Vessels like this small, hollow, bell-shaped cup from Israel were used for the medical treatment of cupping. The earliest records of the practice of cupping—placing heated cups on the skin to improve blood flow—were found in the Ebers Papyrus, an Egyptian medical document dating to 1500 B.C.E., and the Greek physician Hippocrates’s corpus of medical texts in 400 B.C.E. Archaeologists have also uncovered cupping vessels in China from 1000 B.C.E. Vessels used for cupping were made from a variety of materials, including bronze, horn, pottery and bamboo, and were typically shaped as balls or bells with diameters of 1 to 3 inches.
This bronze cupping glass came from Masada, a desert fortress in the Judean wilderness near the Dead Sea that was occupied by Jewish rebels during the First Jewish Revolt (66–73 C.E.). The glass was found in the destruction layer of 73 C.E.—when the Romans defeated the rebellion—with several coins inside, a clever hiding spot that remained concealed for nearly two millennia until Israeli archaeologist Yigael Yadin uncovered it in the 1960s. Amnon Ben-Tor suggests that the rebels may have been using this therapy during their confinement in the fortress.1 Another scholar who studied the cupping glass, however, believes it belonged to a Roman physician and was taken as loot by the rebels, who hid it with the accompanying shekels.2
There were two practices of cupping: dry and wet. For dry cupping, the vessel was heated over a flame or in hot, scented oil and then placed on an individual’s skin, normally on the back, with the hollow opening against the skin. As the cups cooled, they became suctioned to the skin because of the low pressure area that was created. For wet cupping, small incisions were made in the skin, and the heated cups were placed over them. As they cooled, blood was drawn out from the incisions. This process was meant to help the body heal itself by improving blood flow and purging any impurities. Although painless, cupping left a mark on the skin—a red circle where the cup was set. This therapy is still used today as a form of alternative medicine around the globe—from Beijing to Beverly Hills—although the preferred materials for the vessels are no longer bronze but glass and plastic.
A. Medical instrument
B. Cooking pot lid
C. Hanging light fixture
D. Musical instrument
E. Byzantine Christmas ornament
064 Answer: (A) Medical instrument
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Lawrence E. Stager, “Chariot Fittings from Philistine Ashkelon,” in Seymour Gitin, J. Edward Wright and J.P. Dessel, eds, Confronting the Past: Archaeological and Historical Essays on Ancient Israel in Honor of William G. Dever (Winona Lake, IN:Eisenbrauns, 2006), pp. 169–176. See also Trude Dothan and Alexandra S. Drenka, “Linchpins Revisited,” in J. David Schloen, ed., Exploring the Longue Durée: Essays in Honor of Lawrence E. Stager (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009), pp. 97–101.
2.
Malka Hershkovitz, “A Roman Cupping Vessel from Masada,” Eretz Israel 20, Jerusalem (1989), pp. 275–277 (in Hebrew; English summary pp. 204*–205*).
