Dominic Sandbrook

So one of the conquistadors, Cristobal de Meña, records that Atahualpa's favourite possession was

was the severed head of Atok, who was one of his brother's generals.

And I quote, its teeth were closed and held a silver spout.

On top of the head was attached a golden bowl.

Atualpa liked to drink from it when thinking about the war against his brother.

His servants poured the chicha, that's a kind of beer made from maize, into the bowl and it came out through the spout.

Would you drink from the severed head of one of your... Of course you would.

Yeah, I think I would.

Yeah, so would I. Yeah, I mean, it's actually given me quite a few ideas there.

There's some Oxford College, isn't there?

Where they, it turned out recently, I wrote a column about it in the Times.

It turned out that they were drinking after senior common room dinners or something.

They were drinking from the severed head of somebody that had been given to the college.

Did you see this?

I didn't.

It was a skull.

And if you've got a skull, you might as well use it.

Do you know what?

I'm going to look this up.

I'm going to do some live research.