Askull cup is acup or eating bowl made from an inverted humancalvaria that has been cut away from the rest of theskull. The use of ahuman skull as a drinkingcup in ritual use or as a trophy is reported in numerous sources throughout history and among various peoples, and among Western cultures is most often associated with the historicallynomadic cultures of theEurasian Steppe.
The oldest directly dated skull cup[1] at 14,700cal BP (12,750BC) comes fromGough's Cave,Somerset, England. Skulls used as containers can be distinguished from plain skulls by exhibiting cut-marks from flesh removal andworking to produce a regular lip.[2]
_(8602993604).jpg)
The oldest record in the Chinese annals of the skull-cup tradition dates from the last years of theSpring and Autumn period, when the victors of theBattle of Jinyang in 453 BClacquered the skull of their enemy into a winecup.[3] Later, theRecords of the Grand Historian recorded the practice among the ancientXiongnu of present-dayMongolia.Laoshang (or Jizhu), son of the Xiongnu chieftainModu Chanyu, killed the king of theYuezhi around 162 BC, and in accordance with their tradition, "made a drinking cup out of his skull".[4] According to the biography of the envoyZhang Qian inHan shu,[5] the drinking cup made from the skull of the Yuezhi king was later used when the Xiongnu concluded a treaty with twoHan ambassadors during the reign ofEmperor Yuan of Han (49-33 BC). To seal the convention, the Chinese ambassadors drank blood from the skull cup with the Xiongnu chiefs.
In India and Tibet, the skull cup is known as akapala, and is used inBuddhisttantric andHindu tantric rituals. The skull does not belong to an enemy, and indeed the identity of the skull's original owner is not considered significant. Hindu deities such asKali are sometimes depicted holding akapala full of human blood. Many carved and elaborately mountedkapalas survive, mostly in Tibet.
In 1510, ShahIsmail I defeated and slewMuhammad Shaybani, founder of theShaybanid Empire in present-dayUzbekistan, in battle. The Shah had his enemy's body dismembered and the parts were sent to various areas of the empire for display, while his skull was coated in gold and made into a jewelled drinking goblet.
In Japan, there is an anecdote thatOda Nobunaga, a famousfeudal lord from theSengoku period, dranksake from the skulls of his defeated enemieswarlords.[6][7]However, it has been claimed in recent years that it may be a creation.[8]The highly reliable contemporaneous historical documentShinchō Kōki and thesecondary sourceAzai Sandai Ki state that Nobunaga unveiled the skulls ofAsakura Yoshikage,Azai Hisamasa andNagamasa, which had been made intohakudami (lacquered and painted with gold mud), to his closest vassals, and made them serve to relish the sake at a feast in the lunar New Year 1574. However, it does not state that he drank sake using the skulls assakazuki.[8][9]It is not certain what Nobunaga's intention was in revealing the skulls, as there are no surviving impressions of those who saw them. Some say it was simply because he was cruel, while others believe it was out of respect for his enemies rather than desecration of the dead.[8]
People of theMagdalenian culture of theUpper Paleolithic of Europe, spanning around ~23,000–13,500 years ago produced skull cups, which is associated with cannibalistic practices.[10]
According toHerodotus'Histories andStrabo'sGeographica, theScythians killed their enemies and made their skulls into drinking cups.
Edouard Chavannes quotesLivy to illustrate the ceremonial use of skull cups by theBoii, aCeltic tribe in Europe, in 216 BC.[11]
According toPaul the Deacon'sHistoria Langobardorum, when theLombard kingAlboin defeated theGepids, the hereditary enemies of his people, in 567 AD, he then slew their new kingCunimund, fashioned a drinking-cup from his skull, and took his daughterRosamund as a wife.[12]
KhanKrum of theFirst Bulgarian Empire was said byTheophanes the Confessor,Joannes Zonaras, theManasses Chronicle, and others, to have made a jeweled cup from the skull of theByzantine emperorNicephorus I (811 AD) after killing him in theBattle of Pliska.
TheKievan Rus'Primary Chronicle reports that the skull ofSvyatoslav I ofKiev was made into a chalice by thePechenegKhanKurya in 972 AD. He likely intended this as a compliment to Sviatoslav; sources report that Kurya and his wife drank from the skull and prayed for a son as brave as the deceased Rus warlord.
According toGeorge Akropolites the skull ofBaldwin I of Constantinople was made into a drinking cup by the TsarKaloyan of Bulgaria (c. 1205).
According to legend, after the pirateBlackbeard was killed and beheaded in 1718, his skull was made into a drinking cup.
In 19th centuryBritain, the poetLord Byron used a skull his gardener had found atNewstead Abbey as a drinking vessel. According to Lord Byron,
There had been found by the gardener, in digging, a skull that had probably belonged to some jolly monk or friar of the Abbey, about the time it wasdemonasteried. Observing it to be of giant size, and in a perfect state of preservation, a strange fancy seized me of having it set and mounted as a drinking cup. I accordingly sent it to town, and it returned with a very high polish and of a mottled colour like tortoiseshell.
Byron even wrote a darkly witty drinking poem as if inscribed upon it, "Lines Inscribed upon a Cup Formed from a Skull".[13] The cup, filled withclaret, was passed around "in imitation of theGoths of old", among the Order of the Skull that Byron founded at Newstead, "whilst many a grim joke was cut at its expense", Byron recalled toThomas Medwin.[14]