A museum’s 3,500-year-old disposable cup shows the desire to avoid dishwashing is ancient

About 3,500 years separate the two humble cups that will sit next to each other at the heart of a new exhibit in London’s British Museum.

One is a paper discard from the 1990s. Researchers believe the other, made from clay, may have held wine before it was thrown out after an ancient party on the island of Crete.

They’re united, experts say, by a long history of humans churning out items meant to be tossed after a single use — and apparently a few millennia-long aversion to doing the dishes.

“Just like us, they didn’t want to wash up,” curator Julia Farley said of the Minoans who dumped thousands of the clay vessels as they built an advanced Bronze Age civilization marked by palaces, written language and lavish art.

Staff at the British Museum hope the cup display, which opens later this week, will leave visitors thinking about the growing consequences of our love for the disposable.