 Church records inventory aquamaniles in silver or gilt copper, but the great majority of surviving examples are in base metals, which were not worth melting down.As well as the altar, aquamaniles were used at the tables of the great, where extravagant designs of symbolic or fantastical beasts – lions were especially popular – were developed in purely secular iconography.A gold aquamanile, c. 1215, in the treasury of the cathedral at Aachen, takes the form of a man's bust; it is a rare survival of an aquamanile in a precious metal.