This bronze hemispherical bowl is a plain but elegant grave offering accompanying the burial of two women. It was excavated in the North Cemetery of Knossos and is dated to the 10th century BC. It is a particularly important find, because under the rim is an incised band with a Phoenician inscription of 12 letters, recording the owner’s name and patronym (“Cup of Χ, son of Υ”). The bowl appears to have been made in Phoenicia and brought to Crete along the maritime trading routes or as part of a traveller’s personal valuables. It bears what may be the earliest surviving alphabetic inscription in the Aegean, proving that the Cretans had already come into contact with the Phoenician script in the 10th century BC, long before the adoption of the alphabet in the late 9th century BC.