Nestor's Cup
About the work
Imported from the workbook's Full reassessment sheet, revised 7 October 2026 (record ID 14). The assessment below is the workbook's comparative judgment under its stated criteria; source links and limits are retained.
Workbook assessment: Insufficient evidence
Date or witness: Late 8th century BCE; museum estimates include c.725 and c.715 BCE
Region: Made in the eastern Greek world; found at Pithekoussai, Ischia, Italy
Workbook date-sort bounds: 750 BCE to 700 BCE; these bounds are not automatically invention or disappearance dates.
Description
A modest drinking cup humorously presents itself as Nestor's legendary cup and promises that drinking will bring desire associated with Aphrodite.
Evidence of adoption or transmission
A modest drinking cup bears a distinctive epigraphic adaptation of heroic language.
What remains uncertain
This particular inscription is not a demonstrated circulating formula, and its drinking/burial context does not establish working-class uptake.
Workbook revision note: Reassessed using grassroots criteria
Photograph by Shonagon, dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
