Wine cup may be earliest Greek portrayal of constellations

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A 2,600-year-old two-handled wine cup currently on display at the Lamia Archaeological Museum in Greece has long been thought to depict a random assortment of animals.

But the piece of ancient pottery, called a skyphos, may actually contain one of the earliest Greek depictions of the constellations, a new analysis shows.

The study researchers suggested that other ancient artistic representations of animals may also portray constellations, and hold clues to what the early Greeks knew about astronomy, said study researcher John Barnes, a classical archaeology doctoral candidate at the University of Missouri Read more...

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