Bornova cave puts Homer’s origins back in spotlight

İZMİR

City historian and author Altan Altın points to a stele currently held in the British Museum which he believes depicts a deification ceremony for Homer in İzmir.

On a Turkish hillside overlooking the olive-covered slopes outside İzmir is a cave known to generations of locals as the place where Homer penned “The Odyssey.”

“This place was always called Homer’s Valley by the locals. Travelers from all over the world would come and see the cave where Homer is said to have composed his poems,” explained Turkish researcher Altan Altın, who has written a book on the subject.

In fact, nobody knows exactly where Homer wrote his epic poems, and there is much mythology around the idea of his cave. Today, of course, the debate has become livelier and more immediate thanks to Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster film “The Odyssey.”

The poet has, for a very long time, been associated with the İzmir region of the Aegean coast, which for most of its history was known as ancient Smyrna.

“The Smyrnaeans have the river Meles, with its lovely water, and at its springs is the grotto, where they say Homer composed his poems,” wrote the 2nd-century Greek chronicler and geographer Pausanias.

Those words have fueled a centuries-long debate, one that continues today, about Homer’s life and the location of the river where he was thought to have been born in the year 8 B.C.

Visiting the cave, which is filled with rocks, is not easy. Inside, travelers have scrawled Greek text onto the walls, though how old the writing is remains unclear.

Although other places, notably the Greek island of Chios, also lay claim to Homer’s origins, ancient Smyrna and its hinterland, where Bornova is located, are closely associated with the poet.

“For me, there’s no doubt, Homer is from Bornova. In any case, he is from Ionia, which includes Smyrna and Chios. He’s from these lands,” Altın told AFP. Ionia is the name of an ancient Greek region on Türkiye’s Aegean coast.

To support his thesis, Altın pointed to a third-century B.C. frieze depicting the deification of Homer, which he says reproduced the Bornova cave with remarkable precision.

“This bas-relief was already known, but no one had ever noticed the identical details to those found in Homer’s cave. This is the first time such a detailed geographical description came to light,” he said.

Archaeological evidence from the area also suggests a link to Homer.

“The discoveries from the excavations, especially coins bearing Homer’s likeness, show us that the inhabitants of ancient Smyrna considered the poet to be one of their own,” archaeologist Mehmet Akif Erdem said.

“’The Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey’ were written in the [ancient Greek] dialects of Ionic and Aeolic, suggesting that ancient Smyrna and Bornova could be among Homer’s native lands,” he said.

Homer everywhere

Beyond the academic debate about his origins, Homer is everywhere in Bornova.

At Yeşilova Höyük, a Neolithic site considered to be the oldest known prehistoric human settlement in İzmir, there is a bust of Homer with the inscription: “I compiled The Iliad and The Odyssey epics on this land. I lived in Bornova.”

The town, which already hosts a book fair dedicated to Homer and has a statue of Trojan War hero Hector in a local park, is planning to refurbish the cave and open it to visitors to capitalize on the revival of interest in the ancient poet.

“Preserving Homer’s legacy is a duty we owe to humanity. He is one of the founding fathers of literature,” Bornova Mayor Ömer Eski told AFP.

“The stories he tells are about this land. The question is not whether we should claim Homer or not. His story is also ours,” he said.

Mustafa Koçyiğit, who runs the Gargantua bookshop in İzmir, said the success of Nolan’s film has revived interest in Homer and boosted sales of the poem “The Odyssey.”

“I knew Homer was from these lands, but I didn’t know he was specifically from İzmir. We are incredibly lucky,” said teacher Şafak Tosun outside one of the city’s cinemas where the film is showing.

“I feel proud, honored and deeply privileged to be his fellow countryman.”

For the researcher Altın, there are clues in Homer’s writing that he says show the poet came from the area.

“When you dive into the Iliad, you really understand that Homer was an Anatolian. You find anecdotes and cultural references that are completely unknown elsewhere,” he said.

He believes Homer’s origins should not stir up rivalry between Türkiye and Greece. “Homer is 2,800 years old, while the Turkish-Greek border is only a century old,” he shrugs. “Homer is Greek. Homer is Anatolian. None of us is older than he is, not even our countries.”