Oil hunters seeking Ithaca

Their expertise will help archaeologists find legendary home of Odysseus

A geological engineering company said Monday it had agreed to help in an archaeological project to find the island of Ithaca, which Homer made the kingdom of his hero Odysseus. It has long been thought that “Ithaki” in the Ionian Sea was the island where Homer set “The Odyssey.”

Amateur British archaeologist Robert Bittlestone believes the Ithaca of Homer is no longer a separate island but became attached to the island of Cephalonia through rock displacement caused by earthquakes. The theory could explain inconsistencies between Ithaki and Homer’s description of Odysseus’ island in his epic poem. The Dutch-based engineering services company, Fugro Group, along with Bittlestone and the Greek Geological Society, said Fugro will use high-tech surveying equipment normally used in oil-and-gas exploration for the Ithaca project, due to start this summer and last about three years. Bittlestone, a management consultant, said he came up with his theory while reading before a Greek holiday in 2003 and quickly gained support from two British academics. James Diggle, a professor of Greek and Latin at Cambridge University, and John Underhill, an Edinburgh University professor of stratigraphy who joined Bittlestone to write “Odysseus Unbound – The Search for Homer’s Ithaca” in an effort to attract archaeologists to excavate in Paliki, a flat peninsula off Cephalonia. (AP)