Table Of ContentThe Classic Bestseller
Boston Public Library 
Boston, MA 02118
Erich von Daniken came to prominence in the 
1970s with his bestseller Chariots of the Gods? 
and has since written many books on a similar 
theme. He continues his research from his 
home in Switzerland and remains a passionate 
advocate of the reality of extraterrestrial visits.
by the same author 
Arrival of the Gods 
Chariots of the Gods? 
Return of the Gods
ODYSSEY OF THE GODS 
An Alien History of Ancient Greece 
Erich von Daniken 
Translated by Matthew Barton 
ELEMENT 
Shaftesbury, Dorset • Boston, Massachusetts • Melbourne, Victoria
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© Element Books Limited 2000 
Text © Erich von Daniken 2000 
Original edition © C Bertelsman Verlag 1999 
First published in the UK in 2000 by 
Element Books Limited 
Shaftesbury', Dorset SP7 8BP 
Published in the USA in 2000 by 
Element Books, Inc. 
160 North Washington Street, 
Boston, MA02114 
Published in Australia in 2000 by 
Element Books and distributed 
by Penguin Books Australia Ltd 
487 Maroondah Highway, Ringwood, 
Victoria 3 a 34 
Erich von Daniken has asserted his right under the 
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, 
to be identified as the author of this work. 
All rights reserved. 
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized 
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, 
without prior permission in writing from the Publisher. 
Cover design by Max Fairbrother 
Designed and typeset by THE BRIDGEWATER BOOK COMPANY 
Printed and bound in Great Britain 
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data available 
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data available 
ISBN r 86204 749 9
CONTENTS 
Foreword vii 
Picture Credits vi 
1 Adventures of the Starship Enterprise in 
Long-gone Millennia i 
2 In the Name of Zeus 32 
3 The Network of the Gods 49 
4 The Trojan Tangle 90 
5 Atlantis - The Millennia-old‘Whodunnit’ 100 
6 Help for Plato 136 
Dear Reader 151 
Notes 152 
Index  159
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PICTURE CREDITS 
Giorgio Tsoukalos, Ithaca, USA: pictures 3, 38 
Rudolf Eckhardt, Berlin: pictures 17,19, 20 
Kilian Bohren, Interlaken: pictures 24, 31 
Markus Pezold, Kempten: picture 36 
Charles Hapgood, Keene, USA: pictures 40,41 
All other pictures: Erich Von Daniken, Beatenberg 
I would like to thank all the photographers for their support. 
The copyright remains with each photographer. 
vi
FOREWORD 
D
o you know what an orgy is? Encyclopaedias give its original 
definition as the celebration of religious rites in ancient Greece.' 
Nowadays the word refers to a much less restrained kind of caper, 
in which sex plays its fair share. 
But in fact this is also what the word meant in ancient Greece. At that 
time men used to meet together in the afternoon for philosophical 
debate, followed a few hours later by a ‘symposium’ or drinking party - 
which often ended in an orgy. Wives were not present, but boys and 
youths were. Greece was taboo-free in this respect; people thought 
and felt differently in ancient Hellas. 
Everyone knows what a science-fiction story is. But you probably 
don’t know that there were science-fiction stories circulating in ancient 
Greece too, though much more fantastic ones than ours. The difference 
between them is that the Greeks didn’t regard their science-fiction as 
utopian fantasies; they believed that the stories related events which 
had really taken place. And there was another difference. Our science- 
fiction stories - such as the adventures of ‘Starship Enterprise’ - take 
place in the future, while the ancient Greeks looked back to a dim, 
distant past, to a time millennia before their own. 
Just imagine that the island of Crete is continually circled by a metal 
guardian, which has the phenomenal ability to monitor all ships 
heading towards the island and to blow them out of the water. No 
foreigner has a ch ance of landing there against the wishes of the island’s 
rulers. If a boat does manage to slip through, the metal monster can 
direct a fierce heat at it and burn the invader up. However, this guardian 
robot does have a weak point: if a certain bolt on its metallic body is 
undone, its thick blood flows out so that it is immobilized. Naturally 
only those who constructed it, and their successors, know the precise 
location of this vital spot. 
This story7 was already in existence around 2,500 years ago, and the 
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ODYSSEY OF THE GODS 
Greeks were convinced that it told the truth about events long before 
their time. The robot which patrolled Crete was called Talos, and 
the engineers who knew the precise position of the place where the 
hydraulic fluid had to be drained, so as to inactivate the monster, were 
called ‘gods’. 
This is not a (hi)story book of ancient Greece, but a book about its 
stories. The Greece of ancient times is chock-a-block with extraordinary 
tales. Did the wanderings of Odysseus ever happen? What was going on 
in Delphi? Was there really a doom-and-gloom prophetess there who 
foresaw all major political events? Are the powerful descriptions of Troy 
based on truth? And what about Atlantis? All the information we have 
about Atlantis, to which all authors on the subject refer, has come from 
Greece. And who were the Argonauts who set out to steal the ‘Golden 
Fleece’? 
Greece is worth a dream-trip. I invite you to join me on a special kind 
of adventure. 
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