Immigrant funeral

Previously, it was thought that there was only one child in the tomb of Nestor Cup, but a new analysis of the tomb bones by researchers showed that the charred bone fragments in the tomb belonged to at least three adults.

10 On June 6th, Melania Gigant, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Cultural Heritage of the University of Padua, and his colleagues published a document in PLoS-Synthesis, saying that an ancient Greek cremation tomb dating back nearly 3,000 years ago was more crowded than expected.

At that time, the tomb was thought to have only one child, but a new analysis of the tomb skeleton shows that it actually contains the remains of at least three adults.

This result may help to explain a long-standing mystery: there is a cup engraved with vivid inscriptions in the grave, but these vivid inscriptions seem to be out of place in children's graves.

cup

This cup, called Nestor Cup, is now on permanent display at the Pitkus Archaeological Museum in Ischia, Italy.

The author reported in PLOSOne magazine on June 6th of/kloc-0 that this cup is one of the oldest surviving Greek characters.

This clay container, called Nestor Cup, has three lines of boasting, three lines of Greek letters written on it, and one line of six accents is considered as an allusion to Homer's poems.

The text reads: "I am Nestor's cup, delicious." In the end, whoever drinks this empty cup will be directly caught by Aphrodite who is eager for a beautiful coronation. "

Scientists report in a new study that experts have long wondered why this information is kept in children's graves, and recent findings may help explain this.

According to the zhukovsky Institute of Archaeology and Ancient World of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, the inscription above means to pay tribute to Nestor's mythical goblet.

In contrast, this cup is much simpler than a beautiful golden cup described by Homer in the Greek epic Iliad. Because in the ancient Greek concept, only holding a funeral for the dead can comfort the dead and the soul.

Funerals of ancient Greeks

Funeral is one of the important ceremonies in ancient Greece. The ancient Greeks gradually formed a unique funeral ceremony, including purification, burial, funeral and burial.

The ancient Greeks believed that if the deceased didn't get a funeral, his soul would not rest in peace, and it would disturb the living and take revenge on the living.

The earliest records of funeral activities in ancient Greece can be found in Homer's epic. The Iliad ends with a detailed account of the funeral process of hector and Patroclus.

Funeral developed and improved with the formation of the city-state. Antique era is an important stage of funeral development. During this period, the basic model of ancient Greek funeral was established and has been used until the Hellenistic era.

Although the funeral in ancient times was not as grand as described in the epic, the nobles still regarded the funeral as an opportunity to show their family strength. The luxurious and complicated ceremony showed the wealth, power and prestige of the aristocratic family.

In ancient Greece, funerals were relatively conservative and stable. They believe that in an "ideal funeral", relatives and friends of the funeral should take care of the funeral.

According to Herodotus, Solon believed that people who lived a luxurious life all their lives could not be truly happy. A person can only be called happy if he keeps everything he has until the moment of death, and then dies happily.

The ancient Greeks linked family members by attending funeral activities, which enhanced the unity and cohesion of the members and safeguarded the ancient Greeks' * * * values.

In funeral activities, various systems and rules restricted the ancient Greeks, and also reflected the hierarchical system and order of Greek society.

Excavating the tomb of Nestor Cup is considered as one of the most interesting archaeological discoveries in the pre-classical period of the Mediterranean, which can be traced back to the 8th century BC.

Nestor cup tomb

Gigant told LiveScience in an email, "We can say that we have reopened a cold case."

This tomb is part of an ancient site called Pitkusai, which is the graveyard of an ancient Greek city and the Italian island of Ischia.

Archaeologists excavated about 1300 graves from 1952 to 1982.

One of the tombs was identified as "Cremation 168", and it is more widely known as "Nestor Cup Tomb" because there is a wine vessel engraved in the tomb named kotyle.

Previous studies have shown that the remains of this ancient tomb belong to a young child, but "who will be buried with Nestor's Cup" is still a mystery.

There are 195 bone fragments in the tomb. The researchers used a microscope to check the surface of 175 bone fragments and got some conclusive results.

In this study, Gigant and his colleagues used a microscope to examine the details of the surface and internal tissues of 65,438+095 charred bone fragments in the tomb. To their surprise, only about 65,438+030 bones in these fragments are human. At least 45 bone fragments are from animals.

According to this study, some of these bones may belong to sheep, while others may belong to dogs and birds.

Because all these fragments are very broken, scientists can't identify most of them with certainty.

study found

When scientists look at human bones, they find large bones, mainly arms and legs.

Then, they examined the self-renewal structure of bone tissue over time.

By comparing the density of these strata in the sample, they found that these fragments belonged to three people, and these bones also showed that these people were adults who no longer grew.

The researchers wrote that although it was impossible to determine their age or whether they were related by blood, the results ruled out the possibility of having children in the grave.

Gigant said, "I'm not surprised to receive another confirmation about how many discoveries Pithekoussai has made. Unfortunately, given the high fragmentation of the samples and the fire action, we can't say more. "

According to research, human and animal remains show similar burning patterns, suggesting that they were burned together or used the same method, and the animals in the grave may represent food sacrifices of the deceased "or companions in the afterlife journey". This study shows that histological data are still useful in studying tomb sites.

Gigant said: "More than 50 years after the discovery of the Nestor Cup, our research has rewritten the history of ancient tombs and previous archaeological explanations, because this research can not only explain the Nestor Cup tomb more completely, but also provide new clues for the funeral customs, culture and society of ancient Greek immigrants in the western Mediterranean." .