Oxford academics drank from a chalice made from a human skull for decades, a book that explores the violent colonial history of looted human remains has revealed.
The skull-cup, fashioned from a sawn-off and polished braincase adorned with a silver rim and stand, was used regularly at formal dinners at Worcester College, Oxford, until 2015, according to Prof Dan Hicks, the curator of world archaeology at the university’s Pitt Rivers Museum.
Hicks, whose forthcoming book, Every Monument Will Fall, traces the “shameful history of the skull”, said the cup was also used to serve chocolates after it began to leak wine.
The archaeologist said mounting disquiet among fellows and guests put an end to the senior common room ritual and, in 2019, the college invited Hicks to investigate the skull’s origins, and how it became what he calls “some sick variety of tableware”.
Hicks said debates about the legacy of colonialism usually focused on how the prominent Britons who profited from it, such as Cecil Rhodes or Edward Colston, had been memorialised by statues, objects or institutions bearing their names.
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