Homeric calendar and Helios charioteer

Abstract

Although no calendar is mentioned in the Homeric epics, there are references to years and months, which suggest the existence of an early lunisolar calendar. This hypothesis is further supported by the total number of the cattle of the Sun in Homer’s Odyssey, which seems to be a poetic reference to the most ancient Greek calendar, namely the period of two lunar years. There are also traces of the tripartite division of the month in three decades of days used throughout the Greek world until Imperial Roman times. Literary evidence is supported by archaeological evidence: The circular disc of the Sun and the crescent of the Moon are displayed in scenes of ritual offerings on golden rings from Mycenae and Tiryns (15th cent. BC), while month-names and every year offerings to divinities are recorded on Linear B tablets from Knossos (Crete) and Pylos (Peloponnese). Linear B tablets also record a large number of chariots used by Minoans and Mycenaeans. It seems then very likely that later Helios’s iconography as a warrior charioteer and his symbol as an “all-seeing eye” can be traced back to Mycenaean world.