Nestor's Cup

The term Cup of Nestor or Nestor's Cup can refer to:

1. An object described in Homer's Iliad,
2. A drinking vessel of the 8th century, which bears a famous inscription alluding to the Homeric cup.

The "Cup of Nestor" in the Iliad

In chapter XI, verse 632-637, of the Iliad of Homer, a magnificently crafted golden cup is described that belonged to Nestor, the king of Pylos.

The "Cup of Nestor" from Pithikoussai

The so-called Cup of Nestor from Pithikoussai is a clay drinking cup (kotyle) that was found in 1954 at excavations in a grave in the ancient Greek site of Pithikoussai on the island of Ischia in Italy. Pithikoussai was one of the earliest Greek colonies in the West. The cup is dated to the Geometrical Period (c.750-700 BCE) and is believed to have been originally manufactured in Rhodes. It is now kept in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, Italy.

The cup bears a three-line inscription that was scratched on its side at a later time, and it was later used as a burial gift for a young boy. The inscription is now famous as being one of the oldest known examples of writing in the Greek alphabet, side by side with the so-called Dipylon inscription from Athens. Both inscriptions are dated to c.740-720 BCE and have been linked to early writing in the island of Euboea.

The text of the inscription

The inscription is fragmented, as some shards of the cup are lost. It is written in an early Euboean form of the Greek alphabet, written from right to left in three separate lines. The text runs:

ΝΕΣΤΟΡΟΣ:...:ΕΥΠΟΤΟΝ:ΠΟΤΕΡΙΟΝ
ΗΟΣΔΑΤΟΔΕΠΙΕΣΙ:ΠΟΤΕΡΙ..:ΗΥΤΙΚΑΚΕΝΟΝ
ΗΙΜΕΡΟΣΗΑΙΡΕΣΕΙ:ΚΑΛΛΙΣΤΕΦΑΝΟ:ΑΦΡΟΔΙΤΕΣ

This is usually transcribed (in later classical orthography) as:

Νέστορός εἰμι εὔποτον ποτήριον·
ὃς δ’ ἂν τοῦδε πίησι ποτηρίου αὐτίκα κῆνον
ἵμερος αἱρήσει καλλιστεφάνου Ἀφροδίτης.

I am Nestor’s cup, good to drink from.
Whoever drinks from this cup, straightaway
desire for beautiful-crowned Aphrodite will seize him.

The second and third lines form a hexametric verse each. Modern scholars agree that the text is meant as a humourous allusion to the Homeric story, playing on the contrast between the richness of the legendary object and the simplicity of the actual cup. There are several interpretations, some of which make use of textual emendations, to explain the humourous effect of the perceived incoherence between the first line and the others. One emendation is that the beginning should read: " Νέστορος μὲν ..." ('Nestor's cup may be good, but...'),^[1] or " Νέστορος ἔρροι ..." ('Nestor's cup, begone!').^[2] A third hypothesis is that the text was the result of a "drinking-party game":^[3] One player wrote the first line, then a second player was challenged to complement the poem with a second line, and so on.

See also

• History of the Greek alphabet
• Pottery of Ancient Greece

Footnotes

1. ^ A. Kontogiannis (1999), "Η γραφή". In: M. Z. Kopidakis (ed.), Ιστορία της ελληνικης γλώσσας. Athens, Elliniko Logotechniko kai Istoriko Archeio. 360-379; quoting Margherita Guarducci.
2. ^ Tarik Wareh: "Greek writing" Online description and discussion of the Nestor Cup.
3. ^ Barry B. Powell (1998): "Who invented the Alphabet: The Semites or the Greeks?" Archaeology Odyssey 1(1). Online article

External links

• Epigraphy database Transcription
• Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali: Description and image of the cup
• Transcription and image of the writing