A kylix is a type of wine

Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...

-drinking glass with a broad relatively shallow body raised on a stem from a foot and usually with two horizontal handles disposed symmetrically. The almost flat interior circle on the interior base of the cup, called the tondo

Tondo (art)

A tondo is a Renaissance term for a circular work of art, either a painting or a sculpture. The word derives from the Italian rotondo, "round." The term is usually not used in English for small round paintings, but only those over about 60 cm in diameter, thus excluding many round portrait...

, was the primary surface for painted decoration in the Black-figure

Black-figure pottery

Black-figure pottery painting, also known as the black-figure style or black-figure ceramic is one of the most modern styles for adorning antique Greek vases. It was especially common between the 7th and 5th centuries BC, although there are specimens dating as late as the 2nd century BC...

 or Red-figure

Red-figure pottery

Red-figure vase painting is one of the most important styles of figural Greek vase painting. It developed in Athens around 530 BC and remained in use until the late 3rd century BC. It replaced the previously dominant style of Black-figure vase painting within a few decades...

 styles of the 6th and 5th century BC. As the representations would be covered with wine, the scenes would only be revealed in stages as the wine was drained. They were often designed with this in mind, with scenes created so that they would surprise or titillate the drinker as they were revealed. The word comes from the Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 kylix "cup," which is cognate with Latin calix, the source of the English word "chalice

Chalice (cup)

A chalice is a goblet or footed cup intended to hold a drink. In general religious terms, it is intended for drinking during a ceremony.-Christian:...

."

Formation

Kylixes were most popular during the Mycenaean

Mycenaean Greece

Mycenaean Greece was a cultural period of Bronze Age Greece taking its name from the archaeological site of Mycenae in northeastern Argolis, in the Peloponnese of southern Greece. Athens, Pylos, Thebes, and Tiryns are also important Mycenaean sites...

 times of the classic Athenian period of Ancient Greece. They were created from the collection of earthenware, which ultimately aided in the production of the ceramic glass

Glass

Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...

 of the kylix. Terracotta proved a popular substance in the production. A type of terracotta called "redware" was especially prized by the Greeks and Etruscans for its concentration of ferrous oxide giving it a red color. After the kylixes were formed, an artisan drew a depiction of an event from Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

 or everyday life with a diluted glaze

Ceramic glaze

Glaze is a layer or coating of a vitreous substance which has been fired to fuse to a ceramic object to color, decorate, strengthen or waterproof it.-Use:...

 on the outer surface of the formation.

Inside the drinking bowl was often a portrait of dancing and/or festive drinking. Unique compositional skills were necessary for the artisans to attain due to the lack of verticals and horizontals on the surface. Onesimos

Onesimos (vase painter)

Onesimos was an ancient Athenian vase painter who flourished between 505 and 480 BC. He specialized in decorating cups, mostly of Type B, which comprise virtually all known examples of his work....

, Makron

Makron (vase painter)

Makron was an ancient Greek vase painter active in Athens ca. 490-480 BC. Though only one signed example of his work is known to have survived, some 350 vases have been attributed to him by Sir John Beazley, making him one of the best surviving painters of the red-figure period.Makron is strongly...

, and Douris

Douris (vase painter)

Douris was an ancient Athenian red-figure vase-painter and potter active ca. 500 to 460 BCE.-Work:He began his career painting for the potters Kleophrades and Euphronios, before beginning a long collaboration with the potter Python. He signed 39 vases as a painter, also one as a potter and...

 were famous painters in this field, renowned for their works.

The bowl held roughly 8 oz/100ml of fluid.

Purpose

Because the primary use for the kylix was at a symposium

Symposium

In ancient Greece, the symposium was a drinking party. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems such as the elegies of Theognis of Megara...

 - a "drinking party" - in the ancient Greek world, they are often decorated with scenes of a humorous, light-hearted, or sexual nature that would only become visible when the cup was drained. Dionysos, the god of wine

Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...

, and his satyr

Satyr

In Greek mythology, satyrs are a troop of male companions of Pan and Dionysus — "satyresses" were a late invention of poets — that roamed the woods and mountains. In myths they are often associated with pipe-playing....

s or related komastic

Komos

The Komos was a ritualistic drunken procession performed by revelers in ancient Greece, whose participants were known as komasts. Its precise nature has been difficult to reconstruct from the diverse literary sources and evidence derived from vase painting....

scenes, are common subjects. Scenes of heterosexual or homosexual love, sex or orgies are also often depicted. The shape of the kylix enabled the drinker to drink whilst recumbent, as was the case in the symposia.