A skull cup is a drinking vessel or eating bowl made from an inverted human calvaria that has been cut away from the rest of the skull. The use of a human skull as a drinking 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 of the Eurasian Steppe.
The oldest directly dated skull cup [1] at 14,700 cal BP (12,750 BC) comes from Gough's Cave, Somerset, England. Skulls used as containers can be distinguished from plain skulls by exhibiting cut-marks from flesh removal and working to produce a regular lip. [2]
The oldest record in the Chinese annals of the skull-cup tradition dates from the last years of the Spring and Autumn period, when the victors of the Battle of Jinyang in 453 BC lacquered the skull of their enemy into a winecup. [3] Later, the Records of the Grand Historian recorded the practice among the ancient Xiongnu of present-day Mongolia. Laoshang (or Jizhu), son of the Xiongnu chieftain Modu Chanyu, killed the king of the 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 in Han shu , [5] the drinking cup made from the skull of the Yuezhi king was later used when the Xiongnu concluded a treaty with two Han ambassadors during the reign of 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 , and is used in Buddhist tantric and 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 are sometimes depicted holding a kapala full of human blood. Many carved and elaborately mounted kapalas survive, mostly in Tibet.
In 1510, Shah Ismail I defeated and slew Muhammad Shaybani, founder of the Shaybanid Empire in present-day 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, a famous feudal lord from the Sengoku period, drank sake from the skulls of his defeated enemies warlords. [6] [7] However, it has been claimed in recent years that it may be a creation. [8] The highly reliable contemporaneous historical document Shinchō Kōki and the secondary source Azai Sandai Ki state that Nobunaga unveiled the skulls of Asakura Yoshikage, Azai Hisamasa and 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. [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 the Magdalenian culture of the Upper Paleolithic of Europe, spanning around ~23,000–13,500 years ago produced skull cups, which is associated with cannibalistic practices. [10]
According to Herodotus' Histories and Strabo's Geographica , the Scythians killed their enemies and made their skulls into drinking cups.
Edouard Chavannes quotes Livy to illustrate the ceremonial use of skull cups by the Boii, a Celtic tribe in Europe, in 216 BC. [11]
According to Paul the Deacon's Historia Langobardorum , when the Lombard king Alboin defeated the Gepids, the hereditary enemies of his people, in 567 AD, he then slew their new king Cunimund, fashioned a drinking-cup from his skull, and took his daughter Rosamund as a wife. [12]
Khan Krum of the First Bulgarian Empire was said by Theophanes the Confessor, Joannes Zonaras, the Manasses Chronicle , and others, to have made a jeweled cup from the skull of the Byzantine emperor Nicephorus I (811 AD) after killing him in the Battle of Pliska.
The Kievan Rus' Primary Chronicle reports that the skull of Svyatoslav I of Kiev was made into a chalice by the Pecheneg Khan Kurya 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 the skull of Baldwin I of Constantinople was made into a drinking cup by the Tsar Kaloyan of Bulgaria (c. 1205).
According to legend, after the pirate Blackbeard was killed and beheaded in 1718, his skull was made into a drinking cup.
In 19th century Britain, the poet Lord Byron used a skull his gardener had found at Newstead 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 was demonasteried. 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 with claret, was passed around "in imitation of the 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. [14]
Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese daimyō and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods. He was the Tenka-bito and regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. Sometimes referred as the "Demon Daimyō" and "Demon King of the Sixth Heaven".
This article concerns the period 129 BC – 120 BC.
The Yuezhi (Chinese: 月氏; pinyin: Yuèzhī, Ròuzhī or Rùzhī; Wade–Giles: Yüeh4-chih1, Jou4-chih1 or Ju4-chih1;) were an ancient people first described in Chinese histories as nomadic pastoralists living in an arid grassland area in the western part of the modern Chinese province of Gansu, during the 1st millennium BC. After a major defeat at the hands of the Xiongnu in 176 BC, the Yuezhi split into two groups migrating in different directions: the Greater Yuezhi (Dà Yuèzhī 大月氏) and Lesser Yuezhi (Xiǎo Yuèzhī 小月氏). This started a complex domino effect that radiated in all directions and, in the process, set the course of history for much of Asia for centuries to come.
The Sengoku period Battle of Anegawa occurred near Lake Biwa in Ōmi Province, Japan, between the allied forces of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu, against the combined forces of the Azai and Asakura clans. It is notable as the first battle that involved the alliance between Nobunaga and Ieyasu, and it saw Nobunaga's prodigious use of firearms.
The Battle of Nagashino was a famous battle in Japanese history, fought in 1575 at Nagashino in Mikawa Province. The allied forces of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu (38,000) fought against Takeda Katsuyori's forces (15,000) and the allied forces won a crushing victory over the Takeda clan. As a result, Oda Nobunaga's unification of Japan was seen as certain.
Azai Hisamasa was a son of Azai Sukemasa and the second head of the Azai clan.
Azai Nagamasa was a Japanese daimyō of the Sengoku period known as the brother-in-law and enemy of Oda Nobunaga. Nagamasa was head of the Azai clan seated at Odani Castle in northern Ōmi Province and married Nobunaga's sister Oichi in 1564, fathering her three daughters – Yodo-dono, Ohatsu, and Oeyo – who became prominent figures in their own right.
Nōhime, Nohime, also known as Kichō (帰蝶) was a Japanese woman from the Sengoku period to the Azuchi–Momoyama period. She was the daughter of Saitō Dōsan, a Sengoku Daimyō of the Mino Province, and the lawful wife of Oda Nobunaga, a Sengoku Daimyō of the Owari Province.
Nobunaga's Ambition is a series of turn-based grand strategy role-playing simulation video games. The original game was one of the first in its genre, being released in March 1983 by the Japanese video game developer Koei. Nobunaga's Ambition takes place during the Sengoku period of feudal Japan. The player is tasked with achieving the ultimate goal of warlord Oda Nobunaga: the conquest and unification of Japan. Selecting Oda Nobunaga is optional, however, as the player is also able to choose from a variety of other regional daimyōs of the time.
The siege of Mount Hiei was a battle of the Sengoku period of Japan fought between Oda Nobunaga and the sōhei of the monasteries of Mount Hiei near Kyoto on September 30, 1571. It is said that Oda Nobunaga killed all the monks, scholars, priests, woman and children that lived on the mountain in this battle. However, recent excavations have pointed out that many of the facilities may have been abolished before this and the destruction was less than some historical sources indicate.
The 1570 Siege of Kanegasaki occurred in 16th century Japan, during Oda Nobunaga's struggle against the Asakura clan in Echizen province, which was allied with Azai Nagamasa.
Gō: Himetachi no Sengoku is a 2011 Japanese historical drama television series and the 50th NHK taiga drama. It was written for television by Kumiko Tabuchi, based on her own novel of the same name. The drama stars Juri Ueno in the title role, with Rie Miyazawa and Asami Mizukawa as Cha-cha and Hatsu respectively, the sisters of Gō.
Rokkaku Yoshikata was a samurai head of the Rokkaku clan during Japan's Sengoku period. He was shugo (governor) and later daimyō of an area of southern Ōmi province, he served as castellan of Kannonji Castle. He later became a Buddhist monk, under the name Shōtei.
Laoshang, whose personal name was Jiyu, was a Chanyu of the Xiongnu Empire who succeeded his father Modu Chanyu in 174 BCE. Under his reign, the Xiongnu Empire continued to expand against the Yuezhi and the Xiongnu thus gained control of the Hexi Corridor.
A kapala is a skull cup used as a ritual implement (bowl) in both Hindu Tantra and Tibetan Buddhist Tantra (Vajrayana). Especially in Tibetan Buddhism, kapalas are often carved or elaborately mounted with precious metals and jewels.
Kawajiri Hidetaka was a Japanese samurai warrior during the Sengoku period, he was served Oda Nobuhide and was one of the vassals of Oda Nobunaga. He was the first samurai in the "Kuro-horo-shu" elite troops selected from Nobunaga's aides, and later served as an assistant to Oda Nobutada, Nobunaga's eldest son. He was also the lord of Mino Iwamura, and later became the lord of Kai province. There are few documents related to Hidetaka and Kawajiri clan, and many of his traces are recorded in Shinchō Kōki, Koyo Gunkan, and records related to Tokugawa clan.
Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings is a Japanese anime television series based on the Capcom video game series of the same name made by Production I.G, planned and written by Yasuyuki Muto, and chiefly directed by Itsuro Kawasaki. The series started broadcast on Japan's Chubu-Nippon Broadcasting (CBC) station in April 2009; other networks broadcast the episodes within a few days, including TBS, MBS, and Animax. Its first season made its North American television debut on the Funimation Channel on November 16, 2010.
The siege of Inabayama Castle of 1567 was the final battle in Oda Nobunaga's campaign to defeat the Saitō clan in their mountaintop castle and conquer Mino Province, Japan.
Nobunaga Concerto is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Ayumi Ishii. It has been serialized in Shogakukan's Monthly Shōnen Sunday since May 2009, with its chapters collected in twenty-two tankōbon volumes as of February 2022.
The Knife and the Sword is a Japanese manga series written by Mitsuru Nishimura and illustrated by Takuro Kajikawa. It was noted to be adapted into a Japanese television drama series in January 2013. The manga was serialized in Houbunsha's Weekly Manga Times on a bi-weekly basis from March 18, 2011 to April 12, 2024.