t to turn aside into more
artificial channels. The invention of the potter's art (see CERAMICS),
where the plastic nature of the raw material renders it capable of
infinite changes of form, gave rise to types of vessels having no
obvious or necessary relation to the productions of nature. In Britain
and in northern Europe generally, the interments of the races of the
Neolithic and Bronze Ages have furnished vessels of pottery of a
beaker-like form, to which the name of "drinking-cups" has been given.
It must be confessed that the evidence for attributing such a use to
them is slender, and mainly consists of the fact that their thin lips
would render them better adapted for the purpose than the other pottery
vessels found with them, some of which, on equally slight grounds, have
been called food vessels. The general use and acceptance of the term by
two generations of archaeologists is, however, an adequate reason for a
passing mention in this place. In the later prehistoric times of Europe
vessels of gold, bronze and other materials, including amber, were made,
sometimes of elegant forms, and would seem to have been used as drinking
vessels; still, this is again an assumption, though a fairly probable
one. A small gold cup with handle was found in a barrow at Rillaton,
Cornwall; one of amber of a similar form was found at Hove, and a third
of shale near Honiton. All of these doubtless may be referred to the
Bronze Age.

New forms found by Schliemann.

Schliemann found many drinking vessels in his exploration of the
superimposed cities of Troy. A pretty form is that found in the first
city. It is of clay, and closely resembles an early Victorian tea cup on
a high foot. This form is of interest, as Schliemann discovered the same
both at Tiryns and Mycenae, five from the latter site being of gold,
while the type also occurs from Ialysus in Rhodes in association with
bronze swords. This Trojan cup was found at a depth of 50 ft. below the
present surface and about 18 ft. below the stratum of what Schliemann
claimed to be the Homeric Troy. In his second city appears a different
type of ware, somewhat fantastic in form, one vessel being in the form
of a sow, while others foreshadow the _crater_ and _amphora_ of later
and more familiar Greek wares.

But the drinking vessel to which Schliemann draws most attention is the
tall cup of a trumpet form furnished with two earlike loop handles. This
curious and original type occ