# Skull cup

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Type of bowl or drinking vessel

The skull cup from [Gough's Cave](/source/Gough's_Cave)

A **skull cup** is a [cup](/source/Cup) or eating bowl made from an inverted human [calvaria](/source/Calvaria_(skull)) that has been cut away from the rest of the [skull](/source/Skull). The use of a [human skull](/source/Human_skull) as a drinking [cup](/source/Cup) 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 historically [nomadic cultures](/source/Eurasian_nomads) of the [Eurasian Steppe](/source/Eurasian_Steppe).

The oldest directly dated skull cup[1] at 14,700 [cal BP](/source/Before_Present) (12,750 [BC](/source/Before_Christ)) comes from [Gough's Cave](/source/Gough's_Cave), [Somerset, England](/source/History_of_Somerset#Palaeolithic_and_Mesolithic). Skulls used as containers can be distinguished from plain skulls by exhibiting cut-marks from flesh removal and [working](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wrought) to produce a regular lip.[2]

## Asia

Hindu deity [Bhairava](/source/Bhairava) with a kapala (skull cup) in his hand

The oldest record in the Chinese annals of the skull-cup tradition dates from the last years of the [Spring and Autumn period](/source/Spring_and_Autumn_period), when the victors of the [Battle of Jinyang](/source/Battle_of_Jinyang) in 453 BC [lacquered](/source/Lacquer) the skull of their [enemy](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zhi_yao&action=edit&redlink=1) into a winecup.[3] Later, the *[Records of the Grand Historian](/source/Records_of_the_Grand_Historian)* recorded the practice among the ancient [Xiongnu](/source/Xiongnu) of present-day [Mongolia](/source/Mongolia). [Laoshang](/source/Laoshang_Chanyu) (or Jizhu), son of the Xiongnu chieftain [Modu Chanyu](/source/Modu_Chanyu), killed the king of the [Yuezhi](/source/Yuezhi) around 162 BC, and in accordance with their tradition, "made a drinking cup out of his skull".[4] According to the biography of the envoy [Zhang Qian](/source/Zhang_Qian) in *[Han shu](/source/Book_of_Han)*,[5] the drinking cup made from the skull of the Yuezhi king was later used when the Xiongnu concluded a treaty with two [Han](/source/Han_dynasty) ambassadors during the reign of [Emperor Yuan of Han](/source/Emperor_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 a *[kapala](/source/Kapala)*, and is used in [Buddhist](/source/Buddhist) [tantric](/source/Tantra) and [Hindu](/source/Hindu) 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 as [Kali](/source/Kali) are sometimes depicted holding a *kapala* full of human blood. Many carved and elaborately mounted *kapalas* survive, mostly in Tibet.

An anecdote about the prolific [Korean Buddhist](/source/Korean_Buddhist) scholar [Wonhyo](/source/Wonhyo) in the year 661 says that he and a close friend named Uisang (625–702) were traveling to China, when, somewhere in the region of [Baekje](/source/Baekje), the pair were caught in a heavy downpour and forced to take shelter in what they believed to be an earthen sanctuary. During the night Wonhyo was overcome with thirst, and reaching out grasped what he perceived to be a gourd, and drinking from it was refreshed with a draught of cool, refreshing water. Upon waking the next morning, however, the companions discovered much to their shock that their shelter was in fact an ancient tomb littered with human skulls, and the vessel from which Wonhyo had drunk was a human skull full of brackish water.[6]

In 1510, Shah [Ismail I](/source/Ismail_I) defeated and slew [Muhammad Shaybani](/source/Muhammad_Shaybani), founder of the [Shaybanid Empire](/source/Shaybanid_Empire) in present-day [Uzbekistan](/source/Uzbekistan), 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 that [Oda Nobunaga](/source/Oda_Nobunaga), a famous [feudal lord](/source/Feudal_lord) from the [Sengoku period](/source/Sengoku_period), drank [sake](/source/Sake) from the skulls of defeated enemy [warlords](/source/Warlord).[7][8] However, it has been claimed in recent years that it may be a creation.[9] The highly reliable contemporaneous historical document *[Shinchō Kōki](/source/Shinch%C5%8D_K%C5%8Dki)* and the [secondary source](/source/Secondary_source) *Azai Sandai Ki* state that Nobunaga unveiled the skulls of [Asakura Yoshikage](/source/Asakura_Yoshikage), [Azai Hisamasa](/source/Azai_Hisamasa) and [Nagamasa](/source/Azai_Nagamasa), which had been made into *hakudami* (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 as [sakazuki](/source/Rice_wine_cup).[9][10] 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.[9]

## Europe

People of the [Magdalenian](/source/Magdalenian) culture of the [Upper Paleolithic](/source/Upper_Paleolithic) of Europe, spanning around ~23,000–13,500 years ago, produced skull cups, which is associated with cannibalistic practices.[11]

Bulgarian Khan Krum the Fearsome feasts with his nobles as a servant (right) brings the skull of [Nikephoros I](/source/Nikephoros_I), fashioned into a drinking cup, full of wine.

[Pietro della Vecchia](/source/Pietro_della_Vecchia) - [Rosamund](/source/Rosamund_(queen)) forced to drink from the skull of her father [Cunimund](/source/Cunimund)

Sebastian Münster *Cosmographia* (Basel, 1550) page 193, concerning Lombards and imaginatively illustrating the notorious skull cup

According to [Herodotus](/source/Herodotus)' [*Histories*](/source/Histories_(Herodotus)) and [Strabo](/source/Strabo)'s *[Geographica](/source/Geographica)*, the [Scythians](/source/Scythians) killed their enemies and made their skulls into drinking cups.

[Edouard Chavannes](/source/Edouard_Chavannes) quotes [Livy](/source/Livy) to illustrate the ceremonial use of skull cups by the [Boii](/source/Boii), a [Celtic](/source/Celts) tribe in Europe, in 216 BC.[12]

In Germanic mythology, [Wayland the Smith](/source/Wayland_the_Smith) was enslaved by a king. In revenge, Wayland killed the king's sons and fashioned goblets from their skulls; he sent the goblets to the king.[13]

According to [Paul the Deacon](/source/Paul_the_Deacon)'s *[Historia Langobardorum](/source/Historia_Langobardorum)*, when the [Lombard](/source/Lombards) king [Alboin](/source/Alboin) defeated the [Gepids](/source/Gepids), the hereditary enemies of his people, in 567 AD, he then slew their new king [Cunimund](/source/Cunimund), fashioned a drinking-cup from his skull, and took his daughter [Rosamund](/source/Rosamund_(queen)) as a wife.[14]

[Khan](/source/Khan_of_Bulgaria) [Krum](/source/Krum) of the [First Bulgarian Empire](/source/First_Bulgarian_Empire) was said by [Theophanes the Confessor](/source/Theophanes_the_Confessor), [Joannes Zonaras](/source/Joannes_Zonaras), the *[Manasses Chronicle](/source/Manasses_Chronicle)*, and others, to have made a jeweled cup from the skull of the [Byzantine](/source/Byzantine) emperor [Nicephorus I](/source/Nicephorus_I) (811 AD) after killing him in the [Battle of Pliska](/source/Battle_of_Pliska).

The [Kievan Rus'](/source/Kievan_Rus') *[Primary Chronicle](/source/Primary_Chronicle)* reports that the skull of [Svyatoslav I](/source/Svyatoslav_I) of [Kiev](/source/Kiev) was made into a chalice by the [Pecheneg](/source/Pecheneg) [Khan](/source/Khan_(title)) [Kurya](/source/Kurya_(khan)) 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 to [George Akropolites](/source/George_Akropolites) the skull of [Baldwin I of Constantinople](/source/Baldwin_I_of_Constantinople) was made into a drinking cup by the Tsar [Kaloyan of Bulgaria](/source/Kaloyan_of_Bulgaria) (c. 1205).

According to legend, after the pirate [Blackbeard](/source/Blackbeard) was killed and beheaded in 1718, his skull was made into a drinking cup.

In 19th-century [Britain](/source/United_Kingdom_of_Great_Britain_and_Ireland), the poet [Lord Byron](/source/Lord_Byron) used a skull his gardener had found at [Newstead Abbey](/source/Newstead_Abbey) as a drinking vessel. According to 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 was [demonasteried](/source/Dissolution_of_the_Monasteries). 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".[15] The cup, filled with [claret](/source/Claret), was passed around "in imitation of the [Goths](/source/Goths) 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 to [Thomas Medwin](/source/Thomas_Medwin).[16]

## See also

- [Noggin (cup)](/source/Noggin_(cup))

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-http://www.plosone.org_1-0)** Bello, Silvia M.; Simon A. Parfitt; Chris B. Stringer (February 2011). Petraglia, Michael (ed.). ["Earliest Directly-Dated Human Skull-Cups"](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3040189). *PLOS ONE*. **6** (2) e17026. Public Library of Science. [Bibcode](/source/Bibcode_(identifier)):[2011PLoSO...617026B](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011PLoSO...617026B). [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1371/journal.pone.0017026](https://doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0017026). [PMC](/source/PMC_(identifier)) [3040189](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3040189). [PMID](/source/PMID_(identifier)) [21359211](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21359211).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** [*Skulls found in Cheddar Gorge 'used as cups'*](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-12488227) (web video). BBC. 16 February 2011.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** Sima Qian [vol.86](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/zh:%E5%8F%B2%E8%A8%98/%E5%8D%B7086): 趙襄子最怨智伯，漆其頭以為飲器。

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** [Shiji](/source/Shiji) 123.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** *Han shu*, 94B, p. 3a; Yu Yingshi, *Trade and Expansion in Han China*, 1967:218.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-:2w_6-0)** Byeong-Jo Jeong; Wŏnhyo (2010). [Master Wonhyo: an overview of his life and teachings](http://www.koreanhero.net/Wonhyo/MasterWonhyo_Booklet.pdf), Korean spirit and culture series, vol. 6, Seoul : Diamond Sutra Recitation Group, page 50

1. **[^](#cite_ref-west143_7-0)** Weston, Mark. *Giants of Japan: The Lives of Japan's Greatest Men and Women*. NYC: Kodansha International. p. 143.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-8)** ["小谷城 謎秘める浅井滅亡の地"](http://www.asahi.com/travel/kosenjo/TKY200907130169.html) [Odani Castle - The mysterious place of Asai's destruction]. *[Sankei Shimbun](/source/Sankei_Shimbun)* (in Japanese). Tokyo. 14 July 2009. Retrieved 22 September 2023.

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-newsyahoo20230526_9-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-newsyahoo20230526_9-1) [***c***](#cite_ref-newsyahoo20230526_9-2) Watanabe, Daimon (26 May 2023). ["織田信長が朝倉義景、浅井久政・長政父子の頭蓋骨を薄濃にした真意とは"](https://news.yahoo.co.jp/expert/articles/d991e0970f2752b1abb0f89a38b9fd7e4b29ccf7) [What was the true meaning behind Oda Nobunaga's lacquering of the skulls of Asakura Yoshikage, Asai Hisamasa and Nagamasa?]. *Yahoo! News* (in Japanese). [Yahoo! Japan](/source/Yahoo!_Japan). Retrieved 22 September 2023.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-10)** Kuwata, Tadachika (1997). 信長公記 [*[Shinchō kōki](/source/Shinch%C5%8D_k%C5%8Dki) (Chronicle of Nobunaga)*] (in Japanese). Tokyo: Shinjinbutsu. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [4-404-02493-2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/4-404-02493-2).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-11)** Marsh, William A; Bello, Silvia (November 2023). ["Cannibalism and burial in the late Upper Palaeolithic: Combining archaeological and genetic evidence"](https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.quascirev.2023.108309). *Quaternary Science Reviews*. **319** 108309. [Bibcode](/source/Bibcode_(identifier)):[2023QSRv..31908309M](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023QSRv..31908309M). [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108309](https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.quascirev.2023.108309).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-12)** Chavannes, Edouard. [*Mémoires historiques*](http://classiques.uqac.ca/). Vol. 5. pp. 185–186.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-EB1911_13-0)** One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the [public domain](/source/Public_domain): [Chisholm, Hugh](/source/Hugh_Chisholm), ed. (1911). "[Wayland the Smith](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Wayland_the_Smith)". *[Encyclopædia Britannica](/source/Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica_Eleventh_Edition)*. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 431–432.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-14)** [Paul the Deacon](/source/Paul_the_Deacon) (1907). ["*History of the Langobards*"](https://archive.org/details/cu31924027767593). translator: [William Dudley Foulke](/source/William_Dudley_Foulke). [Philadelphia](/source/Philadelphia): University of Pennsylvania Press.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-15)** Newstead, 1808

1. **[^](#cite_ref-16)** Thomas, Medwin (1824). *Conversations of Lord Byron: noted during a residence with his lordship*. p. 70f.

## Further reading

- Balfour, Henry (1897). ["Life History of an Aghori Fakir; with Exhibition of the Human Skull Used by Him as a Drinking Vessel, and Notes on the Similar Use of Skulls by Other Races"](https://zenodo.org/record/1449576). *The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland*. **26** (26). The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 26: 340–357. [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.2307/2842008](https://doi.org/10.2307%2F2842008). [JSTOR](/source/JSTOR_(identifier)) [2842008](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2842008).

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Skull cup](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_cup) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_cup?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.