Winnowing Oar Explained

The Winnowing Oar (athereloigos - Greek ἀθηρηλοιγός) is an object that appears in Books XI and XXIII of Homer's Odyssey.^[1] In the epic, Odysseus is instructed by Tiresias to take an oar from his ship and to walk inland until he finds a "land that knows nothing of the sea", where the oar would be mistaken for a winnowing shovel. At this point, he is to offer a sacrifice to Poseidon, and then at last his journeys would be over.

In popular culture

• In 2003 the artist Conrad Shawcross created a work, Winnowing Oar, based on the object. Sculpted in oak, spruce and ash, it is an imaginary tool with a winnowing shovel at one end and an oar blade at the other.^[2] It formed part of the Shawcross' 2004 Continuum exhibition at the National Maritime Museum.^[3]
• The metaphor is used in the TV series Black Sails.

External links

• An essay on the winnowing-fan and its meaning
• Poseidon's Oar, Lance Hosey
• Poseidon’s Oar : Lance Hosey

Notes and References

1. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Hom.+Od.+1.1 The Odyssey
2. http://www.victoria-miro.com/artworks/detail/31,14/ Winnowing Oar
3. Continuum, Nmm.ac.uk