Dating Odysseus' return to Ithaca on April 26, 970 BC during the heliacal rise of Venus in a new Moon

Dating Odysseus' return to Ithaca on April 26, 970 BC during the heliacal rise of Venus in a new Moon by Eulalio Diocson Eguia Jr.

This is the transcript to my Youtube video published on April 7, 2024.

The Trojan War was a legendary conflict in Greek mythology between the Achaean Greeks against the city of Troy. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology, and it has been narrated through many works of Greek literature, most notably Homer's Iliad. The core of the Iliad (Books II – XXIII) describes a period of four days and two nights in the tenth year of the decade-long siege of Troy. 

The key to unlocking the historic Trojan war in my opinion, is to first identify who exactly the Trojans, the Amazons, and the Achaeans were in history because these were the major players in the Iliad. In my previous video titled “Historical Troy was in Eupatoria near the Amazon city of Themyscira on the Black Sea southern coast”, I talked about the alliance between the Trojans and the Amazons during the war, and how close was Themyscira, the capital of the Amazons, to the city of Troy (which I identified as Eupatoria), just 65 kilometers away from each other.  

In that video I concluded based on Homer’s descriptions that the city of Troy must be located near the conjunction of two rivers, namely, Scamander (which I identified as the Iris or Yesilirmak river) and the Simoeis river (which I identified as the Lycus or Kelkit river). And Eupatoria, just like Troy, was located just south of where the Lycus flows into the Iris river. Both Eupatoria and Themyscira were near the southern coast of the Black Sea in Turkey in a region also known as the Pontic region of Asia Minor  in northern Anatolia, Turkey. 

Also, in my other video titled “Troy was Hayasa, Amazon was Azzi, Anniya was Achilles & Mursili's eclipse on Trojan war's 10th year”, I identified the Trojan-Amazon alliance as the Hayasa-Azzi confederation located in the Pontic region of Asia Minor where also Eupatoria and Themyscira were located. I specifically identified Hayasa as Troy, and Azzi as Amazon.

I ended that video by saying that Mursili II’s historical solar eclipse was visible at the mouth of the Yesilirmak river (where according to Homer the Trojan war battles were fought) on August 2, 979 BC at 2:31:30 UTC just 17 minutes after sunrise. That day also marked the death of Patroclus, a close friend of Achilles, during the 10th year of the Trojan war. I dated Mursili’s eclipse using Stellarium in my video titled “Redating Mursili II's solar eclipse to August 2, 979 BC means Hittite chronology is 334 years too early”. This eclipse occurred in the latter part of Mursili’s 10th year. Thus, Mursili’s 1st year when he ascended the Hittite throne, coincided with the first year of the Trojan war. 

In my video titled “Historic Trojan war- Priam was Hakkani, Dymas was Tudhaliya, Otreus was Suppiluliuma, Asius was Zida”, I identified several historical personages and their associated character names in the Iliad which documented the Trojan war. Hakkani was a king of Hayasa who I believe to be the Trojan king Priam, while Tudhaliya and Suppiluliuma were Hittite Kings who I believe were the Phrygian kings Dymas and Otreus respectively. Zida was a Hittite prince who I believe was the Phrygian prince Asius. The Hittites called their kingdom Hattusa which in my research was also the Phrygia of Homer’s Iliad.  

Menelaus, Achilles, Agamemnon, and Odysseus were some of the main heroes of the Achaeans mentioned in Homer’s Iliad. And in my opinion, the key to identify their historical names is to first know exactly who the Achaeans were. The Ionians were one of the four major tribes that the Greeks considered themselves to be divided into during the ancient period; the other three being the Dorians, Aeolians, and Achaeans. Furthermore, the Ionian dialect was one of the three major linguistic divisions of the Hellenic world, together with the Dorian and Aeolian dialects. Note that there is no such thing as an Achaean dialect.

According to historians, the Achaeans inhabited the region of Achaea in the northern Peloponnese, and played an active role in the colonization of Italy, founding the city of Kroton. Unlike the other major tribes, the Achaeans did not have a separate dialect in the Classical period, but were instead using a form of Doric or Dorian. In my opinion, if the Achaeans in the northern Peloponnese spoke Doric Greek, then they should be considered as Dorians, not Achaeans. So who do I believe the Achaeans really were?

Because I identified Troy, Amazon, and Phrygia as regions in Turkey, namely, Hayasa, Azzi, and Hattusa respectively, I believe the Achaeans were ancient Greeks who migrated to western Turkey and its nearby islands of Imbros, Tenedos, and Lesbos. (Lesbos is one Greek island in the Aegean sea which is being claimed by Turkey). Greeks have been living in what is now Turkey continuously since the middle 2nd millennium BC. Following upheavals in mainland Greece during the Bronze Age Collapse, the Aegean coast of Asia Minor was heavily settled by Ionian and Aeolian Greeks and became known as Ionia and Aeolia.   

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It follows the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the Trojan War. After the war, which lasted ten years, his journey from Troy to Ithaca, via Africa and southern Europe, lasted for ten additional years during which time he encountered many perils resulting in all of his crewmates being killed. In his absence, Odysseus was assumed dead, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus had to contend with a group of unruly suitors who were competing for Penelope's hand in marriage.

Because I dated the 10th and final year of the Trojan war to 979 BC, the 10th year after this war will start at 970 BC and end at 969 BC. And according to Odysseus, he came back to his country Ithaca in the twentieth year after the start of the Trojan war - see Odyssey Book XXI lines 205-209. The Odyssey described in detail the moment Odysseus arrives at Ithaca: 

Odyssey Book XIII lines 95-104: There is in the land of Ithaca a certain harbor of Phorcys, the old man of the sea, and at its mouth two projecting headlands sheer to seaward, but sloping down on the side toward the harbor. These keep back the great waves raised by heavy winds without, but within, the benched ships lie unmoored when they have reached the point of anchorage. 

Odyssey describes Ithaca as an island with a natural harbor that keeps back the great waves outside. In my research I identified Ithaca as the island currently known as Lesbos, and throughout this video, I will be giving several reasons why. An older name for the island of Lesbos that was maintained in Aeolic Greek was Ἴσσα (Íssa), which in my opinion sounds like the “Itha” in Ithaca. In Odyssey Book III lines 165-169, Homer mentioned Lesbos. This would seem to make the island currently known as Lesbos, unqualified for being Homer's Ithaca. 

However, I believe the island currently identified as Lesbos was not the Homeric Lesbos mentioned in the Odyssey, but was actually the Homeric Ithaca instead, and that the Homeric Lesbos was some other island in the Aegean Sea. As Greek settlements began to expand starting in the sixth century BC, Greek colonists would often try to connect their new homes, and the native people they found there, to their pre-existing mythology. The events in the Trojan war which I dated at 1st millennium BC, as well as Homer, believed to have lived circa 8th century BC, predated the 6th century naming of the Greek islands known today.

The shape of the island of Lesbos is roughly triangular, but it is deeply intruded by the gulfs of Kalloni, with an entry on the southern coast, and of Gera, in the southeast. These two gulfs easily serve as natural harbors that protect ships docked inside it from great waves coming from outside, just like how Homer described Ithaca. 

The Tsonia Beach in the north of Lesbos Island has reddish sand mixed with coarse pebbles in a semicircular bay with blue water. Red beaches like the one in Santorini are red because of the volcanic eruptions and earthquakes that eroded the cliffs behind it, exposing a unique geological formation with rocks that are rich in iron. The red color of the rocks is actually coming from iron and sulphuric elements in the ground. 

The Lesbos island's volcanic origin is manifested in several hot springs and the two gulfs. Lesbos contains one of the few known petrified forests, formed by the intense volcanic activity in the area. In Odyssey Book XX lines 350-359 a volcanic eruption marked by blood rain (or water mixed with iron and sulfur rich volcanic dust) was described:

Theoclymenus saw this and said, “Unhappy men, what is it that ails you? There is a shroud of darkness drawn over you from head to foot, your cheeks are wet with tears; the air is alive with wailing voices; the walls and roof-beams drip blood; the gate of the cloisters and the court beyond them are full of ghosts trooping down into the night of hell; the sun is blotted out of heaven, and a blighting gloom is over all the land.”

Homer describes Odysseus’ arrival at Ithaca as happening at dawn just when the bright star Venus was rising. I believe this is no ordinary rising of Venus at dawn that can be seen several days in a year, but actually instead the heliacal rise of Venus which happens only once a year when it first becomes visible above the eastern horizon just before sunrise (thus becoming "the morning star" for the first time in a year):

Odyssey Book XIII lines 93-95 When the bright star that heralds the approach of dawn began to show, the ship drew near to land.

Using Stellarium and by setting the Algorithm of delta T to Chapront Touze-Chapront (1991), the date to April 26, 970 BC or -969 in astronomical year numbering, at 2:32 UTC, the location at 39° 12′ 36″ N, 26° 16′ 48″ E which are the coordinates of Lesbos, which in my research was the island of Ithaca, one will see the heliacal rise of Venus. The night that came on that same day, fell on an astronomical new moon when the Moon age was less than one day old and was therefore invisible:

Odyssey Book XIV lines 455-459 Now the night came on stormy and very dark, for there was no moon. It poured without ceasing, and the wind blew strong from the West, which is a wet quarter.

Using Stellarium and by setting the Algorithm of delta T to Chapront Touze-Chapront (1991), the date to April 26, 970 BC or -969 in astronomical year numbering, at 17:09:08 UTC, the location at 39° 12′ 36″ N, 26° 16′ 48″ E which are the coordinates of Lesbos, which in my research was the island of Ithaca, one will see the setting of the 0.3 day old Moon. Note that this astronomical New Moon (which happens once a month) fell on the same day as the heliacal rising of Venus (which happens once a year), thus making this coincidence of two astronomical events very rare. Also, 970 BC was the 10th year after the 10th year of the Trojan war that I dated to 979 BC. The 10th year after the 10th year of the Trojan war was when Odysseus returned to Ithaca according to the Odyssey.

Furthermore, the heliacal rise of Venus depends on the latitude position of the observational site. For example, in Chios, one of the islands nearest to Lesbos, the heliacal rise of Venus was on April 29, or 3 days after the heliacal rise of Venus on Lesbos: Using Stellarium and by setting the Algorithm of delta T to Chapront Touze-Chapront (1991), the date to April 29, 970 BC or -969 in astronomical year numbering, at 2:30:34 UTC, the location at 38° 22′ 39″ N, 26° 03′ 54″ E which are the coordinates of Chios, one will see the heliacal rise of Venus. This means the heliacal rise of Venus coinciding with the astronomical New Moon that year happened only at the latitude position of Lesbos. This further strengthens my claim that Lesbos was Homer’s Ithaca.

Homer described the night of the first day when Odysseus returned to Ithaca as rainy without ceasing with the wind blowing from the West (see Odyssey Book XIV lines 455-459). In Mediterranean weather, this corresponds to the Ponente winds that happen every winter or spring. In 970 BC when Odysseus returned to Ithaca, the Vernal or Spring Equinox when the Sun was at 0 degrees Right Ascension, fell on March 31. This day marks the start of spring, thus making April 26, 970 BC the first astronomical New Moon of spring that year, experiencing Ponente winds.

The following day is when the calendrical New Moon (or the first visible crescent of the Moon after conjunction with the Sun) is sighted. It is also when the Moon age is between 1 day old and less than 2 days old. At Lesbos (with coordinates 39° 12′ 36″ N, 26° 16′ 48″ E), this happened on April 27, 970 BC at 18:10:30 UTC which can be verified using Stellarium and by setting the Algorithm of delta T to Chapront Touze-Chapront (1991). The Moon age was 1.2 days old at Moon set. 

Because each of the city-states in ancient Greece had their own calendar that was based on the cycle of the moon, a calendar day starts at sunset and ends the following day just before the next sunset. Thus, the following morning on April 28, 970 BC was still the first day of the month, which was also 2 days after April 26, 970 BC when Odysseus first arrived at Ithaca coming from the Trojan war. Odysseus made an oath that on the first day of the new month, he will do vengeance on all those suitors who are ill treating his wife and son. See Odyssey Book XIV lines 160-164. This first day of the first month of spring was also a festival of Apollo:

Festivals in Ancient Greece and Rome by Fritz Graf, Festivals in Homer and the Timing of Ancient Festivals: Homer’s Odyssey contains the first description of a Greek city festival. On the morning when Odysseus decided to fight and kill the suitors, the city was preparing a festival of Apollo: heralds led the sacred hecatomb through town and the citizens assembled in the grove of far-shooting Apollo (Odyssey Book XX lines 276-278 and Book XXI lines 256-259). The festival date is the day of the [calendrical] New Moon at the onset of spring. The New Moon is a typical date of Apollo’s festivals from which he received the epithet Noumēnios. 

In Odyssey Book V we are told that before arriving in Ithaca, Odysseus first traveled 18 days at sea from Ogygia, the island of Calypso before reaching the island of the Phaeacians where he stayed for an unspecified number of days. In Odyssey Book V lines 270-280 Homer described in detail how Odysseus navigated the sea coming from Calypso’s island to the island of the Phaecians in 18 days:

He [Odysseus] never closed his eyes, but kept them fixed on the Pleiads, on late-setting Bootes, and on the Bear—which men also call the wain, and which turns round and round where it is, facing Orion, and alone never dipping into the stream of Oceanus—for Calypso had told him to keep this to his left. Days seven and ten did he sail over the sea, and on the eighteenth the dim outlines of the mountains on the nearest part of the Phaeacian coast appeared, rising like a shield on the horizon.

The Great Bear, or Ursa Major, is a constellation in the northern sky, whose associated mythology likely dates back into prehistory. Two of its stars can be used as the navigational pointer towards the place of the current northern pole star, Polaris in Ursa Minor. Because Odysseus kept the Ursa Major constellation on his left, it meant that he was traveling eastward from Calypso’s island to the island of the Phaecians, and the distance between these 2 islands is an 18 days journey via a very small sailboat. 

Calypso’s cave is a natural cave, located on the western side of Gozo, an island in the Maltese archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. The cave is alleged to be the one referenced in The Odyssey as the cave where the nymph Calypso kept Odysseus prisoner for seven years. Calypso’s cave is located at 36° 3′ 37.74″ N latitude. Kythira is an island in Greece lying opposite the south-eastern tip of the Peloponnese peninsula. Kythira had a Phoenician colony in the early archaic age. It is located at 36° 15′ 27″ N latitude, which makes it almost due east of Calypso’s cave in Gozo. Note also that no other island stands between Calypso’s cave and Kythira.

I believe Kythira was the island of the Phaecians (which may have been the Homeric name for one of the colonies of the Phoenicians). The distance between Calypso’s cave and Kythira is 781.94 kms which Odysseus covered in 18 days. This means Odysseus traveled at a speed of 43.44 kms per day which is rather slow, implying that his sailboat and sail cloth must have been really small and that the size of his sailboat was just right for one person to fit. In comparison a regular sailboat’s speed travels at a minimum distance of 88.896 kilometers per day. 

From Kythira, Odysseus had to travel an additional 410.67 kms to reach Lesbos (which in my research was Ithaca). And at an average speed of 43.44 kms per day, he will cover this distance in an additional 9.45 or about 10 days' travel. However, since the  Phaeacians took him to Ithaca, it may have taken only about 5 days to travel at an average speed of 88.896 kilometers per day. Odysseus stayed at the island of the Phaecians for an unspecified number of days, and in my approximation, starting from the time Odysseus left the island of Calypso until Odysseus reached the island of Ithaca, it must have been a period of about one month. 

I dated Odysseus’ return to Ithaca on April 26, 970 BC, which means he sailed away from the island of Calypso shortly after March 26, 970 BC. The constellations which Odysseus saw while sailing were: Bootes, the Great Bear, the Pleiads, and Orion. Using Stellarium one can easily verify that all these constellations were visible after sunset during this period. This in my opinion, validates my dating of Odysseus’ return to Ithaca on April 26, 970 BC.