We see, then, that classical literature throws but little light on the uses made of painted vases as such by the Greeks. But we are by no means ill supplied with information as to the uses of pottery in general, about which evidence may be obtained both from the vases themselves and from innumerable passages in ancient writers or the commentaries of the scholiasts and lexicographers. This question is more or less bound up with that of the different shapes and names of vases, of which some 150 have been handed down by Athenaeus, Pollux, and other writers, and these will be considered in detail subsequently. For the present it may suffice to say a few words on what is known of the use of pottery in general and of painted vases in particular. As most of the vases hitherto known have been discovered in tombs, it would at first sight appear that they were exclusively destined for sepulchral purposes; but this seems to have been in many cases only a subsequent use of them, and they doubtless also found a place among the wants of daily life. That this is true of the plain unglazed or unpainted pottery goes indeed without saying; in regard to the painted vases the question is, in view of the scanty literary evidence, more difficult to decide. [Illustration: FIG. 14. HEMIKOTYLION (VASE USED AS MEASURE). BRITISH MUSEUM. ] As the civil and domestic use of pottery is the most important, it is necessary to consider it first. For ordinary purposes earthenware largely took the place of bronze and the precious metals, just as it does at the present day. One instance of this we have already quoted in speaking of the “Homeric bowls,” and others might be cited, in particular its use for measures, for which metal would naturally be employed as a general rule. This usage is established by the occasional discovery of vases inscribed with the names of measures and the like. The British Museum possesses a small one-handled cup of black glazed ware (F 595 = Fig. 14) found in the island of Cerigo (Kythera), on which is incised in fifth-century lettering the word [ΗΕΜΙΚΟΤΥΛΙΟΝ], ἡμικοτύλιον, or “half-kotyle.” The word κοτύλη is interesting as denoting not only a shape of a drinking-cup (see below, p. 184), but a Greek measure, equivalent to about half a pint. Again, in 1867, a cylindrical vase of red ware was found at Athens inscribed [ΔΗΜΟΣΙΟΝ], δημόσιον, or “public (measure).”[456] It was stamped with the figure of an owl and an olive-branch, the official seal of Athens, and has been supposed to represent the χοῖνιξ or quart, its capacity having been estimated at 0·96 litres, or 1¾ pints, while the χοῖνιξ is generally reckoned as equivalent to 1 litre.[457]