Catch your tears

A few weeks ago I went to the most amazing place with some friends from my writers group – The Explorations in Antiquity Center in LaGrange, Ga. Archeologist and teacher Dr. James Fleming built it as a way to show visitors bits and pieces of life during Biblical times. You can explore the Prayer Garden with replicas of things ranging from a goat hair tent and olive press to catacombs, a Jewish home, and typical tombs. You can even take part in a Biblical meal that is an education in itself.

I learned so much that day, but one of the interesting things (and one of the trip treasures I had to bring home) was about tear cups. We live in a society that often emphasizes self-sufficiency, pulling yourself up from your bootstraps, and hiding your feelings. Life wasn’t that way in other times, especially when it came to grieving or shedding tears.

In Biblical days, Jews would store their tears in a tear cup (also called a tear vase). The bottles had a small rim around the top to hold under your eye when you cried so your tears would flow into the bottle through a long, narrow neck. Once it was full, you corked the vase and saved it. People often filled these vases when they mourned a loved one and would place the full vases on a small shelf outside the tomb. The larger the collection of tear vases, the more loved and missed the person was.

What about people who didn’t think they would have family or friends to mourn for them someday? They would save their own tears in the hopes that someone would place the vases on the shelf for them.

After our trip I did a little research about tear vases (because, after all, I’m a forever-curious writer) and learned that using them wasn’t just a Jewish custom. Tear vases (or records of their use) have been found around the world – Italy, Turkey, China, Germany, Spain … and even the United States. I haven’t found how they made their way across the ocean from Europe to America, but they’re mentioned in some stories that take place around Civil War times and I came across a report from a 1933 archeological dig in Texas that cataloged them in its findings.

The dig was the excavation of Aranama Mound, part of a mission founded by Padre Antonio Margil in 1717. The mission was originally in what is now Victoria County, Texas, but moved in 1749 to what later became Goliad State Park. Several different tribes of Native Americans lived at the mission over the years so there weren’t records of which people used the tear vases.

The tear vases found in the Aranama Mound were tiny – 1.5 inches high. The one I bought is about 3.5 inches high, but some found in Europe were taller. (The top picture is the vase I bought; the others are replicas I found on the Internet from other countries.) Whatever their size or however plain or fancy they were, the vases served an important purpose in those cultures.

Makes me wonder when they went “out of style” and what people would think if someone tried to reintroduce them to America today … Maybe that’s something to keep researching just so I can learn something else new. Or maybe some of you brilliant readers already know the answer and will share it with the rest of us. Either way, thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful week!


PS -- I posted a lot of photos from our trip to the Antiquity Center on my website. If you want to check them out, hope over there and click on the link for photos.