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Nestor's Cup HE Powell

The document discusses three things referred to as 'Nestor's Cup': 1) a goblet owned by the hero Nestor in the Iliad, 2) a gold cup found by Schliemann at Mycenae resembling Homer's description, and 3) an early Greek alphabetic inscription on a Rhodian clay cup from Pithekoussai referring to 'Nestor's cup'. The document provides historical context around these artifacts and considers their relationship to descriptions in Homer's epics.

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99 views1 page

Nestor's Cup HE Powell

The document discusses three things referred to as 'Nestor's Cup': 1) a goblet owned by the hero Nestor in the Iliad, 2) a gold cup found by Schliemann at Mycenae resembling Homer's description, and 3) an early Greek alphabetic inscription on a Rhodian clay cup from Pithekoussai referring to 'Nestor's cup'. The document provides historical context around these artifacts and considers their relationship to descriptions in Homer's epics.

Uploaded by

jipnet
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Nestor’s Cup “Nestor’s Cup” refers to three today could lift it” (e.g., 5.302–304; see HEROIC
things: (1) a splendid goblet owned by NESTOR AGE). Schliemann was looking for the TROJAN
(Il. 11.632–637); (2) a beautiful and complex WAR, but his remarkable find from Shaft Grave
gold cup that Heinrich SCHLIEMANN found at IV, ca. 1600 BCE, is too early for any such histori-
MYCENAE, which reminded him of the cup that cal war and differs in several details from the cup
Homer describes (Fig. 6); (3) a clay cup of Rhodian that Homer describes. We cannot say whether
ware ca. 730 BCE found in a boy’s burial from the the object Homer describes is a detail from an
cemetery of PITHEKOUSSAI (Ischia) that bears one earlier time, passed down in the ORAL TRADI-
of the two oldest “long” Greek alphabetic INSCRIP- TION, or whether it reflects something of his own
TIONS, referring to “Nestor’s cup” (Fig. 21). experience.
Imported Rhodian ware is otherwise well
attested in the excavations on Pithekoussai and See also ARTEFACTS.
perhaps came to the island from IALYSOS in RHODES,
where there was a PHOENICIAN merchant colony. References and Suggested Readings
In the ILIAD Nestor’s cup had “four handles on Heubeck 1974, 222; Powell 1998.
it, around each a pair of golden doves was feed-
ing. Two supports were below. When the cup Heubeck, A. 1974. Die homerische Frage. Darmstadt:
was full, another man could barely lift it from Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
the table, but Nestor, though old, lifted it with Powell, B. B. 1998. “Who Invented the Alphabet: The
Semites or the Greeks?,” Archaeology Odyssey 1(1):
ease.” Homer’s description is a humorous play-
44–49, 52–53, 70.
ing with the heroic convention whereby a stone
lifted in war was “so big that scarce two men BARRY B. POWELL

Fig. 21. The inscription on “Nestor’s Cup,” from Pithekoussai, ca. 730 BCE. After Rüter-Mathiessen
1969, fig. 5.

The Homer Encyclopedia, edited by Margalit Finkelberg


© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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