Cool Finds

Mourners Placed an Ancient Sippy Cup in a Roman Toddler’s Grave. It May Have Been Meant to Sustain the Child on the Journey to the Afterlife

Fragments of the spouted cup, known as a “tettina,” were unearthed in England over a decade ago. It has recently been restored and put on display for the first time

Sonja Anderson | Daily Correspondent

October 13, 2026 3:44 p.m.

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Nearly 2,000 years ago, a Roman toddler, just two or three years old, was laid to rest in what is now southwest England. Into the grave, dated to the second century C.E., mourners placed a rooster figurine of enameled copper, as well as a tettina—something like an ancient sippy cup.

Researchers from Cotswold Archaeology unearthed the grave’s contents in 2011, as part of a years-long excavation of a major Roman cemetery located in the modern-day town of Cirencester. The cemetery contained 118 inhumations and eight cremation burials, while the child’s grave was discovered just outside the cemetery’s walls.

“Infant mortality during the Roman period was higher than it is today,” Emma Stuart, the director of the local Corinium Museum, says in a statement. The tettina was “likely placed with the burial to provide sustenance to the child’s spirit as it made its way to the underworld,” she explains.

While the cockerel figurine was restored and displayed at the Corinium Museum soon after its discovery, the tettina, which was found broken into pieces, was only recently reconstructed. It debuted at the museum this month, alongside the cockerel in a special display.

“To see [the cockerel] reunited with the conserved [tettina] cup after all this time is genuinely special and poignant,” Jess Yarrow, director of the Cirencester History Festival, says in the statement. “It connects us directly to the people who walked these streets two millennia ago.”

Cirencester was once the Roman city of Corinium. Established in the first century—shortly after Roman emperor Claudius invaded Britain in 43 C.E.—it grew into the second largest town in the Roman province of Britannia. Spanning 240 acres, enclosed by a two-mile-long wall, Corinium was smaller only than Londinium (modern-day London).

The recently restored tettina—from the Italian for “teat”—is essentially a Roman feeding bottle, James Harris, the Corinium Museum’s collections engagement officer, writes in a blog post. The round ceramic artifact has a small opening on top and a drinking spout on the side. About 120 of these artifacts have been unearthed in Britain. Some have been found at military sites, which suggests that they could have been used to nurse injured soldiers. In others, researchers have identified chemical traces of animal milk, suggesting mothers used them to wean their children off breastmilk, or in place of breastmilk entirely.

Corinium Cockerel - Corinium Museum‬

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Once excavated, the Corinium tettina sat in fragments in storage until the Friends of Corinium Museum raised the funds required to have it conserved.

Together with the rooster figurine, the cup hints at the sentiment and spirituality of the child’s burial, as well as the status of the child’s family.

“To actually put this into the grave of a two- or three-year-old child is not something that you would do lightly,” archaeologist Neil Holbrook told the BBC in 2013. “It really shows that this was a very wealthy, important family, and signifies the love that the parents had for the dead child.”

While the tettina may have ensured that the departed child would not go hungry on the way to the afterlife, the rooster figurine may have held its own symbolism. Ancient Romans associated roosters with the messenger god Mercury, who also was believed to have the job of shepherding souls to the afterlife.

“The parents … placed the cockerel, a representative of the god Mercury, to crow the way to the underworld so that the child’s spirit didn’t get lost on the journey,” Stuart says in the statement. “It is a sad and touching story, but one that is imbued with care and concern.”

Sonja Anderson is a daily correspondent for Smithsonian magazine who covers art, archaeology and culture, from newly discovered artifacts to the latest art heists.