tankard

thumb|A wooden tankard found on board the 16th-century carrack [[Mary Rose]] A tankard is a form of drinkware consisting of a large, roughly cylindrical, drinking cup with a single handle. In recent centuries tankards were typically made of silver or pewter, but they can be made of other materials, for example glass, wood, pottery, or boiled leather. A tankard may have a hinged lid, and tankards featuring glass bottoms are also fairly common. Beer steins have a similar shape and use.

==Wooden tankards== The word "tankard" originally meant any wooden vessel (13th century) and later came to mean a drinking vessel. The earliest tankards were made of wooden staves, similar to a barrel, and did not have lids. A 2000-year-old wooden tankard of approximately four-pint capacity has been unearthed in Wales. thumb|Tankard recovered from Gribshunden shipwreck (1495) A late medieval example of a fine tankard milled from alder wood was recovered by underwater archaeologists excavating the wreck of the royal Danish-Norwegian flagship, Gribshunden which sank in 1495. When excavated, the tankard's lid was still securely in place, and gas from the degradation of the medieval beverage was trapped inside.