King Nestor’s Cup

King Nestor’s Cup, Mycenae, c. 1600-1500 BC

This golden goblet was found by Heinrich Schliemann at Mycenae in Shaft IV at Grave Circle A. A similar goblet is described in the Iliad as belonging to Nestor, King of Pylos with, “four handles…around each…a pair of golden doves was feeding. Below were two supports.” While this cup is not four handled, it does include doves on the handles with supports beneath. Schliemann named it “Nestor’s Cup” due to its similarities to the one mentioned in the Iliad.

Schliemann believed that the shaft graves dated to the time of the Trojan War, and identified Shaft Grave V as the tomb of Agamemnon. However, Schliemann’s identification of the shaft graves with Homeric heroes was not accepted by many archaeologists even in his own day. The shaft graves are conventionally dated to c. 1600-1500 BC, some three centuries before the date of the Trojan War (if the war is to be considered as a historical event). Thus the so-called golden “Cup of Nestor” or “Nestor’s Cup” from Mycenae would have been buried hundreds of years before Nestor supposedly made use of it at Troy.

Source:wikipedia