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.