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Ancient Greek Drinking Game Replayed at West Chester University

kottabos-2Apparently drinking games are much older than previously thought. According to LiveScience, 2,000 years ago, during parties in ancient Greece, men used to play a game called kottabos which involved a lot of wine.

At the symposia, young and old men who were part of the elite used to recite poetry, dance, listen to music and get drunk. When they finished their wine they would attempt to throw the dregs that were left at the bottom of the kylix — an ancient type of drinking bowl — at the center of a target. The winner would receive various prizes, from food and pastries to sexual favors.

“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,” said Heather Sharpe, assistant professor of art history at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. “I thought it would be really great if we could actually try to do it ourselves,” said Sharpe.

So with the help of her fellow ceramics professor Andrew Snyder, Sharpe recreated the kylix, by making 3D-printed drinking cups. She informed the students about the rules of the game and used diluted grape juice to play kottabos in an empty art classroom.

“It took a fair amount of control to actually direct the wine dregs, and interestingly enough, some of the women were the first to get it,” Sharpe told Live Science.

Finally, when presenting her data to the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, Sharpe expressed her desire to play the game with real wine. “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,” she said.

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