Two contra-veleno cups made from Terra Sigillata Melitensis

Abstract

This paper is part of a Monograph on Terra melitensis or rock excavated from St. Paul's Grotto where the Apostle of the Gentiles is said to have spent his three months enforced stay on the Island following his shipwreck in A.D.60. The Cave is traditionally thought to possess the property of rock regeneration and its limestone was said to be of great medicinal value in many illnesses and to possess the miraculous property of averting or neutralising the effects of poison. Cups made from this powdered limestone were consequently often referred to as Contra-Veleno Cups. Only two such specimens have been traced so far and these are both described and figured in this paper. One of the cups, now forming part of the Sloane Collection in the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities at the British Museum, London, has fossil palatal teeth and crinoid ossicles embedded in its inside base. The second specimen, which is being described and figured for the first time, belonged to the "Giuseppe Monti 1733 Collection", and is now preserved at the Museo Cappellini, Istituto di Geologia e Paleontologia dell'Universita' di Bologna, Italy.