Published in New Approaches in the Research on the Crown of Aragon

Keywords: Blibliometric analysis, Greek mythology, Philoctetes, Sophocles.

The legend of Philoctetes has some main features, with some variations, that are repeated in the mythological tradition: hero of Greek mythology, who was excluded and abandoned on the island of Lemnos and then returned to the conquest of Troy. This study has focused on the bibliometric analysis of the scientific literature on the figure of Philoctetes during the period 1961-2015.The aim was to describe and characterize the state of the scientific literature on this subject for use in teaching posible educational value of myth. Using eight specific bibliometric indicators, we have formed a final sample that shows 124 documents, identified as articles and obtained in the database Web of Science. According to results, it has been shown, on the one hand, poor and irregular scientific production of 124 articles over 54 years, with a range from two to eight articles in the 10 most productive journals. The majority are from Anglo-Saxon countries and authorship of a single author. On the other hand, it has been found that the most productive topic has been Philoctetes Sophocles tragedy. It has also been approached from other research areas such as education, medicine, psychology, psychiatry, sociology and religion. The findings conclude that it is a little researched topic and, given the diversity of areas that have been treated, it has a multidisciplinary potential to continue in their study and application to education.