Beyond Evidence Of Literacy In The Iliad And The Odyssey

Although the physical remains of Dark Age Greece (c. 1200 – 700 BCE) are few, they do offer insights into Homeric society through architecture, village complexes, burials associated with pottery, bronze tripods, and votive figurines. Even the epic poems of Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey, have something to offer beyond evidence of literacy, by how they engaged audiences, by what they offered didactically from a memory of a time long ago, and, in their relation to certain objects that have survived. These remains shed light upon a society that was so graphically disparate but yet so culturally unified; possibly shaped by existing traditions which the Homeric texts established as ‘their greatest most enduring model for the way a man’s life ought
to be lived’ (Emlyn-Jones et al, p.47). These physical remains, then, are valuable resource towards understanding how the poems relate to the society in which they were written.