Roman Cup Depicting Child Sex Promoted by British Museum for LGBTQ History Month

The British Museum in London, England. Exterior images of the main entrance of the museum
Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Peter Caddle

The British Museum has promoted an ancient Roman cup thought by experts to depict child sex as part of LGBTQ History Month.

The Warren Cup, an ancient Roman artefact that is thought to have been made around the first century AD, has been promoted by the British Museum as part of “LGBTQ history month” — despite the fact that one side of the cup is thought to depict a pedophilic sex act.

In a post on social media on Friday, the British Museum promoted the Warren Cup as part of the progressive celebrations taking place this month:

“February is #LGBTQHistoryMonth,” the museum wrote on social media, accompanying itself post with emojis depicting a white flag and a rainbow.

“Made around AD 10, The Warren Cup is decorated with two scenes of male lovers,” it continued, adding that it supposedly “couldn’t be displayed for most of the 20th century” due to homosexuality being illegal in England and Wales until 1967.

However, the social media post refrains from mentioning that the cup is not thought to depict merely homosexual acts, but also child sex, with “side B” of the vessel appearing to depict an older youth sodomising what is described by multiple sources, including the British Museum itself, as a “boy”.

“On the reverse [of the cup] the erastes [Ancient Greek for the penetrative, often older partner in a homosexual relationship] is a beardless youth, crowned with a wreath, and the eromenos [passive partner who is penetrated during sex] is a boy,” one webpage on the vessel published by the museum reads.

The page goes on to describe the ages of all those depicted on the cup as being “carefully shown”, with the boy’s hair being highlighted as evidence of his prepubescence.

“Both partners in the reverse scene have long locks of hair, the youth’s bound up, the boy’s loose,” the site reads. “Such locks were worn by Greek boys, and were offered to the gods in a rite celebrated at puberty.”

In an academic journal article originally published in The Art Bulletin, historian John R. Clarke also describes the two individuals engaged in anal sex on “side B” of the Warren Cup as “clearly of unequal age”, with the size and hairstyle of the individual being sodomised indicating that he is a child.

“The long locks of hair of the male in front — as well as his smaller size — indicate that he is a boy,” the article reads, adding: “The artist has represented one of the man’s testicles directly behind the boy’s, indicating that he is entering him.”

In a statement to Breitbart London on the post, the British Museum stood by highlighting the object as part of their commemorations of “LGBTQ history”.

“The Warren Cup dates to AD 10 and the images on it were common in the ancient Roman world, when relationships between older and younger men were tolerated,” a spokesman from the museum said.

“There is no suggestion the imagery is acceptable by today’s standards — we have highlighted it as a historical object as part of LGBTQ history month,” they added, as if depictions of paedophilia are indeed and appropriate thing to showcase in this context.

It is only the latest scandal related to paedophilia to take place within Britain’s institutions, with police in Scotland also recently being caught referring to paedophiles in their softer preferred terminology as “minor-attracted persons“.

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