Drinking horn

A drinking horn is the horn of a bovid used as a cup. Drinking horns are known from Classical Antiquity, especially the Balkans, and remained in use for ceremonial purposes throughout the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period in some parts of Europe, notably in Germanic Europe, and in the Caucasus. Drinking horns remain an important accessory in the culture of ritual toasting in Georgia in particular, where they are known by the local name of kantsi.^[2]

Cups made from glass, metal, pottery, and in the shape of drinking horns are also known since antiquity. The ancient Greek term for a drinking horn was simply keras (plural kerata, "horn").^[3] To be distinguished from the drinking-horn proper is the rhyton (plural rhyta), a drinking-vessel made very loosely in the shape of a horn, sometimes with an outlet at the pointed end.