Writing on various supports and in appropriate techniques is a constant of the elite culture, starting from antiquity. With the beginning of the 18th century, short inscriptions, namely dating, also appear on the artifacts of different genres belonging to the working classes in the Transylvanian rural and urban environment. Made on different materials, in various techniques, such inscriptions usually name the maker, the owner, possibly the donor of the artefact, and mention the place of manufacture and/or use of the object, sometimes fixing the manufacture date. With the spread of writing in this environment, through the intensification of schooling, the message of the inscriptions amplifies and diversifies, the authors emphasizing the value of the manufacturing act and making an appeal to memory.
In a community with a social structure based on a bourgeoisie and a free peasantry with an old writing tradition, such as the Saxon one, the display of short texts, on various artifacts, used or displayed inside the peasant house and even on its exterior, becomes general already in the 19th century. These inscriptions communicated messages corresponding to the dominant social norms, characteristic of the time, related to the Christian faith, Christian morals, interpersonal relations, and life conduct.
The wine mug with inv. no. 838, purchased by the museum in 1923 from the Sibian collector Samuel Leitner, also conveys an exhortation. Given its dimensions (height: 37.5 cm, base diameter: 15.4 cm), we assume that the piece had a communitarian function. The bowl with a pear-shaped body, bilobed mouth, upturned lip, lateral handle with two insertion points where it meets the pot belly, is glazed both inside and outside, the outside being engobed with white and covered with green enamel. The only decoration of the cup is the sgraffito text in Gothic letters, placed above the maximum diameter of the piece: “zum Trinken Schuf Gott win / und Bier zum sauffen nicht das rath dir / Mathias Satmen 1862” (God created wine to drink / and beer to not drink, that’s what I advise you).
Text: Tötszegi Tekla – MET expert
Photo: George Ciupag – MET photo-video museographer
