Lip Cup

Edge shells were produced about the middle of the 6th century BC in Athens. They are similar to Gordionschalen, but the shell lip less abruptly discontinued from the rest of the shell body with them. The Schalenfuß is high and wide base plates. Especially in the early copies, the feet are hollow, conical and foot walls have a uniform thickness.

This shell shape was painted on the shell lip. Most in the center of the front and back, there are one to three figures, which were coated on clay ground. Full mythical scenes were so rarely depicted. Not infrequently, the lip is left completely undecorated. Other ornaments are available in the handle zone. Here you can almost always find inscriptions between the handle palmettes and a paint stripe near the top. Rarely, the palmettes are replaced by animals or human figures. The inscriptions can play an aphorism or only show a meaningless string of letters, suggesting an ornamental function for the inscriptions. Inside the shell, there are often figurative roundels, which were often surrounded by marked with white polka dots at the tips of tongue patterns. Sometimes people find themselves instead of the figures also plants ornaments on the lip.

It is unknown why Rand ( about 570 to 530 BC ) and strip shells (about 560-530 BC) as long coexisted. Perhaps both versions had their advantages. So it was certainly more pleasant to drink from an undecorated black border a band shell, it caused a sharp ridge below the lip of the rim shells that here the wine at Irinken could not so easily spill over. More difficult in the preparation were the edge bowls.

Well-known artists of this shell species are Tleson, Sakonides, Hermogenes, Epitimos, Xenokles, the Xenokles Painter, Taleides Painter, Phrynos painter and Phrynos.