{"id":2375,"date":"2026-05-16T14:48:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T12:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/?p=2375"},"modified":"2026-05-19T14:11:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T12:11:33","slug":"a-big-fleet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/a-big-fleet\/","title":{"rendered":"A big fleet"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Greeks wan\u00adted to take the city of Tro\u00adja, they sai\u00adled the\u00adre with a big fleet of more than one thou\u00adsand ships. The descrip\u00adti\u00adon of this arma\u00adda takes many pages in Homer\u2019s epic song on the war against Tro\u00adja, the Ili\u00adas.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What pur\u00adpo\u00adse would such a descrip\u00adti\u00adon, writ\u00adten on a sheet of papy\u00adrus, ser\u00adve on the chest of dead and mum\u00admi\u00adfi\u00aded body in Roman Egypt? Last year, a papy\u00adri frag\u00adment was found in a tomb of Oxyr\u00adrhyn\u00adchos \u2013 an anci\u00adent Egyp\u00adti\u00adan town. It had been pla\u00adced on the dead per\u00adson. Sci\u00aden\u00adtist were able to deci\u00adpher the frag\u00adment: it con\u00adtai\u00adned the descrip\u00adti\u00adon of the Greek fleet from the Ili\u00adas<\/em> (repor\u00adted in an artic\u00adle<\/strong><\/a> \u201cArch\u00e4o\u00adlo\u00adgen ent\u00addecken Ver\u00adse aus Homers Ili\u00adas in einer Mumie\u201d, May 7, 20026, News\u00adpa\u00adper \u201cDer Bund\u201d). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is cle\u00adar\u00adly excep\u00adtio\u00adnal that a lite\u00adra\u00adry text (rather than ver\u00adses from the book of death) was used to accom\u00adpa\u00adny the dead. The text is assu\u00admed to have been pla\u00adced during the fun\u00adera\u00adry rite on the body of the decea\u00adsed per\u00adson. Much remains sub\u00adject to inter\u00adpre\u00adta\u00adti\u00adon and spe\u00adcu\u00adla\u00adti\u00adon here, but what we can say is that ships appear fre\u00adquent\u00adly in repre\u00adsen\u00adta\u00adti\u00adons of the tran\u00adsi\u00adti\u00adon to the world bey\u00adond, or the after\u00adli\u00adfe (as I also found when I visi\u00adted the Basel exhi\u00adbi\u00adti\u00adon on the \u201cPath to the Bey\u00adond\u201d, see my last com\u00admen\u00adta\u00adry<\/strong><\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addi\u00adti\u00adon, the\u00adre is an inte\u00adre\u00adst\u00ading con\u00adnec\u00adtion with oral epi\u00adcs here: many of the\u00adse tales con\u00adtain a the\u00adme of the hero tra\u00adve\u00adling to and from the under\u00adworld. In some oral tra\u00addi\u00adti\u00adons, the\u00adse sto\u00adries were sung during the fun\u00ade\u00adral rite. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How oral poet\u00adry works is a fasci\u00adna\u00adting sub\u00adject in its\u00adelf. I recent\u00adly finis\u00adhed rea\u00adding a book by the Ame\u00adri\u00adcan aut\u00adhor Robert Karn\u00adigel who tells the sto\u00adry of Mil\u00adman Par\u00adry, and his stu\u00addent Albert Lord (\u201cHea\u00adring Homer\u2019s Song\u201d, New York, 2021). Based on fieldwork in Yugo\u00adsla\u00advia in the 1930s, the\u00adse scho\u00adlars docu\u00admen\u00adted the vanis\u00adhing prac\u00adti\u00adce of per\u00adforming oral poet\u00adry, and ana\u00adly\u00adzed how it work\u00aded. If I say \u201cvanis\u00adhing\u201d, I am also thin\u00adking of Indo\u00adne\u00adsia, whe\u00adre I had mys\u00adelf the chan\u00adce to listen to three of the last \u201csin\u00adgers of tales\u201d in South Suma\u00adtra, during my fieldwork in 1988. I curr\u00adent\u00adly under\u00adta\u00adke some work to digi\u00adti\u00adze the recor\u00addings<\/strong><\/a> of tho\u00adse per\u00adfor\u00adman\u00adces.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the Greeks wan\u00adted to take the city of Tro\u00adja, they sai\u00adled the\u00adre with a big fleet. An inte\u00adre\u00adst\u00ading find from an Egyp\u00adti\u00adan tomb was made last year: the mum\u00admi\u00adfi\u00aded body con\u00adtai\u00adned Homer\u2019s descrip\u00adti\u00adon \u2013 in the Ili\u00adas \u2013 of the Arma\u00adda!<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"both","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":301,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-allgemein"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2375"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2384,"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2375\/revisions\/2384"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}