Elean

Eleōn ( Greek Ἐλεών ; with Pliny also Heleon ) was a city in Boeotia during the time of the Mycenaean culture . Its existence was narrated by Homer in the Iliad , where it is mentioned together with Peteōn and Hylē in verse 500 of Canto 2, in the ship's catalog . A resident of Eleon was called Eleonios . The ancient Greek historian and geographer Strabo located the city, which was no longer present in Homer's time, in the area northwest of ancient Tanagra and derived the name from Eleon’s location on a swamp .

The exact location of Eleōn is still unknown today. The English archaeologist William Martin Leake suspected the location on the shores of Lake Paralimni . The classical philologist Iwan von Müller and the geographer and cartographer Heinrich Kiepert assumed the right bank of the Asopos near Tanagra as the location of Eleōn.

Between November 1993 and February 1995, they discovered during excavations in Thebes , the Mycenaean capital of Boeotia, the third largest fund in Linear B - tablets (250 tablets and fragments) to Knossos (about 2500) and Pylos (about 1200; see the palace of Nestor ). They belonged to the palace archives of Kadmeia , the city castle of Thebes, which was built around 1200 BC. Was destroyed by fire. On the tablets, in addition to Eleōn, Peteōn, Hylē and Eutrēsis are recorded, all places that no longer existed at the time the Iliad was written, but appear in the ship's catalog of the epic, Eutrēsis in verse 502 of Canto 2. The spelling Eleōns in Linear B is in line 5 of the tablet TH Ft 140 as e-re-o-ni , a locative form , whereby the Linear-B script makes no difference between the letters - r - and - l - , but for both sounds - r - sets.

The mention of place names in archaic times that no longer existed in the ship's catalog of the Iliad is an indication of its Mycenaean roots, at least for the Boeotian area.

literature

Edzard Visser : Homer's Catalog of Ships . BG Teubner, Stuttgart and Leipzig 1997, ISBN 3-519-07442-7 , pp. 261 ff. and 315 ff . ( Online [accessed November 15, 2011]).

Individual evidence

↑ Homer: Iliad, Second Canto - Dream, Temptation, Ship Catalog. www.gottwein.de, accessed on May 11, 2011 (verse 500).
↑ Gottlob Christian Crusius : Greek-German dictionary of mythological, historical and geographical proper names . Hahnsche Hofbuchhandlung, Hanover 1832, p. 183/184 ( online ).
^ ^A ^b Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854). William Smith, LLD, Ed. (www.perseus.tufts.edu), accessed May 11, 2011 .
↑ Joachim Latacz : Troy and Homer . The way to solve an old riddle. 6th, updated and expanded edition. Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 2010, ISBN 978-3-7338-0332-2 , pp. 306/307 .
↑ Joachim Latacz: Troy and Homer . The way to solve an old riddle. 6th, updated and expanded edition. Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 2010, ISBN 978-3-7338-0332-2 , pp. 312/316/432 .
↑ Joachim Latacz: Troy and Homer . The way to solve an old riddle. 6th, updated and expanded edition. Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 2010, ISBN 978-3-7338-0332-2 , pp. 316 .

[1] Homer: Iliad, Second Canto - Dream, Temptation, Ship Catalog. www.gottwein.de, accessed on May 11, 2011 (verse 500).

[2] Gottlob Christian Crusius : Greek-German dictionary of mythological, historical and geographical proper names . Hahnsche Hofbuchhandlung, Hanover 1832, p. 183/184 ( online ).

[Smith-3] A ^b Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854). William Smith, LLD, Ed. (www.perseus.tufts.edu), accessed May 11, 2011 .

[4] Joachim Latacz : Troy and Homer . The way to solve an old riddle. 6th, updated and expanded edition. Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 2010, ISBN 978-3-7338-0332-2 , pp. 306/307 .

[5] Joachim Latacz: Troy and Homer . The way to solve an old riddle. 6th, updated and expanded edition. Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 2010, ISBN 978-3-7338-0332-2 , pp. 312/316/432 .

[6] Joachim Latacz: Troy and Homer . The way to solve an old riddle. 6th, updated and expanded edition. Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 2010, ISBN 978-3-7338-0332-2 , pp. 316 .