Does the Odyssey record the eclipse of 16 April 1178 BC?
As the suitors eat at noon, the seer Theoclymenus cries 'the Sun has perished out of the sky, and an evil mist has spread' (Od. 20.356-57). Plutarch read this as an eclipse. Baikouzis and Magnasco (2008, PNAS) argued that other sky clues in the poem (Pleiades and Bootes when Odysseus sails, Venus before dawn when he lands, the new Moon, and Hermes' trip read as Mercury) fit only one day in 1250 to 1115 BC: 16 April 1178 BC, the day of a total eclipse, and put the chance of such a fit at once in 2,000 years.
How it connects
This mystery has this clue
The 16 April 1178 BC eclipse: only about a 1 in 3 chance it was total at Ithaca
This mystery has this clue
Base rate: the Odyssey's clues fit some new Moon about once every 64 years
This mystery has this hunch or step
The Odyssey's sky clues single out the eclipse day, 16 April 1178 BC
This mystery has this clue
The Odyssey's sky clues: Pleiades and Bootes, Venus at dawn, a new Moon, Hermes' journey, and 'the Sun has perished'
This mystery has this hunch or step
Reran the Odyssey eclipse date search over 1,400 years