Long before “beer pong” and the latest Internet drinking challenges, ancient Greeks had their own game to play at their drinking parties during the 5th and 4th centuries BC. It was called kottabos, a game requiring a great deal of dexterity, talent and perhaps, a bit of luck.
During Greek and Etruscan drinking parties (called symposia), aristocratic males gathered as a form of “social bonding,” the young and the old of the male sex reclining on cushioned couches lining the walls of the andron, or what was considered the men’s quarters. Poetry was often recited or stimulating conversations ensued while the men were entertained by dancers, flute players, and courtesans, basically well-kept mistresses.
As the participants lolled on their couches getting drunk on wine, a lively competition began, with the men taking turns hurling the dregs of their kylixes (drinking cups) at a target in the center of the room to win prizes, like eggs, pastries or sexual favors. The resulting mess was cleaned up by slaves.
Heather Sharpe, an assistant professor of art history at West Chester University of Pennsylvania told LiveScience, “Trying to describe this ancient Greek drinking game, kottabos, to my students was always a little bit difficult because we do have these illustrations of it, but they only show one part of the game — where individuals are about to flick some dregs at a target. I thought it would be really great if we could actually try to do it ourselves.”
Sharpe and her students did exactly that, recreating the ancient game of kottabos, but using watered down grape juice in place of wine, and 3D-printed kylixes, drinking cups. She presented her findings at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America the weekend of Jan. 8 through Jan. 11.
The kylix or drinking cup was quite exquisite
The drinking cups used by the ancient Greeks were quite beautiful. Generally, they were painted black and red, with two looped handles on either side of a wide, but shallow bowl. From pictures of the kylix, it doesn’t look very practical for drinking, but the handles are obviously necessary for throwing the wine accurately.
The bottom of the kylix often featured two large round eyes, so that the drinker looked like he was staring at the room when he took a long sip of his wine. But it was the pictures on the shallow, circular inside bottom of the cup, called the tondo, that are remarkable. They very often depicted droll or sexually explicit scenes that would slowly be revealed as the cup was drained.
A kylix at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston depicts a man wiping his bottom, while another drinking cup at the same museum shows an image of a man penetrating a woman from behind with the caption, “Hold still.” Other scenes depicted athletes performing various sports and others were humorous in their context. But most telling was the scenes showing participants flicking the dregs of the kylixes at the intended target.
Tossing the dregs, or how to win the game
Sharpe and her students had to practice to figure out the best way to hit a target with a splash of wine dregs. For the recreation of the symposium and the game of kottabos, an art room with a linoleum floor was used, for easy cleanup. Padded benches were used in place of couches, and of course, watered down grape juice was used in place of wine.
The students learned quickly that the best and most accurate way to toss their dregs, was by looping a finger through one handle of the Kylix and making an overhand toss. Sharpe said the game was a real challenge, but most students learned to accurately hit the saucer within 10 or 15 minutes of practice.
There is more than one way to play the game
In one variation of the game, a metal saucer was balanced on top a tall metal stand in the middle of the room. Participants were required to toss the dregs in their kylixes so that they landed in the saucer-like disc at the top of the stand. The winner was the one whose dregs filled the saucer enough to tip the saucer over and into a basin of water at the bottom of the stand.
In another popular version, the object was to sink small bowls floating in a large basin of water by tossing the dregs left in the Kylix, hoping to hit one of the small saucers. One other version consisted of hitting the saucer at the top of the tall stand so that it fell, hitting another slightly larger saucer half-way down the stand, causing it to clang loudly.
Sharpe said it would be fun to try playing kottabos using real wine, just to see how things would evolve after everyone got a bit tipsy. “Of course, this was a university event,” she said, “so we couldn’t exactly do it on campus. But really, to get the full experiment, it would be interesting to try it after having a kylix of wine, or after having two kylixes of wine.”
