Fig 1.
Pithekoussai, current Ischia Island, the major Island of the Phlegrean district, in the Gulf of Naples, in the Campania region (South Italy).
On the mainland, the cities of Naples and Cumae.
Fig 2.
The location of the Pithekoussai necropolis and settlement on the Ischia Island (elaborated from [2], plan 2, by T.E. Cinquantaquattro).
The geographical location of the Pithekoussai necropolis and settlement on the Ischia Island, Gulf of Naples (Campania, South of Italy). In red, the two different batches of the necropolis excavations: (1) Pithekoussai I (Buchner’s excavations 1952–1961); (2) Pithekoussai II (Buchner’s excavations 1965–1982). In blue, the settlement areas, located in the present-day town of Lacco Ameno, on Monte Vico, and the surrounding hills.
Fig 3.
Nestor’s Cup from Cremation 168, Pithekoussai’s necropolis.
The Cup is on permanent display at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Villa Arbusto, Lacco Ameno (Ischia Island). The metric inscription, partially in hexameter verses, translates roughly to ’I am Nestor’s cup, good to drink from. Whoever drinks this cup empty, straightaway desire for beautiful-crowned Aphrodite will seize him’ (picture from Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio per l’area metropolitana di Napoli).
Fig 4.
The Tomb of Nestor’s Cup (Cremation 168) and the cremation tumuli near it (elaborated from [2], plan AII and AII bis by T.E. Cinquantaquattro).
The cluster of Cremation 168 and Tumuli 164, 165, 166, 167, 180, 185, 186 (from left to right). In dark yellow, the ’black earth lenses’ and the three depressions of Cremation 168. In grey, the ’sherd layer’ of Cremation 168.
Table 1.
Composition of the cremated remains from the Tomb of Nestor’s Cup.
Fig 5.
The human fragments from the Tomb of Nestor’s Cup.
Bone and dental fragments recognized as human by the gross morphology observations.
Table 2.
Composition of the human cremated assemblage from the Tomb of Nestor’s Cup.
Fig 6.
Faunal remains from the Tomb of Nestor’s Cup.
cf. Ovis aries: Articular fragment of the left ulna (A) and odontoid process of the axis (B) with the fragments’ position on the anatomical reference element.
Fig 7.
Comparison between thin sections in human and faunal specimens from the Tomb of Nestor’s Cup.
(A) Thin section from the human specimen HIS-T(1); (B) thin section from the faunal specimen HIS-D(2); and (C) thin section from the faunal specimen HIS-H(2).
Table 3.
Gross morphology, histology, and histomorphometry comparison in the selected sample from the Tomb of Nestor’s Cup.
Table 4.
The histomorphometric analysis of human and faunal specimens from the Tomb of Nestor’s Cup.
Table 5.
Histomorphometric analysis of the Osteon Population Density (OPD) in human specimens from the Tomb of Nestor’s Cup.
Fig 8.
Histogram and density distribution plot of the logtransformed OPD values in the human bones from the Tomb of Nestor’s Cup.
The bandwidth of the density estimate = 0.07.
Fig 9.
Comparison of the logtransformed OPD values from the human cremated samples of the Tomb of Nestor’s Cup and the logtransformed OPD individual values in long bones following [58].
The box and whisker plots of the Tomb 168 lontransformed OPD values by the three clusters (cluster 1, red; cluster 2, black; cluster 3, green) and the whole range of variation (yellow) compared to the logstransformed OPD published data (grey) from 10 adults (5 males and 5 females). The whisker plot shows a narrower range of variation amongst the published subset comparing to OPD values from Tomb 168.
