this new geographical context, the entire universe belonging to Homer
and Greek mythology finally discloses itself with its astonishing consistency.
For example, by following the Catalogue's sequence, we immediately locate
Boeotia (corresponding to Stockholm's region), where it is possible to
identify Oedipus's Thebes and the mythical Mount Nysa (which was never
found in the Greek world) where baby Dionysus was nursed by the Hyads.
Homer's Euboea coincides with the modern day island of Öland, located
off the Swedish coast in a similar position to that of its Mediterranean
correspondent. Mythological Athens, Theseus's native land, lay in the
present day area of Karlskrona in southern Sweden. This explains why Plato
referred to it as being a rolling plain full of rivers in his dialogue
Critias, which is totally alien to Greece's rough morphology. Nevertheless,
the features of other Achaean cities, such as Mycenae or Calydon, as described
by Homer also appear completely different from those of their namesakes
on Greek soil; in particular, Mycenae lay in the site of today's Copenhagen,
where the island of Amager possibly recalls its ancient name and explains
why the latter was in the plural. We
rediscover Agamemnon's and Menelaus's kingdoms and Arcadia on the flat
island of Zealand (i.e. Homeric "Peloponnese"), where we also
find the River Alpheus and King Nestor's Pylos, whose location were held
to be a mystery even by the ancient Greeks. By setting Homer's poems in
the Baltic, also this age-old puzzle is solved at once! Here the Catalogue
links up with Ithaca's archipelago, which we had already identified by
making use of directions supplied by the Odyssey. We are thus able to
verify the consistency of the information contained in the two poems as
well as their congruity with the Baltic geography (here it is easy to
solve also the problem of the strange border between Argolis and Pylos,
which is attested in the Iliad but is "impossible" in the Greek
world). After
Ithaca, the list continues with the Aetolians, who recall the ancient
Jutes. They gave their name to Jutland, which actually lies near the South-Fyn
Islands. Homer mentions Pylene in the Aetolian cities, which corresponds
to today's Plön, in North Germany, not far from Jutland. Opposite
this area, in the North Sea, the name of Heligoland, one of the North
Frisian Islands, reminds Helike, a sanctuary of the god Poseidon mentioned
in the Iliad. The
Catalogue of Ships now touches the Baltic Republics. Hellas lay on the
coast of present-day Esthonia, therefore, next to Homeric Hellespont (i.e.
the "Helle Sea"), the present Gulf of Finland. In this area,
scholars have come across legends which present interesting parallels
with Greek mythology. Phthia, Achilles's homeland, lay on the fertile
hills of southeastern Esthonia, along the border with Latvia and Russia,
stretching as far as the Russian river Velikaja and the lake of Pskov.
Myrmidons and Phthians lived there, ruled by Achilles and Protesilaus
(the first Achaean captain who fell in the Trojan War) respectively. Next,
proceeding with the sequence, we reach the Finnish coast, facing the Gulf
of Bothnia, where we find Jolkka, which reminds us of Iolcus, Jason's
mythical city. Further north, we are also able to identify the region
of Olympus, Styx and Pieria in the Finnish Lapland (which in turn recalls
the Homeric Lapithae, i.e. the sworn enemies of the Centaurs who also
lived in this area). This location of Pieria north of the Arctic Circle
is confirmed by an apparent astronomical anomaly, linked to the moon cycles,
which is found in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes: it can only be explained
by high latitude. The "Home of Hades" was even further northwards,
on the icy coasts of Russian Karelia: here Ulysses arrived, whose journeys
represent the last vestige of prehistoric routes in an era which was characterised
by a very warmer climate than today's. In
conclusion, from this review of the Baltic world, we find its astonishing
consistency with the Catalogue of Ships as well as the entire Greek mythology
(Tab. 1). It is very unlikely that this immense set of geographical, climatic,
toponymical and morphological parallels is to be ascribed to mere chance,
apart from considering the glaring contradictions arising in the Mediterranean
setting. Therefore,
here is the "secret" which has been hidden inside Homer's poems
up to now and explains all oddities of Homeric geography: the Trojan War
and other events handed down by Greek mythology were not set in the Mediterranean,
but in the Baltic area, i.e. the primitive home of the blond "long-haired"
Achaeans. On this subject, the distinguished Swedish scholar, Professor
Martin P. Nilsson, in his works (Homer and Mycenae and The Minoan-Mycenaean
Religion and its Survival in Greek Religion) reports a series of pieces
of archaeological evidence uncovered in the Mycenaean sites in Greece,
supporting the fact that the Achaean population came from the North. Some
examples are: the existence of a large quantity of Baltic amber in the
most ancient Mycenaean tombs in Greece (which is not to be ascribed to
trade, because the amber is very scarce in later graves as well as in
the coeval Minoan tombs in Crete); the typically Nordic features of their
architecture (the Mycenaean megaron "is identical to the hall of
the ancient Scandinavian Kings"); the "striking similarity"
of two stone slabs found in a tomb in Dendra "with the menhirs known
from the Bronze Age of Central Europe"; the Nordic-type skulls found
in the necropolis of Kalkani, etc. A remarkable affinity between Aegean
art and some Scandinavian remains dating back to the Bronze Age has also
been noted, with particular regard to the figures engraved on Kivik's
tomb in Sweden, to the point that a scholar in the 19th century suggested
that this monument was built by the Phoenicians! Another
sign of the Achaean presence in the Nordic world in a very distant past
is a Mycenaean graffito found in the megalithic complex of Stonehenge
in Southern England. Other remains revealing the Mycenaean influence were
found in the same area ("Wessex culture"), which date back to
a period preceding the Mycenaean civilisation in Greece. A trace of this
sort of contact can be found also in the Odyssey, which mentions a bronze
market placed overseas, in a foreign country, named "Temese",
never found in the Mediterranean area. Since bronze is an alloy of copper
and tin, which in the North is only found in Cornwall, it's very likely
that the mysterious Temese corresponds to the Thames, named "Tamesis"
or "Tamensim" in ancient times. So, following the Odyssey, we
learn that, during the Bronze Age, the ancient Scandinavians used to sail
to Temese/Thames - "placed overseas, in a foreign country" (Od.
I, 183-184) - to supply themselves with bronze. And
what about Odysseus's trips, after the Trojan War? When he is about to
reach Ithaca, a storm takes him away from his world; so he has many adventures
in fabulous localities until he reaches Ogygia, that's Faroe. They are
located out of the Baltic, in the North Atlantic (he also meets the "Ocean
River", that's the Gulf Stream). For example, the Eolian island,
where there is the "King of the winds", "son of the Knight",
is one of the Shetlands (maybe Yell), where there are strong winds and
ponies. Cyclops lived in the coast of Norway (near Tosenfjorden: the name
of their mother is Toosa): they coincide with the Trolls of the Norwegian
folklore. The land of Lestrigonians was in the same coast, towards the
North; Homer says that there the days are very long (actually, the famous
scholar Robert Graves places the Lestrigonians in the North of Norway!
In that area we find the island Lamøj, the homeric Lamos). The
island of sorceress Circe, where there are the midnight sun and the rotating
dawns ("the dancing of the Dawn", as Homer says), is Jan Mayen
(at that time the climate was quite different). The strange "wandering
rocks" are icebergs. Charybdis is the well-known whirlpool named
Maelström, near Lofoten. South of Charybdis Odysseus meets the island
Thrinakia, that means "trident": really, near the Maelström
Vaerøy, three-tip island, lies. Sirens are very dangerous shoals
for sailors, who are attracted by the misleading noise of the backwash
(the "Sirens' song" is a metaphor similar to Norse "kennings")
and deceive themselves that landing is at hand, instead, if they get near,
are bound to shipwreck on the reefs. So, these adventures, presumably
taken from tales of ancient seamen and elaborated again by the Poet's
fantasy, represent the last memory of the oceanic routes followed by the
ancient navigators of the Nordic Bronze Age, but they became unrecognizable
because of their transposition into a totally different context. Besides,
we can find remarkable parallels between Greek and Norse mythology: for
example, Ulysses is similar to Ull, archer and warrior of Norse mythology,
the sea giant Aegaeon (who gave his name to the Aegean Sea) is the counterpart
of the Norse sea god Aegir. We
can even try to link directly Homeric and Norse mythology: actually, the
latter states that Odin came from Troy (the Finnish location of Homeric
Troy, of course, makes this piece of news quite credible). He maybe was
a successor of King Priam on the throne of Troy, and lived at the time
of the terrible Ragnarok, i.e. a climatic upsetting probably aroused by
the explosion of the volcano of Thera, in Eastern Mediterranean Sea, in
1630 B.C.. This phenomenon affected the whole planet and probably triggered
the Mycenaean migration (which happened just in those years) towards the
South. Afterwards Odin was deified, taking some features of goddess Athene
(whose he is almost homonymous: Othin = Athene): they are both gods of
war and wisdom, with a spear and a bird (the rook and the little owl respectively).
Also his strange horse with eight legs possibly is a vestige of the Bronze
Age, when the knights did not ride but used a chariot with two horses
(here are the eight legs, that probably were inspired by some ancient
image). The
period in which Homer's poems are set is close to the end of an exceptionally
hot climate that had lasted several thousands of years, the "post-glacial
climatic optimum". It corresponds to the "Atlantic phase"
of the Holocene, when temperatures in northern Europe were much higher
than today (at that time the broad-leaved forests reached the Arctic Circle
and the tundra disappeared even from the northernmost areas of Europe).
It reached its climax around 2500 B.C. and began to drop around 2000 B.C.
("subboreal phase"), until it came to an end some centuries
later. Therefore,
it is highly likely that this was the cause that obliged the Achaeans
to move down to the Mediterranean for this reason. They probably followed
the Dnieper river down to the Black Sea, as the Vikings (whose culture
is, in many ways, quite similar) did many centuries later. The Mycenaean
civilisation, not native of Greece, was thus born and went on to flourish
from the XVII or XVI century B.C., soon after the change in North European
climate. Incidentally,
this is the same age as the arising of Aryan, Hyksos, Hittite and Cassite
settlements in India, Egypt, Anatolia and Mesopotamia respectively. In
a word, this theory can explain the cause of the contemporary migrations
of other Indo-European populations (following a recent research carried
on by Prof. Jahanshah Derakhshani of Teheran University, the Hyksos very
likely belong to the Indo-European family). In a word, the original homeland
of the Indo-Europeans was most likely located in the furthest North of
Europe, when the climate was much warmer than today's. However, on the
one hand G.B. Tilak in The Arctic home of the Vedas claims the Arctic
origin of the Aryans, "cousins" of the Achaeans, on the other
both Iranian and Norse mythology (Avesta and Edda respectively) remember
that the original homeland was destroyed by cold and ice. It is also remarkable
that, following Tilak (The Orion), the original Aryan civilization flourished
in the "Orionic period", when the Spring equinox was rising
in the Orion constellation. It actually happened in the period from 4000
up to 2500 B.C., i.e. during the "climatic optimum". We also
note the presence of a population known as the Thocarians in the Tarim
Basin (northwest China) from the beginning of the II millennium B.C. They
spoke an Indo-European language and were tall, blond with Caucasian features.
This dating provides us with yet another confirmation of the close relationship
between the decline of the "climatic optimum" and the Indo-European
Diaspora from Scandinavia and other Northern regions. In this picture,
it is amazing that the Bronze Age starts in China just between the XVIII
and the XVI century B.C. (Shang dynasty). We should note that the Chinese
pictograph indicating the king is called "wang", which is very
similar to the Homeric term "anax", i.e. "the king"
(corresponding to "wanax" in Mycenaean Linear B tablets). On
the other hand, the terms "Yin" and "Yang" (which
express two complementary principles of Chinese philosophy: Yin is feminine,
Yang masculine) could be compared with the Greek roots "gyn-"
and "andr-" respectively, which also refer to the "woman"
and the "man" ("anér edé gyné",
"man and woman", Od. VI, 184). In this picture we could dare
to insert the Olmecs, too, who seem to have reached the southern Gulf
Coast of Mexico about in the same period; if this will be confirmed, one
could infer that they were a population who formerly lived in some region
in the farthest north of America, where they could have been connected
with the Scandinavian Proto-Indo-European civilization through the Arctic
Ocean, which during the "climatic optimum" was free from ice.
Then they moved to Mexico when the climate collapsed (this, of course,
could help to explain certain similarities with the Old World, apart from
other possible contacts). Returning
to Homer, this reconstruction does not only explain the extraordinary
consistency between the Baltic-Scandinavian context and Homer's world,
but also clarifies why the latter was decidedly more archaic than the
Mycenaean civilisation. Evidently, the contact with the refined Mediterranean
cultures favoured its rapid evolution, also considering their marked inclination
for trade and seafaring, which pervades not only the Homeric poems, but
also all Greek mythology. This is hard to explain with the hypotheses
in vogue about the continental origin of the Indo-Europeans, whereas the
remains found in England fit in very well with the idea of a previous
seaboard homeland (by matching this with the typically northern features
of their architecture, as the scholars assert, we remove any doubt as
to their place of origin). It
was, therefore, along the Baltic coast that Homer's events took place,
presumably about the beginning of the second millennium B.C., when the
"climatic optimum" collapsed, before the Achaean migration towards
the Mediterranean and the consequent rise of the Mycenaean civilisation
in Greece (this explains why any reliable information regarding the author,
or authors, of the poems had already been lost before the classical times).
The migrants took their epos and geography along with them and attributed
the same names they had left behind in their lost homeland to the various
places where they eventually settled. This heritage was immortalized by
Homer's poems and Greek mythology, which on the one hand has a lot of
similarities with the Nordic one, on the other seems to have lost the
memory of the great migration from the North (this probably happened after
the collapse of the Mycenaean civilisation, around the XII century B.C.).
Moreover, they went as far as renaming other Mediterranean regions with
corresponding Baltic names, such as Libya, Crete and Egypt, thus creating
an enormous "geographical misunderstanding" which has lasted
till now. These
transpositions were encouraged, if not suggested, by a certain similarity
between the geography of the Baltic and that of the Aegean. We only have
to think about the analogy between Öland and Euboea or between Zealand
and Peloponnese (where, as we have already seen, they forced the concept
of island in order to maintain the original layout). This phenomenon was
then consolidated over the centuries by the increasing presence of Greek-speaking
populations in the Mediterranean basin, from the time of the Mycenaean
civilisation to the Hellenistic-Roman period. The feeling of extraneousness of the Homeric poems, with its cold climate so different from the Mediterranean one, led us to go into the synesthetic effect linked with Homer's world. So, it allowed us to realize the ancient secret hidden in Greek mythology. This confirms that sensations must be studied in depth, not removed. They are very frequently the key to an unexpected truth.
|
Per maggiori informazioni scrivi a: dbruni@libero.it