The secret of the Tomb of Nestor's cup mystery was exposed after its discovery 65 years ago. What made the cup distinctive is its contents inside it, believed all these millennia ago by those who lived before.
Researchers have analyzed what was seen in the uncovered tomb in the Island of Ischia located in the Gulf of Naples when the date relic is 2,800 years old.
The study lead is Melania Gigante, an archaeologist from the University of Padua published in PLOS One.
The evidence
Contents of the goblet have remnants of three individuals instead of one, with ashes of animals, even dogs and goats included when analyzed, reports the Daily Mail.
From the tomb in Ischia, the Nestor's Cup is a wine goblet made from local clay. Inscribed on the cup is one of the most archaic examples of the Greek Alphabet.
This enigmatic cup has been named after a golden cup owned by one of the heroes, Nestor, mentioned in Homer's epic poetry in the Iliad.
From its discovery in 1954, the tomb it was retrieved from is supposed to be an object valued by the person buried with it.
Before these findings, the tomb and its remnants were assumed to be the burial of a young person, the cup's owner. Now it's a surprise that the tomb contains three, not just only one, as assumed. There were animal remains found in the grave connected to the Tomb of Nestor's cup mystery.
A mystery and enigma
It proves that the first assumptions were incorrect, even adding the animal ashes in the tomb of Nestor's cup. As a relic, it is strange and unique as one of the most striking examples of Mediterranean pre-classic archaeology, noted Popular Archaeology.
The authors state that this should change the former history and how initial archaeological assumptions are now different. What was thought to be the former funerary traditions and practices of a Greek immigrant who went to the ancient western Mediterranean has been altered.
Contents with the cup were the mixed remains of humans and animals identified the first time. With that many in the tomb, the question is, who are these individuals.
Before the last inquiry, the Goblet of Nestor was called 'Cremation 168', with the remains of a person aged 10 to 14-years old at death.
More history
This tomb with the cup was one of many seen in the Italian site of Pithekoussai, an island in the 1950s, which was an early Greek colonial trading post that was close to copper and tin sources found in Tuscany.
Sources have tried to link the person to what is written on the Nestor's Goblet that is seen at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Villa Arbusto, Lacco Ameno, on Ischia Island.
Translation of ancient Greek writing is Nestor's cup says it is for drinking, and sipping from it will desire the Goddess Aphrodite immediately.
Gigante got a result of the contents and detailed 195 burn bone bits found in the grave. About 130 were human, and 45 of animal origins like sheep, goat, maybe dogs. The estimated age of the human remains was different ages.
There may be more to the tomb of Nestor's cup mystery to be found out by researchers studying the ancient relic.
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