Irascible, fire-breathing mule.

Lion’s head rhyton, 1550-1500 B.C.

From Mycenae

Stemmed Kylix with Cuttlefish

Greek, Mycenaean, 14th century BCE (Late Helladic IIIA2)

Jewish henna cup, Iran, early 20th century

"Beautifully decorated Roman wine cup with cameo. The walls of the glass vessel show either two different chariot drivers, or the same charioteer in two different shots during the race. Object dated to the 1st century CE." 

Relief decorated silver cup, Roman, 1st century BC - 1st century AD

from the J. Paul Getty Museum

Gnathian kantaros

* 350-270 BCE

* Medelhavsmuseet, Stockholm

Stockholm, November 2023

Roman cup

Gnathian "coffee cup"

c. 350-275 BCE

Medelhavsmuseet, Stockholm

Stockholm, November 2023

2 silver cups, part of the so-called Boscoreale treasure, buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.

Silver skeleton cups from the Boscoreale treasure, skeletons of poets and Greek philosophers represent an invitation to enjoy the present

Roman, late first century BC - first half of the first century AD

Dionysus, aka Bacchus, was the Greek god of freedom, fun, and ecstasy. His worshippers engaged in wild festivals of drinking and sex. He represented the undermining of rules and authority, an invitation to abandon the strictures of ordinary life and let loose. 

Here’s an early Greek depiction of Dionysus, holding a cup of wine:

Sometimes, Dionysus was portrayed as being younger and more clean-shaven:

The god’s cult spread far and wide as Alexander the Great’s armies sprinkled Greek culture all over Western Asia. Depictions of Dionysus, including this intimidating head, which dates to the 300s or 400s, have been found as far away as modern Pakistan, the far eastern edge of Greek influence. I love this one — the god seems to peer right through you.

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#TwoForTuesday:

The KX Painter Drinking cup (skyphos) with confronting lions Archaic Period, c. 585–570 BCE Greece, Attica, Athens Ceramic, Black Figure, H 11.2 cm (4 7/16 in.) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 97.366

"On the obverse, two lions stand confronted with their chests touching and their faces turned backwards towards the vessel’s handles. Each of the lions is rendered in black paint. Their manes, mouths, chests and bellies are all detailed with red paint, while the locks of hair along their necks alternate in color between red and black. Details of the lions’ anatomy are articulated with incisions. Their ferocity is implied especially by their open mouths, which display their large teeth and projecting tongues. On reverse, a complex interlocking lotus and palmette motif fills the entire pictorial field. The rim and handles of the vessel are decorated with thin linear bands. The lions and the lotus and palmette motif stand atop a red bounding line, below which is a pair of gridded lines and another red bounding line, which is in turn bordered by a ray pattern that emanates from the cup’s foot."

Roman Silver Goblet 4th century AD

With flaring mouth and slender silhouette, with a central band of repoussée floral decoration on the waisted body; the base with concave edged tongues above the knopped pedestal stem and conical foot. H. 18.5 cm.

Do you have football paraphernalia in your house? Maybe a mug shaped like a helmet or a poster of a gridiron hero? Well, Romans had stuff like this in their houses, too.

Here’s a glass dating from around the year 50 CE, featuring eight gladiators in battle. Their names are written around the rim of the glass: Gamus, Merops, Calamus, Hermes, Tetraites, Prudes, Spiculus, and Columbus. These seem to be the names of real people — museum curators speculate that this may have been a souvenir cup not so different from the ones we might bring home from the stadium today.

Here’s another, even more remarkable gladiator cup. It’s a very rare example of something that might have been quite common — a vividly painted depiction of a fighter on glass. The fragility of both glass and paint meant that objects like this very rarely survived to the present day. But this one did — despite the fact that it was painted in Egypt but found halfway across Asia in Afghanistan.

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An Egyptian faience chalice, 900s-600s BCE. It depicts various agricultural activities; on the top, a man wrangles animals, while on the bottom people navigate the marshlands of Egypt.

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Mycenaean cup

* 1500 BCE (circa)

* British Museum

London, July 2022

roman drinking cups. denmark. 2nd to 3rd century CE.