Warren Cup

The Warren Cup is a silver drinking cup, 11 cm high, now in the British Museum, with two depictions of gay male sex. It is thought to date from the 1st century AD, and takes its name from the gay collector Edward Perry Warren who bought it in 1911 for £2,000.

The cup is said to have been found in Battir, near Jerusalem, together with coins of the Emperor Claudius.

Because of the erotic nature of the imagery on the cup, the British Museum, along with other museums, originally declined to purchase the cup, but by 1999 attitudes had changed, and the British Museum felt able to buy it, for £1.8 million.

The two sides of the cup show two acts of anal intercourse: in one an older, bearded man is penetrating a younger man while a boy looks on from behind a curtain; in the other a younger man penetrates a boy.