In modern-day Austria, in a cemetery site, investigators have found small, cattle-headed drinking cups with built-in straws. This isn’t too surprising – feeding cups are found in most places where cups appear; they are useful for weaning children and feeding the sick. Some Greek and Egyptian examples are richly decorated, and many cultures made little cups with whimsical animal shapes. But the sippy cups from Vösendorf have human feet.
Where they are found
- Vösendorf, Austria
- From Urnfield culture, categorized as Hallstatt A, c. 1300 BCE
How they were made
- Built by hand, not on a wheel
- Small (less than 4 in/10 cm tall) cups with integrated straws
- Simple cattle heads opposite the straw end
- Only 2 feet, shaped like human feet
- Kilns were rare; firing was probably in a shallow pit piled with a material like wood
My copies
• About the size of the originals (under 4 in / 10 cm tall)
• Made with a dark-colored commercial stoneware
• Pinch-pot body with hand-modeled features
• Burnished (polished with a stone)
• Some dipped in slip to test surface treatments
Modern Choices
• Made with a dark-colored commercial stoneware
• Fired in an electric kiln
• Fired much hotter than originals, to make them sturdier for travel
References
Dunne J, Rebay-Salisbury K, Salisbury RB, et al. Milk of ruminants in ceramic baby bottles from prehistoric child graves. Nature. 2019;574:246–248. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1572-x
Rebay-Salisbury K. Breast is best – and are there alternatives? Feeding babies and young children in prehistoric Europe. Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien. 2017;147:13–29.
Rebay-Salisbury K, Dunne J, Salisbury RB, et al. Feeding Babies at the Beginnings of Urbanization in Central Europe. Childhood in the Past. 2021;14(2):102–124. https://doi.org/10.1080/17585716.2021.1956051
Title image credit: Enver-Hirsch/Wien Museum. This photo was widely used for the general audience articles about Dunne et al. (2019).
Cutaway illustration credit: K Rebay-Salisbury (2017).