Ciborium
κιβώριον
Ciborium (κιβώριον) properly is the shell of the Egyptian bean plant (colocasia), the bean itself being called κύαμος. These shells, and indeed the leaves too (Plin. Nat. 21.87), were made into drinking cups (Nic. ap. Ath. 72a), and were no doubt of the same shape as the original shell, broad at the top and becoming narrow towards the bottom (Didym. ap. Ath. 11.477 e). From their shape they appear very similar to that kind of cup called ᾠοσκύφιον, if we may adopt the acute emendation of Ussing (De nominibus vasorsum Graecorum, p. 133) in Didymus (l.c.). They were smooth and large (Hor. Od. 2.7, 22), and often were wrought in a costly manner (Ath. 11.477 e). No certain specimen of one can be given. For the meaning of ciborium in ecclesiastical Latin, see Dict. of Christ. Antiq., art. ALTAR.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.