Download The World of Odysseus: History and Myth

The World of Odysseus: History and Myth
Students will sail the Greek islands with Colorado College faculty in search of the world of Odysseus. In
this study of Bronze Age civilization of the Mediterranean, we will read Homer’s Odyssey “on location”
as our guide book. Less than one hundred years ago the sites of Minos’s palace in Crete, Agamemnon’s
palace in Mycenae, Nestor’s in sandy Pylos, and Odysseus’ in Ithaca were not in the history books, but
were known only from myth. Archaeological discoveries by Heinrich Schliemann and Sir Arthur Evans
have revolutionized how we understand Bronze Age Greece, moving the sites from the realm of myth
to that of history. Throughout the course the emphasis will be on myth and history, and the
interpretation of both, in light of the physical evidence, artifacts and archaeological sites. Students will
discover the way that landscape and imagination combine to create myth; as we pull in to Ithaca
perhaps we will experience the same excitement that Odysseus himself must have felt upon finally
finding himself at home.