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African - Carved Ram's Horn Cup with Lions and Mounted Rider - Walters 7218
Summary
The exterior of this piece is intricately carved in low relief with a figure of a mounted nobleman and heraldic lions among leaf rinceaux. The cup terminates in a carved bust. This intriguing drinking cup is installed in the chamber of Wonders with objects from Asia and Africa. Seventeenth-century collectors often could not be sure where objects obtained from sea captians and traders actually came from. We don't know where this piece was made. Do you?
Drinking horns are known from Classical Antiquity, especially the Balkans, and remained in use for ceremonial purposes throughout the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period in some parts of Europe, notably in Germanic Europe, and in the Caucasus. Drinking horns remain an important accessory in the culture of ritual toasting in Georgia in particular, where they are known by the local name of kantsi. Drinking vessels made from glass, wood, ceramics or metal styled in the shape of drinking horns are also known from antiquity. The ancient Greek term for a drinking horn was simply keras (plural kerata, "horn"). To be distinguished from the drinking-horn proper is the rhyton (plural rhyta), a drinking-vessel made in the shape of a horn with an outlet at the pointed end.
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