Eclipse of Odysseus (nonfiction)

A solar eclipse occurred on 1178 BC, April 16. This may have marked the return of Odysseus, legendary King of Ithaca, to his kingdom after the Trojan War.

The date is surmised from a passage in Homer's Odyssey, which reads, "The Sun has been obliterated from the sky, and an unlucky darkness invades the world." This happens in the context of a new moon, a necessary precondition for a full solar eclipse.

In 2008, Dr. Marcelo O. Magnasco, an astronomer at Rockefeller University, and Constantino Baikouzis, of the Observatorio Astrónomico de La Plata in Argentina, looked for more clues. Within the text, they interpreted three definitive astronomical events: there was a new moon on the day of the slaughter (as required for a solar eclipse); Venus was visible and high in the sky six days before; and the constellations Pleiades and Boötes were both visible at sunset 29 days before. Since these events recur at different intervals, this particular sequence only occurs once in 2000 years.

The researchers found only one occurrence of this sequence between 1250 and 1115 BC, the 135-year spread around the putative date for the fall of Troy. It happened to coincide with the eclipse of April 16, 1178 BC.

Fiction cross-reference

• Crimes against mathematical constants
• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles
• Mathematician
• Mathematics

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Eclipse (nonfiction)

External links:

• 1170s BC @ Wikipedia
• Homecoming of Odysseus May Have Been in Eclipse