In 1865, the British Museum created the Secretum—a private section of the museum housing all the artifacts deemed obscene in Victorian society.
Most of them came from George Witt, a London doctor with an extensive collection of phallic memorabilia.
The Secretum soon became off-limits to the average museumgoer as people needed special permission to view the exhibits during a private tour.
During the secret collection’s 100-year existence, there was one object deemed too obscene even for the Secretum—the Warren Cup.
It was a silver Roman cup that depicted homosexual sex between two men on one side of the cup and a man with a young boy on the other.
The museum had the opportunity to purchase the Warren Cup in the 1950s for a small sum. It turned it down.
The British Museum later changed its mind in 1999 and paid £1.8 million for it, a record purchase for the museum at the time.
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Historical Facts
RandomHistory is pretty interesting to know due to the mysteries it carries.
