The cups here hark back to Medieval times when 'horners' held a special corner of the market that called for the making of all manner of things. Much of the 'horners' production in a 20th C cum 21st C context has been replaced(?) by the ubiquitous and all pervasive 'plastic'. More than interestingly plastic currently finds a niche for itself overtly and subliminally almost anywhere.
As time passed other technologies gradually displaced horners. The chapter on Antler, Bone and Horn (A. MacGregor–P373) in the book "English Medieval Industries: Craftsmen, Techniques, Products"provides an interesting insight into the world Medieval horners lived and worked within.
Quite aside from this, in many ways 'horn and bone' found their way into the cultural 'folk products' of shepherds, crofters, woodsmen, tinkers, et al as a material of necessity. Without anything like a hardware store to hand the makers among these people it seems often reached for horn and bone to do specific tasks that needed to be satisfied. Some may never be recorded given the obscurity of purpose and bone and horns application to it.
Unlike as it is with 'drinking horns' the skill level required to make a horn into a 'cup' expands somewhat. The cultural and social realities, and the lifestyles, various groups embraced, or were embraced by, didn't have a place for drinking horns. Currently there are makers using horn for cups but as yet very few are spending the time required to develop the skill levels needed to match those of the Medieval and folk craftsmen of the past.
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The rituals and symbolisms within 'Free Masonry' call
upon all manner of traditions that require objects in ‘ritual life’ to perform
in particular ways. Given that in some
rituals there is a requirement to as one mason says, ”to bang your drinking
vessel on the table” it is understandable that horn might out perform many
other materials except perhaps metal. Moreover, it provides rich opportunities for embellishment as demonstrated here.
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