Nestor's cup is an eighth century BC wine cup discovered in 1954 in

Lacco Ameno Lacco Ameno ( nap, U Làcchë) is a town and ''comune'' situated in the northwest of the island of Ischia, in the Metropolitan City of Naples off the west coast of Italy. The town has a population of around 4,800 inhabitants. It is located at the ...

, the ancient trading market site of Pithekoussai, on

Ischia Ischia ( , , ) is a volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It lies at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples, about from Naples. It is the largest of the Phlegrean Islands. Roughly trapezoidal in shape, it measures approximately east to wes ...

, an island in the

Gulf of Naples The Gulf of Naples (), also called the Bay of Naples, is a roughly 15-kilometer-wide (9.3 mi) gulf located along the south-western coast of Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is ...

(

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

). The cup has a three-line inscription, one of the earliest surviving examples of writing in the

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as ...

Cup

The cup is a

skyphos A ''skyphos'' ( grc, σκύφος; plural ''skyphoi'') is a two-handled deep wine-cup on a low flanged base or none. The handles may be horizontal ear-shaped thumbholds that project from the rim (in both Corinthian and Athenian shapes), or they ma ...

kotyle :''The cotylae are also features on the proximal end of the radius and of the ulna in birds.'' In classical antiquity, the cotyla or cotyle () was a measure of capacity among the Greeks and Romans: by the former it was also called ; by the latte ...

made in

Rhodes Rhodes (; el, Ρόδος , translit=Ródos ) is the largest and the historical capital of the Dodecanese islands of Greece. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the S ...

in the eighth century BC, and decorated in the Geometric style. It was found in 1954 in a cremation grave on the island of Ischia, home of the ancient Pithekoussai, dating to a little before 700 BC. Previous osteological analysis suggested that the cremated remains associated with Nestor's cup, and the grave itself, were of a child aged around 10 to 14. However, a more recent analysis conducted by the bioarchaeologist Melania Gigante and her team suggests that the remains are actually of three adult individuals of varying ages. Moreover, some of the burnt skeletal remains from the tomb are faunal, pointing to the use of animals during the cremation ritual. Along with the cup, Nestor's tomb also contained fragments of 25 other vases, as well as a silver

fibula The fibula or calf bone is a human leg, leg bone on the Lateral (anatomy), lateral side of the tibia, to which it is connected above and below. It is the smaller of the two bones and, in proportion to its length, the most slender of all the long ...

. The body was cremated on a pyre separate from the grave, and the grave goods were ritually broken and burnt on the same pyre.

Inscription

A three-line inscription, scratched onto the side of the cup is one of the earliest extant Greek inscriptions. The inscription was added to the cup after its manufacture, and dates to the late eighth century. The inscription is in a

Euboea Evia (, ; el, Εύβοια ; grc, Εὔβοια ) or Euboia (, ) is the second-largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. It is separated from Boeotia in mainland Greece by the narrow Euripus Strait (only at its narrowest ...

n form of the alphabet, in small, neat letters. All three lines are written from right to left – according to Meiggs and Lewis, "virtually unique in a Greek text". The symbol ":" is used as punctuation. The second and third lines are in

dactylic hexameter Dactylic hexameter (also known as heroic hexameter and the meter of epic) is a form of meter or rhythmic scheme frequently used in Ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The scheme of the hexameter is usually as follows (writing – for a long syllable, ...

. The form of the first line is less certain: it has been read as prose, iambic trimeter, catalectic trochaic trimeter, or a lyric meter. The interpretation of the inscription depends on a

lacuna Lacuna (plural lacunas or lacunae) may refer to: Related to the meaning "gap" * Lacuna (manuscripts), a gap in a manuscript, inscription, text, painting, or musical work ** Great Lacuna, a lacuna of eight leaves where there was heroic Old Norse p ...

in the first line: depending on how it is restored, the inscription may be contrasting the cup from Pithekoussai with the legendary cup of Nestor described in the ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Odys ...

'' (''Iliad'' 11.632 ff.), or identifying the cup as one owned by Nestor. The original publication of the inscription accepted the first possibility; by 1976, P. A. Hansen wrote that "no less than fifteen" possible restorations of the first lacuna had been published. By the 1990s, it was generally thought that the cup is in fact claiming to be Nestor's. The restoration proposed by Yves Gerhard in 2011 once again argues that the inscription is contrasting the Pithekoussan cup with that of Nestor.

Notes

References

Works cited

* * * * * * * * * * * * * {{Authority control Archaeological artifacts Earliest known manuscripts by language Greek language Art of Magna Graecia Iliad Individual ancient Greek vases Greek inscriptions Archaeological discoveries in Italy