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The Odyssey, traditionally attributed to Homer and composed around the 8th–7th century BCE, recounts the decade-long journey of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, as he attempts to return home after the Trojan War. Although set in a recognizable Mediterranean world, the epic blends myth, memory, and geography in ways that resist literal mapping. Since antiquity, readers have tried to situate Odysseus’ wanderings, from the land of the Cyclopes to the island of Circe, on a real-world map, but the poem functions less as a travelogue and more as a narrative of human resilience, identity, and the testing of heroic virtue. Efforts to anchor these events in actual locations reflect a broader impulse to reconcile mythic storytelling with emerging historical and geographical inquiry in the ancient Greek world.
Attempts to map the Odyssey gained momentum in the early modern period, notably with Abraham Ortelius’ 1597 chart, the first known cartographic rendering of Odysseus’ route. Over the centuries, scholars, statesmen, and philologists, including figures such as British Prime Minister William E. Gladstone, proposed competing interpretations, yet no consensus emerged, revealing the poem’s fundamentally symbolic geography. Modern studies, such as Peter T. Struck’s analysis (2000), highlight how the epic’s spatial logic serves its narrative themes rather than strict topography. This map draws on those insights, illustrating not a definitive itinerary but the enduring fascination with situating Homer’s imaginative world within the wider Mediterranean.
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Cite This Work
APA Style
Netchev, S. (2025, November 07). Map of Odysseus’ 10-year Journey Home. World History Encyclopedia. https://www.worldhistory.org/image/15906/map-of-odysseus-10-year-journey-home/
Chicago Style
Netchev, Simeon. "Map of Odysseus’ 10-year Journey Home." World History Encyclopedia, November 07, 2025. https://www.worldhistory.org/image/15906/map-of-odysseus-10-year-journey-home/.
MLA Style
Netchev, Simeon. "Map of Odysseus’ 10-year Journey Home." World History Encyclopedia, 07 Nov 2025, https://www.worldhistory.org/image/15906/map-of-odysseus-10-year-journey-home/.
