Unfortunately for the rhinoceros, diverse societies ranging from Inquisition Spain to Ming China converged on the folk belief that the singular horn of the rhino had special powers. The past 1,500 years have witnessed men slaughter species of rhinoceros into increasingly circumscribed habitats for their pointed prize. Untethered from the body, the horn has long been a coveted status symbol and folk remedy. The rich and powerful–clergy in Spain, nobility in China, and royalty in Abyssinia–all protected themselves from poison by drinking their wine out of rhino horn cups.
Perhaps the shared belief in the powers of the rhinoceros horn comes from a common origin. If it does, it is an ancient one. The 3rd century Greek Philosopher Philostratus wrote about Indians who used the horn against poisoning:
Their body is white, their head dark red, their eyes bluish, and they have a horn in their forehead about a cubit in length. Those who drink out of cups made from it are proof against convulsions, epilepsy, and even poison, provided that before or after having taken it they drink some wine or water or other liquid out of these cups.
The Chinese of the Tang dynasty believed that rhino cups cured poison as early as 600 AD. While no rhinoceroses wander mainland China today, they did at one time. They have since been hunted out of the land. The demand for the horn was high enough that the Chinese looked elsewhere and had developed trade with Africa by the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). One benefit of this trade was that African rhinos had 2 horns which were larger than the horns of Asian rhinoceros species.
The cups that the Chinese made from their rhino horn were ornate and complex. Craftsmen in Suzhou, Guangzhou, and Zhangzhou spent their days creating these intricate goblets. Dragons, trees, and entire stories adorned the goblets that would become dark like sepia with time.
Ye Gongchuo, a high ranking official at the end of the Qing dynasty and an eventual supporter of Sun Yatsen in 1911, noted the cultural fashion towards rhinoceros horn cups. The official wrote that people collected rhinoceros leather during the Song dynasty, while horn cups became popular in the Ming dynasty, likely due to the increase in public feasting. By his own time during the final Qing dynasty, the material was not so much in fashion.
Centuries of Chinese emperors coveted the rhinoceros cups for their medicinal value. Some Chinese even believed the cups could improve the flavor and smell of wine. (Liu Yue)
On the other side of the contiguous world sits the Iberian Peninsula. Many noble Spaniards living during the peak of Catholic influence treasured rhinoceros horn cups as closely as they did the bones or relics of dead saints.
A woodcutting by Albrecht Dürer recognizable even to a modern audience depicted the arrival of the first Rhino in Europe–a gift to the King of Portugal in 1515. Interest in the bizarre beast, embellished in the woodcarving, inspired the consumption of rhinoceros horn throughout the 16th century.
The exoticness of the rhinoceros’s image, above all else its horn, were not the only factors that influenced rhino horn consumption. The mythical unicorn, monocerote or selicornio in Spanish, had made its way into the layperson’s system of belief in the Christian world. This creature would heal anything it touched. Exposed to its lone horn, poison would immediately neutralize into water.
Noble women wore small shards of rhino horn on necklaces, easily dipped into any food as a simple tester for poison. Cups were made from the horn and disappeared quickly as individuals took preventative nibbles out of the chalice while enjoying their wine. According to Martinho, one 1529 Spanish cookbook explicitly states that the horn was suitable for the cups of princes thanks to its notable antidotal ability. All nobles held these cups in high esteem and kept them on display next to bezoar stones or relics of dead saints. In addition to the rhinoceros, narwhals were hunted as unicorns and cups were also hewn from their ivory.
Appropriately, the greatest kingdom in the Horn of Africa was an avid consumer of rhinoceros horn. Since the 16th century, rhinoceros horn cups were used at feasts to serve Ethiopian honey wine, tej, to worthy guests. These cups could detect poison and were explicitly signs of the king’s favor. They earned the name king’s cup.
Tej was a sumptuary good for much of Ethiopia’s history. Peasants provided the monarchy with a honey tax, and the government would hold a monopoly over the production of honey wine. This wine was measured in units of horns, as it was traditionally consumed out of wanča or horns.
The source and size of a wanča represented the drinker’s power in Ethiopian society. Normal peasants might drink from cow horns, which did not last long and supposedly imparted a bad flavor on the drink. Water buffalo horns were reserved for nobility, the largest of which went to soldiers. Finally, the rhinoceros was the king’s cup and could be given to courtiers according to their worthiness. Griaule writes about the respective values of these cups: [cow horn] is worth a maximum of one to two talers. Buffalo horn, on the contrary, constitutes a luxury item that can be worth ten to twenty thalers. A horn cup of rhinoceros reached fifty thalers.
Cow and water buffalo horns were made into cups by soaking the horn in water and fitting it into increasingly large molds. The bottom of these cups was usually wooden. Rhinoceros horn, on the other hand, could be formed into an impeccable cup on a hand spun lathe by a wanča antaç or goblet turner. Rhinoceros horn cups were typically not decorated with images, as their value came from accentuating the material itself.
The horn was known to detect poison and cure other ailments like heart disease. The emperor Menelik who ruled into the early 1900s was so paranoid about poisoning that he deemed his taster worthy of the title Ras or Lord. The king was seen having servant poor tej onto their own hands before filling his cup. Menelik taxed his subjects in rhinoceros horn as well, ensuring he had enough to bestow upon nobles and consume himself for medicinal purposes.
Rhinoceros horns are an unlikely object to span Asian, African, and European drinking habits. The animals are unique, and their horns grow in a way that no other animal’s do, but they are primarily keratin, calcium, and melanin. There is nothing special about these horns, and we can safely say that they will not detect or cure poison. Still, it is remarkable that humans have continued to believe in the medicinal powers of the horn for nearly 2,000 years.
The rhinoceros horn cup, elaborate and engraved in China, showcased and nibbled on in Spain, and lathed and bestowed upon Lords in Ethiopia, must gain its value from the rarity of its source. An entire behemoth must be felled in order to obtain the prize of one or two horns. In this regard, they represented the strength of the rhinoceros as a status symbol and the invincibility of the rhinoceros as a folk medicine. Ironically, the very reasons the horn cups were coveted were proven inconsequential in comparison to men’s singular desire to kill the rhinoceros. Let us pour one out for the many rhinoceros who died–just don’t use a rhino horn cup.
Griaule, Marcel. “Moules et tour à travailler la corne (Abyssinie).” Journal des Africanistes 11.1 (1941): 201-207.
Harten, Erin C. “Rhinoceros Horn Libation Cup.” (2017).
Hippos Monokeras. UNICORN (Hippos Monokeras) – One-Horned Horse of Greek & Roman Legend. (n.d.). Retrieved April 27, 2022, from https://www.theoi.com/Thaumasios/HippoiMonokerata.html
Lyons, Diane. “Tej Consumption and Production in the Commensal Politics and Political Economy of States in Northern Highland Ethiopia.” International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2021): 1-32.
Martinho, Bruno A. “Rhino Horns and Scraps of Unicorn: The Sense of Touch and the Consumption of Rhino Horns in Early Modern Iberia.” Luxury 8.1 (2021): 77-103.
Muehlbauer, Mikael. “The Rhinoceros-Horn Beakers of Menelik II of Ethiopia: Materiality, Ritual, and Kingship.” West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History & Material Culture, vol. 26, no. 1, Spring/Summer2019 2019, pp. 61–79. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1086/704646
Schoenberger, Guido. “A Goblet of Unicorn Horn.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 9, no. 10, 1951, pp. 284–88, https://doi.org/10.2307/3258091. Accessed 20 Apr. 2022.
Yue, Lie, translated by Edward Luper, “The Chinese Art of Rhinoceros Horn Carving,” https://www.academia.edu/37612400/The_Chinese_Art_of_Rhinoceros_Horn_Carving.
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