One of the most frequent comments I hear about Minoan ceramics is how modern they look, how much they would be at home in any of our kitchens or dining rooms.

Most of us have an idea in our heads about what ancient pottery looks like. We've seen enough pictures of Greek and Roman cups, jars, and pots to know the vibe they have.

But Minoan ceramics don't match that vibe. Sure, they include some of the same familiar vessel shapes like the pithos (tall vase), rhyton (pitcher) and kantharos (two-handled footed cup). These all have Greek names even when they're found at Minoan sites, because archaeologists were already familiar with these shapes from Greek excavations. We don't know what the Minoans called any of them.

The shapes may be familiar, but the colors and painted designs are unique to Minoan art, from the bold black-white-red combo of Kamares ware to 3D decorations of dots and seashells to naturalistic paintings of animals and plants.

And then there are the teacups.

First of all, no, the Minoans didn't have black tea - or green tea or coffee. But they did make ceramic cups with a single looped handle, including the Kamares ware cups in the photo up top. And when archaeologists excavated the first of these vessels, they didn't have any Greek vessels to compare them to and name them after. The closest match was the modern teacup.

So that's what they called them.

These Minoan "teacups" range in size from what we might call demitasse all the way up to soup bowl size. Minoan potters made them in several different shapes and styles, some with straight sides, some with rounded sides, and some with fluted top edges. Some of them were made by incredibly skilled artisans who made the ceramic so thin, archaeologists call these cups "eggshell ware." The famed Vapheio gold cups found at a Mycenaean site in mainland Greece imitate the straight-sided Minoan ceramic teacup style.

What did the Minoans drink from their so-called teacups? I'm not aware of any residue analysis research, so I can't offer you any hard evidence. But I can offer some possibilities, based on what we know about the foods they had: water, herb tea, milk (cow, goat, and/or sheep), broth, soup, beer, mead, wine.

What would you drink out of a Minoan teacup?

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READERS, TAKE NOTE: This will be my last post on Witches & Pagans. I'm very grateful to Anne Niven for offering me this platform ten (!) years ago. The time has flown! But my responsibilities have expanded greatly in that decade, and I'm now doing my best to consolidate my writing so I'm not spread thin across multiple different platforms. I will continue writing Minoan blog posts, but after the end of the year, I'll be doing it on Substack: https://lauraidaeja.substack.com/   You can subscribe to just my Minoan-themed posts or to all of them (including Tarot, book reviews, and general ramblings) using the "Manage Subscription" feature on Substack. I hope to see you over there!