Naslov
The Birds of Diomedes: between Mythology and Archeology

Autori
Bulić, Nada ; Šešelj, Lucijana

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Skup
Međunarodni znanstveni skup Natales grate numeras?

Mjesto i datum
Zadar, Hrvatska, 07.04.2017. - 08.04.2017

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
Diomedes, Palagruza, myth, seafarers, Adriatic, pottery
(Diomedes, Palagruza, myth, seafarers, pottery, Adriatic)

Sažetak
Diomedes, the famous hero of the Homer's Iliad, after the Trojan war has returned to his kingdom in Argos. Here, his wife Aegialia made conspiracy with Cometes, son of Sthenelaos, Diomedes’s best friend to assassinate him upon his arrival home. Diomedes and his friends ran away to the West, to the Adriatic. The stories about Diomedes in the southern Italy are known from the 7th c. BC in Greek literary sources. Especially famous are stories regarding his death and the destiny of his warrior friends. Greek poets are talking about the sacred island of Diomedes in the Adriatic where his tomb is and here he is worshiped as god. On this island his friends are settled and they are mourning the hero's failure and have been miraculously transformed into the birds. In ancient literature many places in the Adriatic are related to this Greek hero and his cult become very popular from the 6th c. BC to the beginning of the 1st c. AD. Archaeological excavations in Croatia have revealed two sites related to the cult of Diomedes known from the literary sources: Palagruža, the island of Diomedes and cape Ploča, known as promunturium Diomedis. Both are proper maritime sanctuaries, founded and visited exclusively by seafarers. These type of sites are extremely rare to be found and excavated by archaeologists although several the hundreds are mentioned by Greek and Roman literary sources around the Mediterranean. More than 700 fragments of pottery vessels with Greek inscriptions confirm that these were sanctuaries of Diomedes visited by seafarers coming from the different parts of the central and northern Greece, Aegina, Chios, Samos, Athens, Issa, Apollonia, Dyrrachium. They made sacrifices to the god, leaving as votive objects their personal items like jewellery, part of clothes, coins and items related to the ships and fishing. The analyses of the bird bones found in Palagruža suggest that the Greek legends about unknown birds interpreted as friends of Diomedes could be today species known as the Northern Gannet (Morus bassanus), which lives only in the north of Europe since the Holocene. It seems the island of Palagruža was its last outpost in the Mediterranean. So, to the ancient Greeks who previously have never seen this kind of the bird it must look strange and mysterious.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filologija, Arheologija

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