A volcanic island off the northern part of the Bay of Naples, and site of arguably the earliest Greek colony in the western Mediterranean. Lying on sea trade routes to Italy, and especially Etruria, the colony was established by Euboean Greeks from Chalcis and Eretria, c 775-750 BC. The Monte Vico region shows occupational evidence going back to the Bronze Age, and the acropolis shows also Bronze Age and Iron Age material. The island had good agricultural land and rich deposits of potters' clay and it became the principal supplier to Campania. There was also a wide variety of metalworking. A large necropolis has inhumation and cremation burials containing oriental trinkets, Egyptian scarabs, and varied imported and local pottery, including inter alisa, a Rhodian cup bearing one of the earliest examples of the Greek alphabet, a Chalcidian version written from right to left. This cup, bearing the inscription in Greek in the Euboean script I am the cup of Nestor can be securely dated to before 700 BC. Cumae, a mainland Italian offshoot of the island settlement of Pithekoussai, was founded c 750 BC.