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An ancient Greek cremation burial dating from nearly 3,000 years ago was more crowded than expected, scientists recently found. The grave was thought to contain only one occupant – a child – but a new analysis of the bones of the grave revealed that it instead contained the remains of at least three adults.
This could help explain a long-standing mystery: the presence in the tomb of a cup with a racy inscription that seemed out of place in a child’s grave.
The clay vessel, known as the Cup of Nestor, bears a three-line boast ending with a promise that anyone who drank from the cup would be struck with longing for Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and love. Experts have long wondered why such a message would be preserved at a child’s funeral, and recent findings may help explain it, scientists have reported in a new study.
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“We can say that we have reopened an unprocessed case,” lead study author Melania Gigante, postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Cultural Heritage at the University of Padua in Italy, told Live Science.
The burial is part of an ancient site called Pithekoussai, an ancient Greek city and necropolis on the island of Ischia in Italy. It dates from the 8th century BC. wine, known as kotyle, which was discovered there. The cup bears one of the oldest surviving examples of Greek writing, the study’s authors reported on Oct.6 in the newspaper. PLOS A.
In the Greek epic poem “The Iliad”, Homer described a beautiful golden cup that only its owner, the hero Nestor, could lift. According to the legends of the time, the adventurers drank a fortifying drink from its depths. By comparison, the clay container found in tomb 168 is a simple cup. But its inscription claims the opposite in a nod to Nestor’s mythical cup, according to the Joukowsky Institute for Archeology and the Ancient World at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
Three lines of text in the Greek alphabet are written on the hexameter clay cup (a line of verse with six accents), considered to be an allusion to Homer’s poetry. The text says: “I am the cup of Nestor, good to drink. Whoever drinks this empty cup, immediately the desire of the beautiful Aphrodite will seize it”, according to the institute.
The burial contained 195 bone fragments, and the researchers used microscopy to examine details of internal surfaces and tissues, with conclusive results on 175 fragments. To their surprise, they discovered that only 130 of the bones were human; 45 bone fragments were from animals. Some of these bones probably belonged to sheep, and other bones may have belonged to dogs and birds, but the pieces were so shattered that scientists could not identify most of the fragments with certainty, according to the study.
When scientists looked at human bones – mostly pieces of large bones from the arms and legs – they looked at the formations that emerge as bone tissue renews itself over time. By comparing the density of these formations across the specimens, they saw that the fragments belonged to three individuals. The bones also indicated that the people were adults who were no longer growing; Although it was not possible to determine their ages or whether they were related, the findings ruled out the possibility that the grave contained a child, the researchers wrote.
“Unfortunately, given the high fragmentation of the samples and the action of the fire, we cannot say more,” said Gigante.
Human and animal remains have shown similar burning patterns, suggesting that they were burned together or using the same methods, and animals in the grave may represent food offerings for the dead “or companions in the grave. journey to the afterlife, ”according to the study.
“I am not surprised to have received further confirmation of everything that is yet to be discovered about Pithekoussai,” said Gigante. “This study is only the first step towards a more complete interpretation not only of the tomb of Nestor’s Cup, but also of funeral customs and uses at the dawn of Magna Graecia. [Greater Greece],” she said.
Originally posted on Live Science.
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