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Bowl - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  • ️Wed Jan 15 2025

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A plastic bowl

A bowl is a container for food. It can hold liquids, such as soups and solids, like popcorn. People sometimes prepare salads in it. Most bowls are in the shape of a hemisphere, which is like a ball cut in half. Bowls are usually made from glass, ceramic, wood or plastic. Bowls can be lots of different sizes, such as snack bowls which are usually the size of a person's palm, or a punch bowl which can be very large.

In Europe and North America, bowls are usually used to hold foods. In other parts of the world, like Asia, small bowls are often used to hold drinks like tea.

Archaeologists think that bowls have been used since ancient times, before history was written. Some of the oldest bowls come from Mesopotamia, a region where ancient people lived 6,000 years ago.[1] Other ancient bowls come from ancient China and were made around 5,000 years ago.[2]

Many ancient bowls were pieces of art. Bowls from ancient China were often painted with beautiful and complicated designs, while bowls from ancient Greece sometimes had unusual shapes. Some ancient Greek bowls were also used for religious occasions where wine was offered to gods in special bowls.[3]

Bowls are a common item in houses and other places where people spend time. While they are most often used to hold food, bowls can also be used for other things. Some people use bowls to hold small items, similar to trays made to store small items called 'trinket dishes'. A Tibetan instrument called a singing bowl has the same shape as bowls used for food, but is used to make music instead.

Bowls used for storing and making food are usually made of plastic, ceramic, glass, wood, or metal. Some restaurants serve soups inside of hollow loaves of bread, which are called bread bowls. Bowls used for gardening or decoration are sometimes made of clay or terracotta.

  1. ↑ "Bevel-rimmed Bowls". chnm.gmu.edu. Retrieved 2025-01-15.
  2. ↑ Bowl, Majiayao phase (ca. 3200–2650 BCE), retrieved 2025-01-15
  3. ↑ "Libation bowl (phiale mesomphalos)". collections.mfa.org. Retrieved 2025-01-15.