One of the ancient world's most enduring mysteries may have been solved thanks to the sharp eyes and dogged scholarship of a Kingston businessman.

Robert Bittlestone, 52, of Coombe Hill, claims to have found the true location of Ithaca, written about by Homer in his epic poem The Odyssey in 800 BC.

If he is right, it would not only be one of the greatest classical discoveries of all time, but also raise the possibility that the star of the poem, Odysseus, actually existed and thus the remains of his palace may yet be uncovered.

While on a family holiday on the Ionian island of Lefkas in 1998, a hunch led Mr Bittlestone, a management consultant with Kingston company Metapraxis and long-time fan of the poem, to develop his theory.

In his book Odysseus Unbound, published this week, he concludes that a western peninsula of Cephalonia was once separated by a channel from the rest of the island is Homer's Ithaca.

Mr Bittlestone said: "We are now in a situation where it's like light the blue touchpaper and stand back. You get a picture early on that the poet had a clear mental model and I think the possibility the Ithaca which Homer wrote about is a real place is incredibly exciting."

After his imagination was sparked by his Greek holiday, the father-of-four sought the help of two Cambridge academics to gather topographical evidence that rock falls and land rises may have filled in the straits between Ithaca and Cephalonia in the last 3,000 years.

Despite having 40 different experts on the case, Mr Bittlestone, who studied economics at Cambridge, still had to devote huge amounts of his own free time to the project.

He said: "I did it by giving up television which gave me an extra 20 hours a week and a lot of the techniques and equipment I was using to get to the bottom of this problem crossed over anyway into my daily job."

The Odyssey describes the 10-year journey of Odysseus as he returns from the Trojan War in the 13th century BC. It has never been clear whether Homer himself ever actually existed or whether he is a literary invention.

Nevertheless, Mr Bittlestone is convinced his theory which has yet to be backed up by archaeological evidence is merely the first page in another Greek drama. As geological assessments are undertaken next year he hopes more people will be inspired to help unravel this oldest of riddles.

For more information go to www.odysseus-unbound.org.

sgreenwood@london.newsquest.co.uk