Britons' skull mugs and the "Cheddar Man". So now we know.

[Geoff]

Couldn't they have just been using the skulls because they were convenient, sturdy, and readily available? Why were they necessarily used in rituals?

Also-- How did they plug up the hole in the bottom of the skull? Does anyone know what they used?

I suspect they turned them upside down...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I drank from a human skull at a voodoun ceremony on the Dominican Republic back around 1975. The skull belonged to the priest's grandfather. (This was not a "tourist show", I was invited by a guy who worked at the Naval Base in Puerto Rico.)

[hadespussercats]

Couldn't they have just been using the skulls because they were convenient, sturdy, and readily available? Why were they necessarily used in rituals?

Also-- How did they plug up the hole in the bottom of the skull? Does anyone know what they used?

I suspect they turned them upside down...

Huh. That'd be smart. Funny how I couldn't picture inverting the face as the right answer.

[Berthold]

Like this. Depending on the time, with or without metal.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

Frankly, I'd be offended if my skull wasn't converted into a tankard after my death.

[Svartalf]

Lazy slobs... the right way to make a skull cup is not to saw off the bowl over the orbital ridge and overturn it, it's to saw off only the very crown (which can be a shallow bol of its own), line the inside with a liquid friendly material (so the liquid won't slop out of all the holes), say unleaded pewter, stick a weighted support through the foramen magnum, and decorate so you get the full experience of drinking from a skull

[Clinton Huxley]

Lazy slobs... the right way to make a skull cup is not to saw off the bowl over the orbital ridge and overturn it, it's to saw off only the very crown (which can be a shallow bol of its own), line the inside with a liquid friendly material (so the liquid won't slop out of all the holes), say unleaded pewter, stick a weighted support through the foramen magnum, and decorate so you get the full experience of drinking from a skull

Trust the French to devise pretentious skull cups ...

[Svartalf]

Oh, yeah, those were brits, so 'lazy slobs' was actually a compliment rather than what they actually deserved.

[Clinton Huxley]

The French no doubt had to drink out of the skulls of their relatives. No chance of a Frenchman procuring the skull of an enemy.

[FBM]

[Svartalf]

The French no doubt had to drink out of the skulls of their relatives. No chance of a Frenchman procuring the skull of an enemy.

Actually, French made tools have been found in Scotland and Poland and there's evidence of an extensive trade network for French men of the time to buy saxon and German skulls from other enemies of those blights on mankind

[Clinton Huxley]

I wonder if some ancestor of Steve Jobs came up with the iSkull - 30% thinner bone, 22% greater capacity and very, very shiny...

[JimC]

A skull full of neat gin...

Skoll!

[Clinton Huxley]

A skull full of neat gin...

Skoll!

I can see an ancient JimC wearing a cardigan of shrunken skulls held together with twine...