The ruins of a 2,400-year-old complex at Agios Athanasios on Ithaca suggest Odysseus was a figure of genuine devotion, not just a poetic character. Archaeologists Professors Litsa Kontorli-Papadopoulou and Thanasis Papadopoulos excavated a megaron and well matching Homer's descriptions, dating to the Late Bronze Age.

Competing theories from neighboring Kefalonia, notably by Robert Bittlestone, claimed other peninsulas were the true Homeric Ithaca, diverting funding from the Agios Athanasios dig. The author, who has visited Ithaca for 44 years with her late husband Alec Kazantzis, witnessed the island's neglected heritage and the archaeologists' struggle.

After personal losses, the author wrote *Odysseus' Island*, documenting artifacts like coins and a mask sherd inscribed "an offering to Odysseus," linking Ithaca uniquely to the hero. Classics professor George Huxley later validated her work, countering Bittlestone's claims.