Scheria

Nausicaa takes Odysseus to the palace

Σχερία (Scheria, Skhería) or Phaeacia was a phantom island mentioned in the Greek mythology and literature as the homeland of the Phaeacians and the last destination of Odysseus before coming back home to Ithaca.

When Odysseus sailed from Ogygia, he came upon a storm and his raft was washed up on Scheria. He was found by Nausicaa and taken to the palace of King Alcinous. Alcinous offered to take Odysseus safely to Ithaca with one of his ships.

The Phaeacian ships

Odysseus was understandably worried about the dangers of the trip from Scheria to Ithaca. To reassure him, King Alcinous described the remarkable qualities of the Phaeacian ships.

Tell me also your country, nation, and city, that our ships may shape their purpose accordingly and take you there. For the Phaeacians have no pilots; their vessels have no rudders as those of other nations have, but the ships themselves understand what it is that we are thinking about and want; they know all the cities and countries in the whole world, and can traverse the sea just as well even when it is covered with mist and cloud, so that there is no danger of being wrecked or coming to any harm. (Homer, The Odyssey, Book 8)

Despite the above qualities of the ship, it took Odysseus twenty days of sailing to arrive back home to Ithaca, thus indicating that Scheria was a long distance away from Ithaca.

Geographical account by Strabo

Approximately nine centuries after Homer and twenty centuries before present, Strabo proposed that Skhería and Ogygia were located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean:

For Homer says also: "Now after the ship had left the river-stream of Oceanus"; and "In the island of Ogygia, where is the navel of the sea," going on to say that the daughter of Atlas lives there; and again, regarding the Phaeacians, "Far apart we live in the wash of the waves, the farthermost of men, and no other mortals are conversant with us." Now all these incidents are clearly indicated as being placed in fancy in the Atlantic Ocean. (Strabo, Geography, Book I, 2, 18)

Later interpretations sometimes identified Scheria or Ogygia with sunken Atlantis.

The Greek word Φαίακες (Phaeacians) is derived from the word φαιός (phaios)[link] thus meaning "dark-skinned", which supports Strabo's proposition. Modern interpreters favour identification of Scheria with Corfu, however. Locals on Corfu had long claimed this, based on the rock outside Corfu harbour, which is supposedly the ship that carried Odysseus back to Ithaca, but was turned to stone by Poseidon, to punish the Phaecians for helping his enemy:

with one blow from the flat of his hand turned her [the ship] into stone and rooted her to the sea bottom (The Odyssey, Book XIII)

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