[796] According to Studniczka (p. 94 n.) the covering was put over the coffin, not wrapped round the bones inside it. He quotes a richly-painted Attic cover to a wooden coffin of the 4th cent. found in the Crimea; it is made of wool, which is also the material of the “πέπλος”. In Etruscan graves very fine linen covers are found spread on the stools on which stand the urns containing the ashes. Here again the short form of the dat. πορφυρέοις cannot be got rid of without assuming an equally un-Homeric shortening of the first syll. of “πέπλοισι”.
