The So-called Hell and Sinners in the Odyssey and Homeric Cosmology

It will be argued in this paper that Odysseus does not descend into Hades even though he witnesses the punishment of certain sinners and that the latter are envisaged in the sky as constellations. This hypothesis explains the phrase "meadow of asphodels" and the repetitive action of the sinners. It will also be argued that the origin of this cosmology is Egyptian. The Homeric cosmos is divided into a diurnal and nocturnal world: a human habitation and one which lies beyond the suns orbit and contains the heroes and the dead.