7 Attic terracotta lekythos (oil flask), attributed to the Achilles Painter, c.440 BC. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art. akg-images)
8 Mycenaean gold elliptical funeral diadem, from the ‘Grave of the Women’, sixteenth century BC. (National Archaeological Museum of Athens. Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)
9 A gold death suit for a Mycenaean child, sixteenth century BC. (National Archaeological Museum of Athens. Photo by Adam Nicolson)
10 Damascened daggers made of gold, silver, bronze and niello, from Mycenae and Pylos. (DEA/G. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)
11 Writing tablet from the Ulu Burun wreck, c.1325 BC. (© Institute of Nautical Archaeology)
12 The tower of the Acropolis in Tiryns. (DeAgostini/Getty Images)
13 Nestor’s cup. (Museum of Ischia, Italy. © Maria Grazia Casella/Alamy)
14 Kantharos (drinking cup) depicting Odysseus and Nausicaa. (© The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved)
15 Extremaduran warrior with shield, sword and mirror. (Museo Arqueológico Provincial de Badajoz. Photo by Adam Nicolson)
16 Stabbed Bronze Age phalera (horse harness ornament). (Wiltshire Museum. Photo by Adam Nicolson)
17 Extremaduran warriors with bow, spear, shield, swords, a bubble-handled mirror, what may be a musical instrument and large, man-slaughtering hands. (Museo Arqueológico Provincial de Badajoz. Photo by Adam Nicolson)
18 The Rio Odiel. (Photo by Adam Nicolson)
19 Silver gilt Cypriot bowl, c.725–675 BC. (© The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence)
20 Gold libation bowl, c.625 BC, found at Olympia, 1916. (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Photo by Adam Nicolson)
21 Minoan Kamares eggshell ware cup. (Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Crete. Leemage/UIG via Getty Images)
22 Ivory cosmetic case in the form of a duck. (© The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved. Photo by Adam Nicolson)
23 David and Goliath by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610), oil on canvas. (Museo del Prado. Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)
24 Mycenaean bronze dagger with an integral hilt and pommel, c.1300–1100 BC (© The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved)
25 Wild pear tree, Ithaca. (Photo by Adam Nicolson)
26 Minoan bath, mid-fourteenth century BC. (© Carlos Collection of Ancient Art, Emory University)
27 Dionysus on a reach, surrounded by dolphins, 530 BC. (Staatliche Antikensammlung, Munich. Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)
TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS
1 Terracotta plate depicting a poet on his death bed, musing on the past with his lyre above him, c.595–570 BC. (© The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence)
2 Mural from Palace of Nestor at Pylos. (Courtesy of the Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati)
3 Odysseus tied to the mast listening to the songs of the Sirens. (Werner Forman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)
4 Rue Contrescarpe-Dauphine, c.1866, by Charles Marville. (Courtesy of Philippe Mellot)
5 Draft of Keats’s sonnet ‘On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer’, October 1816. (Courtesy of the Houghton Library, Harvard University)
6 The title page of the 1788 Iliad edited by Villoison. (Courtesy of the Houghton Library, Harvard University)
7 Detail from the Hawara Homer manuscript (24–28. Bodleian Libr., Gr. Class. A.1 (P)). Homer, Iliad I, 506–10, Iliad II, 1–877, with many lacunae. Courtesy of the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents; the Cairo Museum; the Association Internationale de Papyrologues and Dr Adam Bülow-Jacobsen)
8 Detail from p.111 of the Venetus A scholia. (Center for Hellenic Studies. © 2007, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venezie, Italia)
9 The megaron at Emporio, Chios. (Courtesy of John Boardman)
10 Ischian cratēr from ‘Pithekoussai’ by G. Buckner, Expedition Vol. 8, No. 4, summer 1966.
11 Nestor’s cup, eighth century BC. (Dbachmann)
12 Milman Parry. (Courtesy of the Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature, Harvard University)
13 Bégan Lyútsa Nikshitch, photographed by Milman Parry. (Courtesy of the Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature, Harvard University)
14 Bronze spearheads. (Museo Archeologico Paolo Orsi, Syracuse. Photo by Adam Nicolson)
15 Winnowing a harvest of wheat. (Getty Images)
16 The Uffington White Horse commands the site of a first-century BC Celtic fort, Uffington, Oxfordshire, England. (James P. Blair/National Geographic/Getty Images)
17 Back of a first-century BC gold Celtic stater of the Parisii or Quarisii (Paris region). (Dea Picture Library/De Agostini/Getty Images)
18 Sophia Schliemann, bedecked with diadem from Troy found by Heinrich Schliemann. (Time Life Pictures/Mansell/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)