Enjoy your beer from a skull-cup?
A common phrase in movies and television shows is to threaten to use someone’s skull as a drinking glass. Apparently, this was more than just an idle threat in Ice Age Britain. A team of palentologists led by Silvia Bello of the Natural History Museum in London have uncovered a 14,700-year-old skull that served as an ancient drinking vessel. These are the oldest-known examples of human skulls being fashioned into drinking implements.
Bello believes that the skull goblets were used in some kind of ceremony or ritual. Other bones discovered nearby the skull cups were scraped (or chewed) free of flesh, which suggests that Ice Age Brits might have been cannibals (or just really efficient with their mortuary rituals). Older skulls have been found, but not older skull drinking implements.
As home furnishings go, skulls aren’t the most welcoming, even if chocolate skulls are the most delicious. Still, it’s pretty awesome to tell someone you’re going to drink from their skull, then actually do that.
Tags: Ice Age, artifacts, ancient artifacts, drinking bowl made from a human skull, skulls used as drinking mugs, drinking from a skull, human skull drinking goblet, human skull mug, 14700-year-old drinking vessel made from human skull, England, skull drinking cups used in ancient rituals, Natural History Museum, Silvia Bello
