The Odyssey of Gamma 58

When the German archaeologist, Heinrich Schliemann, pulled a shining mask from the bone-dry earth of Mycenae he is said to have telegraphed the King of Greece with the words, ‘I have gazed upon the face of Agamemnon’. The unearther of Troy was convinced that he had found more proof that the stories of Homer were based on historical fact. Here was the grave of one of the legendary commanders of the Greek forces in the Trojan War.

Later analysis rubbished Schliemann’s romantic notions, but the graves on this hillside high above the Aegean hold many more fascinating secrets and, in this episode, Mary asks what we can learn from the bones and elaborate grave goods of a Mycenaean woman that archaeologists have labelled, Gamma 58.

Homer’s stories of war, adventure, family and homecoming never lose their appeal. Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey is released in cinemas this month and Ralph Fiennes played Odysseus in last year’s highly acclaimed The Return. That film's director, Uberto Pasolini joins Mary and the novelist and historian Emily Hauser in a search for the real people that lie between myth and history. Gamma 58 isn’t Helen of Troy or Odysseus’s Penelope but she has her own story to tell of male power and female agency.

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Researcher: Anna Charalambou

Expert Contributors: Emily Hauser of Exeter University, Pontus Skoglund and Eirini Skourtanioti of the Francis Crick Institute and Rachel Phillips of the British School at Athens

Special thanks to the British School at Athens, the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and the Francis Crick Institute