If you think disposable cup are a late innovation , cogitate again . mankind have head off doing the dishes for millennia . A new exposition at the British Museum in London will soon showcase an ancient corpse cupful next to a more mod paper cupful .
The cup was made on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea around 1,700 - 1,600 BCE . It was a product of the Minoan civilization , one of the first advanced civilization in Europe . The cups have been find in high concentration at internet site across the islands , and for this reason , they are believed to have been single - use . After serving vino , they would be throw out in large number in a single go .
“ hoi polloi may be very surprised to know that disposable , single - use cups are not the invention of our modernistic consumerist society , but in fact can be describe back thousands of years , ” Julia Farley , Centennial State - curator of the exhibition , say in a press affirmation . “ Three and a half thousand years ago , the Minoans were using them for a very like reason to us today : to serve drink at party . The only divergence is the material . With ceramic being a higher position cloth to us now , it seems strange to throw them away after just one use . But like plastic today , clay was pronto uncommitted , cheap to get , well-to-do to mould . But also like plastic , clay stay in the flat coat for many , many years . ”
Despite our technology , some of the mode humans cogitate and behave have remain unchanged since we first evolved asHomo sapiens , fromlewd graffiti in Pompeiito disposable cup .
The Minoan cupful will be display alongside a mount composition cupful from Air India from the nineties , as well as a fishing basket made from discarded credit card that wash up on a beach in Guam . The maker , Anthony Guerrero , want to comment on the level of pliant defilement in his local arena as well as highlight how most of the plastic in the Pacific is make by fishing industry , food transportation system , and the twist industry .
“ mass have always made and then disposed of object , " saidHartwig Fischer , director of the British Museum . “But becoming trash is not necessarily the end of an aim ’s living ; some detail get recycle , some repurposed , and in a few very uncommon character , some are reborn as windows to the past after being rediscover 100 of age after being discombobulate away . We hope that this display will make hoi polloi suppose about their family relationship with rubbish , then , now and in the future . "
These objects will be on show in theAsahi Shimbun Displaysas part of “ Disposable ? Rubbish and us ” , which will spread out later this week and run until February 23 , 2020 .
