In Oxford, they drank from a cup made of a human skull - a new book exposes colonial cruelty
Kyiv • UNN
Oxford scientists drank from a cup made from a human skull until 2015. The skull likely belonged to a slave from the Caribbean and was donated to the college by a former eugenicist student.
Oxford scientists have for decades used a bowl made from a human skull at official events at Worcester College. This is reported by The Guardian, writes UNN.
Details
According to the media, according to Professor Dan Hicks, curator of the Department of World Archeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University, a bowl made of a sawn and polished skull, decorated with silver, was regularly used at official dinners at Worcester College, Oxford until 2015.
Hicks' new book notes that the skull was used to serve wine, and later hot chocolate.
The archaeologist said that growing concern among students and guests put an end to the ritual in the alumni lounge. In 2019, the college invited Hicks to investigate the origin of the skull and how it turned into what he calls "some kind of sick tableware".
Hicks said that debates about the legacy of colonialism usually focused on how prominent Britons who benefited from it, such as Cecil Rhodes or Edward Colston , were immortalized by statues, objects or institutions that bear their names.
But he wanted to show how the identities of victims of colonial rule were often erased from history, because racist ideas of British cultural and white supremacy did not consider them worthy of attention.
"Dehumanization and the destruction of identities were part of the violence," the archaeologist added.
Hicks found no records of the person from whose remains the skull cup was made, although radiocarbon dating showed that the skull was about 225 years old. Its size and circumstantial evidence indicate that it was brought from the Caribbean and may have belonged to a slave.
But information about the British owners of the cup was well documented. According to information, the cup was donated to Worcester College in 1946 by former student George Pitt-Rivers, whose name is engraved on the cup itself. As a eugenicist, he was interned by the British government during World War II for his support of fascist leader Oswald Mosley.
The bowl was part of a lesser-known second private collection of his grandfather, British soldier and Victorian-era archaeologist Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers, who founded the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1884.
The elder Pitt Rivers bought the skull cup at a Sotheby's auction that same year. The description stated that it then had a wooden stand with an inlaid shilling of Queen Victoria at the bottom. Silver hallmarks indicate that it was made in 1838, the year of her coronation.
The seller was Bernhard Smith, a lawyer and graduate of Oriel College, Oxford, who mainly collected weapons and armor. Hicks suggested that he received it as a gift from his father, who served in the Royal Navy in the Caribbean.
After receiving scientific and legal advice, the governing body of the college decided that the skull cup should be stored in its archive "in a respectful manner, where access to it will be forever prohibited".