Analysis of descriptions of remote places in archaic Greek epic reveals that Homeric cosmic geography consists of two complementary models, one in which the sun rises and sets at a single locus - the « axis mundi » - as in Hesiod, Th. 746-751, and another in which sunrise and sunset take place on the eastern and western horizons respectively.
Conflation of these models in the « Odyssey » results in the gemination of peoples and places associated in myth with the sun (e. g. the Aithiopes, Od. 1, 22-24 ; Kalypso and Kirke, 1, 52 and 12, 1-4 ; the Laistrygones and Kimmerioi, 10, 82-86 and 11, 14-19).
This not only explains some patterns in Homeric geography and their thematic importance to Odysseus ' travels, but also resolves interpretive difficulties with descriptions of the edges of the earth in epic.
