The brutal ritual of turning fallen enemies into drinking vessels
In short: In the 9th century, the Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros I met a grisly end. After his army was caught in an undefended valley, the Bulgarian Khan Krum transformed the Emperor's skull into a silver-lined cup. But this gruesome practice of cranial craftsmanship is much older than the Roman Empire.
The 9th century was a period of extreme volatility for the Roman Empire, which faced simultaneous threats from the Arabs, Franks, Bulgaries, and the Rus. In 802, Emperor Nikephoros I attempted to stabilize the state by rebuilding the treasury and professionalizing the cavalry. However, his military campaign into Bulgaria ended in disaster when he camped in an undefended valley and was killed. In a display of ultimate conquest, Khan Krum lined Nikephoros's skull with silver to create a drinking goblet.
While this event captures the imagination, the manufacture of skull-cups is a practice rooted in deep prehistory. Recent findings by Silvia Bello of the London Natural History Museum have uncovered the oldest recorded skull-cups in Gough’s Cave, located in England's Cheddar Gorge. These specimens, dating back 14,700 years, were crafted by the Magdalenian culture—a group of prehistoric people who inhabited Western Europe following the last ice age.
The precision required for such objects suggests a highly controlled process. Analysis of the bone reveals that makers used flint tools to remove flesh and carefully struck the facial bones in clusters to preserve the dome-shaped vault of the skull. This delicate technique, which avoids breaking the cranial vault, has been identified in similar finds across France, Spain, and Germany. Evidence from the cave suggests these tools were part of a broader pattern of butchery, as human remains in the cave bear marks similar to those found on animal remains, leading researchers to suggest the possibility of cannibalism.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: The Emperor Whose Skull Became a Cup: Rome's Deadliest Century
- Also: Prehistoric Brits made the world’s earliest skull-cups
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