The Wine Dark Sea

If I remember correctly, it was an Anglican, Bishop Ussher, who added up the ages of the patriarchs in the Old Testament to arrive at the astonishingly precise date of Creation: 4004 B.C.—September 21, 4004 B.C.

The reading of ancient texts for clues about the calendar has a venerable tradition, in other words—and though it’s usually nutty, it’s always fun. Comes now a pair of astronomers who claim, in the pages of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science , that they’ve identified the date on which Odysseus threw off his disguise and took his revenge on Penelope’s suitors in Ithaca.

Turns out Homer actually gives a lot of information on the positions of the stars and the orbits of the planets. Enough, anyway, that a little creativity could narrow things down—to April 16, 1178 B.C., in fact. Just in case you wanted to know the day that wily Odysseus took his bow and sent an arrow flying.