Homer & Homer Crater - London, England, UK
Posted by: Metro2
N 51° 31.131 W 000° 07.573
30U E 699376 N 5711441
This bust of Homer is located in the British Museum.
Waymark Code: WMDJYN
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 01/22/2012
Views: 4
This life-sized marble bust of Homer depicts him as en elderly man with curly hair and a curly beard.
The British Museum (which does not charge an admission fee and DOES allow non-flash photography) informs us further on their website (
visit link) :
"Marble portrait bust of Homer
Roman, 1st-2nd century AD
From Baiae, Campania, Italy
Author of the Iliad and the Odyssey
Homer is thought to have lived in Greece around 750 to 700 BC. He is the most famous poet of all antiquity; the author of the Iliad and Odyssey, epic poems focussing respectively upon the heroes Achilles and Odysseus. The first tells of Achilles' part in the siege of Troy, while the second relates the adventures of Odysseus on his journey home following the city's fall.
Homer lived before the age of realistic portraiture. The Roman author Pliny the Elder (AD 23/4-79) tells us that the poet's later portrait type was invented in the second century BC for the library of the Attalid kings of Pergamon (Pergamum). Many copies of this 'portrait' were made in the Roman period. This one is carved as a 'terminal bust', designed to be mounted on a square stone shaft."
The Wikipedia page about Homer has a photo of this bust as well: (
visit link)
As for the crater, Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us:
"Homer is a crater on Mercury.
Deposits of material in and around this crater suggest the possibility of explosive volcanic eruptions at some point in the planet's history.
The naming of a Moon crater Homer at 24.3S, 133.6E was not approved by the IAU."