Of 210 whorls found in the Palace adorned with Aryan religious symbols, there are 60 with engravings that I have not hitherto met with, and three terra-cotta balls with symbolical signs. One of these is especially remarkable[270]: it has ten roughly-engraved owls’ faces, so coarsely drawn that I should not even know them to be owls’ faces, were it not that I have occasionally found just as rude representations of the owl’s head upon idols. I also discovered in the same house six beautifully-polished axes of diorite; also one of those round twice-perforated terra-cottas, arched on both sides and flattened on the edge of one side, the whole of this flat side being filled with a stamp bearing the impression of an eagle and a stag or an antelope; further, four of those frequently-described large red goblets, round below and with two large handles, which can only stand on the mouth. These four goblets are, unfortunately, all broken, and I shall not be able to have them repaired till I return to Athens.
I now venture positively to maintain that these goblets, which, from my former reports and drawings are known to be from 5 to nearly 16 inches high, must necessarily be the Homeric “δέπα ἀμφικύπελλα,” and that the usual interpretation of these words by “double cups, with a common bottom in the centre,” is entirely erroneous. It really appears as if this wrong translation arose solely through Aristotle; for, as is clear from his Hist. Anim. (9, 40), there were in his time double cups with a common bottom in the centre; and, in fact, many years ago it is said that such a cup was discovered in Attica, and bought by the Museum in Copenhagen. But in the Homeric Troy there were no such cups, otherwise I should have found them. As already remarked in one of my previous reports (p. 129), I found on the primary soil, at a depth of from 46 to 52½ feet, several fragments of brilliant black goblets, which I then considered to be fragments of double cups, because there was a hollow upon both sides of the bottom; but the one hollow was in all cases quite small in comparison with the other, and must, therefore, have been in the foot of the cup. If δέπας ἀμφικύπελλον means double cup, then ἀμφιφορεύς must mean double urn, which is not possible either in the Iliad (XIII. 92), the Odyssey (XXIV. 74), or elsewhere in Homer; moreover, it has never occurred to anyone to translate it otherwise than “urn with two handles;” consequently, δέπας ἀμφικύπελλον cannot be translated otherwise than by “cup with two handles.” As an actual double cup can, of course, only be filled on one side at a time, Homer would certainly never have constantly described the filled cup as a double cup, for there would have been no sense in the name. By the term ἀμφικύπελλον, however, he wished to signify that the filled cup was presented by one handle and accepted by the other handle. Interpreted in this manner, there is a great deal of meaning in the name.[271]
The palace of King Priam furnished me also with two large fragments of a large brilliant yellow urn, adorned in the most beautiful manner with engraved decorations. Among others, it has several rows of circles running round it, in each of which there is a triple cross. The elegance of the vessel is enhanced by the broad handles, which also have circles with triple crosses. In the king’s palace I also discovered the handle of a vessel, broken off; it is 4¼ inches long, and in the form of a serpent.
In the upper and more recent house, above the Scæan Gate, I found the vase here represented, which is pointed below, has two handles and decorations in the form of spectacles (No. 228); also the beautiful vase, with four handles and a lid (No. 229); the large jug, with one large and two small handles (No. 230); and a number of other vases and jugs which I shall not describe, as they have already been frequently met with. Of idols with owls’ faces I have found only one. There also I discovered many fragments of those large red goblets with two handles, which I now recognise to be the Homeric δέπας ἀμφικύπελλον.
