On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 5:31 PM, Asouti, Eleni <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Dear Justine,

Well I keep telling my students that for queries like this one their first point of call should be a web search engine. It only takes a few seconds to come up with a range of possible answers. That’s one reference I found

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6342763

Unsure how reliable it actually is, but it’s a start anyway J

Best wishes,

Eleni

Dr. Eleni Asouti
Lecturer in Environmental Archaeology,
University of Liverpool
School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology
Hartley Building
Brownlow Street
Liverpool L69 3GS
UK

Tel: 0151 794 5284
Overseas: (+44) 151 79 45284
SACE Fax: 0151 79 45057

E-mail: [log in to unmask]

http://www.liv.ac.uk/sace/organisation/people/asouti.htm

CHARCOAL ANALYSIS WEB http://pcwww.liv.ac.uk/~easouti/

From: The archaeobotany mailing list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Justine McKnight
Sent: 04 February 2010 22:24
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Moly in Homer

Hi All - a student at U of Leiden contacted me with the following - if anyone has ideas, Gerrie van Rooijen <[log in to unmask]> would love to hear them - justine

Dear Ms. McKnight,

For a paper I'm writing about plant and trees in Homer, I wondered if the plant moly, named in Book 10 of the Odyssey (X,305), is a known plant.
The description given by Homer says the root is black and the flower milk-coloured. It is hard to dig and the name (moly) is just a divine name.
Is this a description that makes you think of a certain plant?
Thank you very much for you help.

Kind regards,

Gerrie van Rooijen
University of Leiden, the Netherlands.
--
Justine W. McKnight
Archeobotanical Consultant
708 Faircastle Avenue
Severna Park, MD. 21146
410-507-3582
www.archeobotany.com