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Pylos and the Underworld From the study of myths and characters connected with the city of Pylos in Messenia, many authors in the 19th century have come to the conclusion that it concerned a mythical city, hypostasis of the infernal world. The identification ascertained by Linear В tablets of the palace site of Ano Englianos as the Pylos of Homer has rendered obsolete that interpretation. However, many studies of family names specifically from Pylos in the 13th century B.C. have a real connotation of Hell, and this coincides with the old mythological studies. It may be considered that the Greeks had as early as the Mycenaean period conceived their land Messenia as a land connected with the world of the dead. A few Indo-European parallels support this hypothesis.

On the phrase « sold under sin » in the Epistle to the Romans The pauline phrase « sold under sin » in the "Epistle to the Romans" is a complex reference to "Isaiah" 50, 1. Two Qumran texts and a prayer from the "Testament of Adam" enable us to analyze the processes used in this kind of quotation.

Ayodhyā : the name and the place In ancient Indian texts two names are found, Sāketa and Ayodhyā, which are generally considered as referring to one and the same city, though their relationship remains unsolved. It will be shown that originally Ayodhyā figured as a name of a town in a genre of literature that is predominantly fictional. Sāketa, on the other hand, was the name of one of the most ancient historical towns in North India situated on the site of present-day Ayodhyā-Faizābād. Gradually, along with the deification of the legendary king of Ayodhyā, Rāma, the fictional city of Ayodhyā was identified with the real city of Sāketa, a reification that eventually turned this site into an important place of pilgrimage. A comparison is made with a similar case of reification in France, viz. the identification of the village of Illiers with the fictional Combray of Marcel Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu".