Ithaca (; , ) was, in Greek mythology, the island home of the hero Odysseus. The specific location of the island, as it was described in Homer's Odyssey, is a matter for debate. There have been various theories about its location. Modern Ithaca has traditionally been accepted to be Homer's island. One recent alternative candidate is Paliki, which may have been an island separated from the rest of Kefalonia, as argued by Bittlestone, Diggle and Underhill in Odysseus Unbound. This theory, however, has not been generally accepted on grounds of geology, archaeology,Christina Souyoudzoglou-Haywood, “Archaeology and the search for Homeric Ithaca: the case of Mycenaean Kephalonia,” Acta Archaeologica, vol. 89, no. 1 (December, 2018), pp. 145-158. philology,George Huxley, Review of Odysseus Unbound in Hermathena, no. 182 (Summer 2007), pp. 165-169; Barbara Graziosi, Review of Odysseus Unbound in Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 128 (November, 2008), pp. 178-180. or historical and Homeric analysis.Jonathan Brown, In search of Homeric Ithaca (Canberra: Parrot Press, 2020), pp. 321-333. “What is clearly missing,” wrote Dr Christine Haywood reviewing Odysseus Unbound, “is a good knowledge of the complexities of Homeric language, and the support of archaeology.”
