| Odyssey happened in Oulu claims Italian historian |
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| By Staff Writer | ||||||
| Tuesday, 27 February 2007 | ||||||
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When you think of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey you assume that they are set in Greece or modern-day Turkey. Not so, claims Italian historian Felice Vinci. They are set mainly in Finland . . . and parts of the tales are actually set in Oulu.  Photo from Wikipedia Finns living near the coast may well be skiing over the battle-grounds of Homer’s tales according to Vinci whose book The Baltic Origins of Homer’s Epic Tales has recently been translated into English and debated in this month’s edition of a controversial American ‘revisionist’ journal. The book brings together previous research on this seemingly bizarre topic as well as adding startling new evidence. Of course, the tales are to some extent fantasy but many historians agree that there is an historical core to them. They deal with the battles of the Trojan War, between the Achaens and the Trojans and were written in the 7th Century BC making them perhaps the oldest work in Ancient Greek. But Troy itself may actually not have been in Turkey, as commonly believed, but in Finland. Swedish historian Martin Nilsson was the first to come up with the Baltic theory. He claims that archaeological evidence in Mycaen (Ancient Greek) burial grounds proves this point due to the presence of Baltic amber in tombs as well as ‘racially Nordic skulls.’ Thus, he concluded, the Mycaens came from the north to Greece. The ancient Greeks were originally Baltic. Homer’s tales would have been very ancient – many thousands of years old - even when they were written so it is possible that, if the Mycaens did come from the north, then these tales would somehow recall this. During this period, Scandinavia would have much warmer, in-keeping with the descriptions in the tales.
Vinci adds further evidence by looking at place-names in Homer’s tales. He claims that place names are ‘fossils’ telling historians what kind of people once lived in a place long after they have disappeared and telling us where they come from originally. Thus, future historians know from the place-names that some Americans were originally from Finland due to Oulu in Wisconsin even if Americans had forgotten this. Vinci gives example after example of supposedly Greek place names that correspond to modern Finnish and Baltic names – including Athens - implying that these, even then, ancient tales took place in Finland not Greece and Greek place-names merely reflect the fact that Baltic people settled in Greece in the distant past. These names, Vinci claims, are more than coincidence. If the tales were set in Greece then the course which the ship takes in the tales is erratic and makes no sense. But if you match them to Nordic place names, the ships make a logical anti-clockwise route around the Baltic sea. For Vinci, the name similarity between these supposedly ‘Greek’ places and Finland, though to a lesser extent other Baltic coastal areas, is just too obvious: ‘Troy (Toija), Iolcus (Jolkka), Cyphus (Kuiviniemi) . . .’ And Vinci claims ‘Oolosson’ is actually ‘Oulu.’ Olympus itself is, where the Gods lived in legend, is actually ‘Oulankajoki.’ For many historians, this theory might be dismissed as speculative revisionism. It has been recently debated in the revisionist historical journal The Barnes Review which has been accused of advocating other more controversial revisionist histories such as Holocaust Denial. And archaeologists generally agree that Troy was in northern Turkey and have found a site that many are convinced by. But if this theory is true, then Finland (and to a lesser extent other Baltic states) could claim to be the ‘cradle of civilisation’ and Oulu, according to the tales, clearly had its part to play in this.
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