Drinking Cup

900–1519

Drinking Cup, 900–1519. Mexico, Cholula(?), Mixteca-Puebla style. Pottery with burnished, colored slips; overall: 12.5 x 8.5 cm (4 15/16 x 3 3/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. James C. Gruener 1990.212 After about the year 800, several Mixtec kingdoms developed in the regions known today as Oaxaca and Puebla in southern Mexico. Mixtec artists excelled in creating small-scale, fine works of art, including polychrome pottery. A Mixtec noble may have used this well-painted goblet to drink chocolate or pulque, a fermented beverage made from the sap of the maguey cactus. Pulque, once the drink of gods and rulers, is now available in a can.