The pyxis was a lidded cylindrical vessel mostly used by women to hold cosmetics, trinkets or jewelry. Surviving pyxides from the Classical Period are mostly ceramic, but sometimes they are made of wood, metal, or ivory. The name derived from Corinthian boxes made of wood from the boxwood tree (puxos).Geometric pottery production began as Greece reemerged from the Dark Age after the decline of Mycenaean Bronze Age civilization. Geometric pottery was austere but precise in its execution. The shapes and decorative motifs that would eventually be predominant in Classical Greek vase painting are at first evident in Greek Geometric pottery of the 8th century BC.