Pithos (, grc-gre, πίθος, plural: ' ) is the Greek name of a large storage container. The term in English is applied to such containers used among the civilizations that bordered the
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...
in the
Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
, the
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
and the succeeding
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...
. Pithoi were used for bulk storage, primarily for fluids and grains; they were comparable to the drums, barrels and casks of recent times. The name was different in other languages; for instance, the
Hittites
The Hittites () were an Anatolian people who played an important role in establishing first a kingdom in Kussara (before 1750 BC), then the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom (c. 1750–1650 BC), and next an empire centered on Hattusa in north-centra ...
used ''harsi-''.
Secondarily, discarded pithoi found other uses. Like the ceramic bathtubs of some periods, the size of a pithos made it a convenient coffin. In
Middle Helladic
Helladic chronology is a relative dating system used in archaeology and art history. It complements the Minoan chronology scheme devised by Sir Arthur Evans for the categorisation of Bronze Age artefacts from the Minoan civilization within a his ...
burials in
Mycenae
Mycenae ( ; grc, Μυκῆναι or , ''Mykē̂nai'' or ''Mykḗnē'') is an archaeological site near Mykines in Argolis, north-eastern Peloponnese, Greece. It is located about south-west of Athens; north of Argos; and south of Corinth. Th ...
and
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
, sometimes the bones of the interred were placed in pithoi. The ancient
Iberian culture of
El Argar
El Argar is an Early Bronze Age culture that was based in Antas, Almería, within modern Spain. It is believed to have been active from about 2200 B.C. to 1500 B.C.Lull et al."Emblems and spaces of power during the Argaric Bronze Age at La Almol ...
used pithoi for coffins in its B phase (1500–1300 BC).
The external shape and materials were approximately the same: a ceramic jar about as high as a man, a base for standing, sides nearly straight or generously curved, and a large mouth with a lid, sealed for shipping.
Jars of this size could not be handled by individuals, especially when full. Various numbers of handles, lugs, or some combination thereof, gave a purchase for some sort of harness used in lifting the jar with a crane.
Pithoi were manufactured and exported or imported over the entire
Mediterranean. They were used most heavily in the Bronze Age
palace economy
A palace economy or redistribution economy is a system of economic organization in which a substantial share of the wealth flows into the control of a centralized administration, the palace, and out from there to the general population. In turn ...
for storing or shipping wine, olive oil, or various types of vegetable products for distribution to the populace served by the palace administration. Consequently, they became known to the modern public as pithoi when western
classical archaeologist
Classical archaeology is the archaeological investigation of the Mediterranean civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Nineteenth-century archaeologists such as Heinrich Schliemann were drawn to study the societies they had read about i ...
s adopted the term to mean the jars uncovered by excavation of
Minoan
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean Islands, whose earliest beginnings were from 3500BC, with the complex urban civilization beginning around 2000BC, and then declining from 1450B ...
palaces on
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
and Mycenaean ones on mainland
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
.
The term has now been adopted into the English language as a general word for a storage jar from any culture. Along with this universality has come a problem of distinguishing the smaller pithoi from other types of pottery. Many ceramics are not any easily classifiable shape. If they were used for transport or storage, they are likely to be called pithoi, even though they are not the size of the palace pithoi, and even though the forms might well have fit other types. Reconciliation of pre-classical pottery types with classical types has long been a problem of classical archaeology.
Etymology
''Pithos'' has two irreconcilable derivations, classical and Mycenaean. On the one hand, it was a well-used word of the Iron Age in Greece, dating to as early as the works of
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
.
Julius Pokorny
Julius Pokorny (12 June 1887 – 8 April 1970) was an Austrian-Czech linguist and scholar of the Celtic languages, particularly Irish, and a supporter of Irish nationalism. He held academic posts in Austrian and German universities.
Early life a ...
and other professional linguists developed a derivation from
Proto-Indo European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
''*bhidh-'', "container", that followed all the rules of language change and moreover was related to
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''fiscus'', "purse", from which English obtains "fiscal". Regardless of the real derivation, a pithos certainly seems to be a large purse containing economic goods in quantity. The derivation would have been elegant, tracing fiscality back to prehistoric Greece, it was thought, taking its place with ''oikos'', "house", the origin word for ''economic'', and others. At that time Greek and Latin were believed to have had a common ancestor other than Proto-Indo-European.
Contemporaneously with Pokorny's epic dictionary,
Linear B
Linear B was a syllabic script used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest attested form of Greek. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries. The oldest Mycenaean writing dates to about 1400 BC. It is descended from ...
was first being deciphered, and various analyses were being put forward that Greek and Latin were not all that similar. There was no need to prove that developments in Latin were necessarily parallel to those in Greek. If bh- became f- in Latin, it would not necessarily do so in Greek.
![Linear B Ideogram B203](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Linear_B_Ideogram_B203.svg)
The pithos was proposed to appear as , ''qe-to'', in the Bronze Age records of
Pylos
Pylos (, ; el, Πύλος), historically also known as Navarino, is a town and a former municipality in Messenia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it has been part of the municipality Pylos-Nestoras, of which it is th ...
and
Mycenae
Mycenae ( ; grc, Μυκῆναι or , ''Mykē̂nai'' or ''Mykḗnē'') is an archaeological site near Mykines in Argolis, north-eastern Peloponnese, Greece. It is located about south-west of Athens; north of Argos; and south of Corinth. Th ...
, denoted by Ideogram 203 , a small picture very similar to some Knossos pithoi, but which could just as well be matched by smaller pottery. Strangely enough it was not found at
Knossos
Knossos (also Cnossos, both pronounced ; grc, Κνωσός, Knōsós, ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and has been called Europe's oldest city.
Settled as early as the Neolithic period, the na ...
, a major find site of pithoi. It was duly transcribed as WINE JAR in
Bennett's system, on the presumption that it would store primarily wine. According to the rules of reconstructing
Mycenaean Greek
Mycenaean Greek is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC), before the hypothesised Dorian invasion, often cited as the ''terminus ad quem'' for the ...
from Linear B, qe-to must be a transcription of ''q
uethos'' or ''q
uhethos'', from a "base" of ''*g
whedh-''. The latter is similar to some Indo-European roots but has no meaningful connection to any. Ventris and Chadwick suggest that either ''qe-to'' was not a pithos, but was some smaller vessel, or that pithos is a foreign loan, like ''
aryballos
An aryballos (Greek: ἀρύβαλλος; plural aryballoi) was a small spherical or globular flask with a narrow neck used in Ancient Greece."aryballos" in ''The New Encyclopædia Britannica''. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 15th edn., ...
'', ''
lekythos
A lekythos (plural lekythoi) is a type of ancient Greek vessel used for storing oil (Greek λήκυθος), especially olive oil. It has a narrow body and one handle attached to the neck of the vessel, and is thus a narrow type of jug, with no po ...
'', and some others. The Cretan pithos precedes by several hundred years any mentioned in Mycenaean Greek; moreover, many are inscribed with a line or two of
Linear A
Linear A is a writing system that was used by the Minoans of Crete from 1800 to 1450 BC to write the hypothesized Minoan language or languages. Linear A was the primary script used in palace and religious writings of the Minoan civil ...
. Perhaps pithos derives from a Linear A word. Ventris and Chadwick do not exclude ''fiscus'' from necessarily being related to ''pithos'', they only point out that, if such is the derivation, the process is more complex than previously thought.
Design
Storage
![Aardewerk knossos](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Aardewerk_knossos.JPG)
A study done in 2003 by John Younger used a computer program, "vase", to calculate the maximum capacity of an LM I pithos, catalog number
ZA Zb 3. The program required the drawing of a profile on the computer screen and the entry of a parameter—Younger used height—which in this case was . "Vase" computed 996
liter
The litre (international spelling) or liter (American English spelling) (SI symbols L and l, other symbol used: ℓ) is a metric unit of volume. It is equal to 1 cubic decimetre (dm3), 1000 cubic centimetres (cm3) or 0.001 cubic metre (m3). ...
, which is slightly too great, because it was based on external dimensions.
[.]
At the density of pure
water
Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...
, 1 kg per
litre
The litre (international spelling) or liter (American English spelling) (SI symbols L and l, other symbol used: ℓ) is a metric unit of volume. It is equal to 1 cubic decimetre (dm3), 1000 cubic centimetres (cm3) or 0.001 cubic metre (m3). ...
, the contents of a full pithos would weigh about a
tonne
The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton ( United State ...
. Moreover, the pithos selected was not among the largest. On similar studies of some other pithoi mentioned by Ventris and Chadwick, he obtained volumes such as 1430.5 liter, 1377.5 liter, 1334.7 liter, and so on, with full weights in excess of two tons. Dry goods would be much less dense, but even half the density, a weight of about a ton, is far beyond any handling operations by individuals, or teams of individuals, who could not obtain a purchase in sufficient numbers in the space around the jar to effect even a simple lift.
From the physical point of view, at least for these multi-ton pithoi, J. L. Stokes' view that they were "unmoveable furniture, being in general, either wholly or partially sunk in the ground", is most likely accurate. Currently at Knossos some empty pithoi have been placed standing in passageways, such as those of the storerooms. This is a convention of display. Apart from the fact that they would seriously have impeded the dimly-lit corridors, there would have been no way to access them except by scaffold. They must have been originally placed in the pits of the storerooms, except possibly for the smaller and more easily accessed ones. There is also a question of stability. Only some were of a stable barrel-shape.
If the large pithoi were sunk into the floor in the storage rooms, as the archaeological evidence indicates they were, their weight and bulk raise a question of how they were brought there. Handling of a full pithos except by extensive apparatus of tracks and cranes, of which there is no evidence, is unlikely. They were perhaps brought in empty, set in place, and then filled from smaller pithoi with some of the numerous bucket-type pottery.
Shipping
![Uluburun10](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Uluburun10.jpg)
The problem of handling large pithoi also raises questions of shipping. However, large pithoi are not found in the few shipwrecks of merchant vessels from the Bronze Age. In a recent study of the lading of the ship wrecked at
Uluburun
The Uluburun Shipwreck is a Late Bronze Age shipwreck dated to the late 14th century BC, discovered close to the east shore of Uluburun (Grand Cape), Turkey, in the Mediterranean Sea. The shipwreck was discovered in the summer of 1982 by Mehmed Ç ...
in the Late Bronze Age, Lin hypothesizes a cargo of about 20 tons, including 10 pithoi at 3.5 tons, or 0.35 tons each, if filled with fluid at about the density of water. The pithoi were not the chief cargo, which was 10 tons of copper ingots. The ship carried the load easily, with a draft of 1 m. The pithoi were comparatively light, with an estimated total mass of 2.7 tonnes. Not all contained liquid; a few were the first known packing crates, containing fine pottery. Fragments of lids were also found.
![Pythos Hermitage](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Pythos_Hermitage.JPG)
Empty weights were obtained for all but two of the pithoi. Pithos KW 255 could be modelled to obtain an estimated volume of 293 liter at an empty weight of 120.25 kg, the highest of the 8. The lowest empty weight, that of KW 250, was 43 kg. Assuming a direct proportion between capacity and empty weight, the smallest capacity would have been about 105 litre. This approximate data from the wreck suggests that pithoi were in fact shipped, but only those of much smaller capacity. The pithoi of Uluburun, if full of liquid, would still have been too heavy for manual handling. Including the considerable weights of the containers, the total weights can be estimated at 150 to 420 kg. Equipment for hauling to the ship and lowering into the hold must have been used.
A Middle Bronze Age wreck of a small cargo ship off Sheytan Deresi (Devil's Creek), on the southwestern coast of Turkey, also was carrying pithoi, 3 "strap-handled" and 4 "handleless", of "ovoid-conical" form. The main cargo was those and other ceramics. The contents of the pithoi are not known. The handles are two parallel loops on either side of the mouth projecting slightly above it. The vases are now in the
Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology
Bodrum Castle ( tr, Bodrum Kalesi) is a historical fortification located in southwest Turkey in the port city of Bodrum, built from 1402 onwards, by the Knights of St John (Knights Hospitaller) as the ''Castle of St. Peter'' or ''Petronium''. A t ...
.
The dimensions of most of the pithoi are of the same order of magnitude. One has a height of 0.9 m and a body height of 0.84 m. The shapes are roughly similar to those of the large pithoi at Knossos, with smaller mouths relative to the body. The heights are approximately 50% of the heights at Knossos.
The dependency of the capacity on height was approximately given by
Heron
The herons are long-legged, long-necked, freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae, with 72 recognised species, some of which are referred to as egrets or bitterns rather than herons. Members of the genera ''Botaurus'' and ''Ixobrychus ...
, a 1st-century engineer. He is credited with a number of formulae, all called "Heron's formula." As far as pottery is concerned, he divided pots into spheroid and pithoid, all the larger ones being the latter type, taking this classification from work done previously and appearing in the writings of
Archimedes
Archimedes of Syracuse (;; ) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists ...
. The volume of a pithoid, which can be either a pithos or an
amphora
An amphora (; grc, ἀμφορεύς, ''amphoreús''; English plural: amphorae or amphoras) is a type of container with a pointed bottom and characteristic shape and size which fit tightly (and therefore safely) against each other in storag ...
, is dependent, he asserts, on 11/14 of the product of the height and a number representing a squared average of minimum and maximum diameters.
There has been some controversy about what geometric figure this formula represents. The manuscript gives the square of the average of minimum and maximum diameters. Vodolazhskaya points out that if the average of the squares is used instead, the formula applies to a truncated paraboloid of revolution. She proposes that the manuscript was corrupted.
According to either version of Heron's formula, if height and diameter change proportionately, a change in height ought to result in a change in volume that is based on the cube of the percentage of change in height; that is, if the diameter doubles when the height doubles, then the resulting volume ought to be 8 times the previous volume, the cube of two.
Younger gives several heights of pots with associated volumes.
[ The smallest listed with height is 40.6 liter at 48 cm high. If the height increases by a factor of 3.542 to 170 cm, the volume should increase by a factor of the cube of 3.542, or 44.438, which would be 1804 liter. The capacity of the 170 cm pot, however, is 996, half the amount estimated using the cube, and that is generally true of the several pots for which Younger lists heights. An exponent of 2.53 estimates the increase in capacity, which means that, at least for these vases, the potters did not add to the diameter to keep the same proportion between diameter and height; the larger vases were made thinner.
If Younger's data can be taken as reflecting general truth, then the vases at Sheytan Deresi should have capacities that are greater than 40.6 by a factor of 1.8752.53, or 4.91, where 1.875 is 90/48. The capacity is thus 4.91 x 40.6 = about 200 l, or 440 pounds if water is the content. These pithoi also are too large for handling without equipment, and may even have required strengthening of the deck in the hold. Some sort of hold-fast scaffolding must have been designed to keep the cargo from shifting with disastrous results, except that a disaster did occur.
]
Weight and measures
All ancient civilizations had standards of weights and measures, which were used extensively in the distribution of goods. As is true today, the standards were set by law. Enforcement of them was a function of government. Pottery, as containers of the goods distributed, was designed to planned capacities for specific purposes, which is the reason why pottery is so useful in archaeology as indicators of period and why standard types can be detected at all.
All Bronze Age records of goods refer intentionally to the type, capacity and contents of ceramic storage and shipping vessels. Ventris and Chadwick devoted much of ''Documents in Mycenaean Greek'' to the topic of quantifiable measures. They and others were able to define a Mycenaean Greek dry unit of 96 liter and a wet unit of 36 liter.
John Younger calculated the number of Mycenaean wet and dry units (96.1 L and 28.8 L, resp.) in the capacities of 300 pots of known dimensions, including several storage pithoi. He attempted to assign the volumes to integer or half-integer multiples of these units.[
]
Decor
Some pithoi were used for rituals and even for burial. The decor of those pithoi differed significantly from ones used for transportation and storage in warehouses. Decorations would have been used to match the intended use.
Pithoi designed for marine transportation were generally not decorated. They must have been stored in a warehouse.
Storage pithoi, however, might be viewed in residential and administrative locations. The neck and shoulders were generally decorated, which is consistent with a partially subterranean location. All the large pithoi featured circumferential bands of thicker clay strengthening the joints where sections of the pithos were lowered onto each other and fused together.
The raised band concept was expanded over the upper body to a repeating circumferential pattern, incised or stamped at first, then rolled with a seal-like roller around the body of the pithos while it was still fresh clay.[.] Some common themes are spirals, meanders, and waves. Waves in relief give the appearance of slack rope; whether they were intended to be that is debatable. Slack rope lifts nothing; moreover, a rope around the neck of the pithos for lifting would only concentrate the weight on the neck, probably shattering it. Multiple lugs, loops and handles indicate that for lifting purposes some sort of harness to distribute the weight must have been used. These rope-like waves of pattern, regardless of the potter's possible intent, have been termed "rope patterns" or "rope decoration", with a certain ambiguity of meaning as to whether actual rope was used to physically impress them, or they are merely intended to visually resemble rope.
If the pithos was small enough to stand in a conspicuous location, the bands were further divided into polychrome
Polychrome is the "practice of decorating architectural elements, sculpture, etc., in a variety of colors." The term is used to refer to certain styles of architecture, pottery or sculpture in multiple colors.
Ancient Egypt
Colossal statu ...
geometric patterns, such as a checkerboard
A checkerboard (American English) or chequerboard (British English; see spelling differences) is a board of checkered pattern on which checkers (also known as English draughts) is played. Most commonly, it consists of 64 squares (8×8) of altern ...
or chevron
Chevron (often relating to V-shaped patterns) may refer to:
Science and technology
* Chevron (aerospace), sawtooth patterns on some jet engines
* Chevron (anatomy), a bone
* ''Eulithis testata'', a moth
* Chevron (geology), a fold in rock lay ...
s, or painted panel or band scenes, often in relief. These scenes are in no way inferior to those of other painted pots; in fact, the more extensive surfaces allowed more detail.
See also
*Onggi
''Onggi'' () is Korean earthenware extensively used as tableware and storage containers in Korea. It includes both Ceramic glaze, unglazed earthenware, fired near 600 to 700°C, and pottery with a dark brown Ceramic glaze, glaze fired at over 110 ...
* Pandora's box (etymology)
Notes
References
*
External links
*
Two pithos vessels found
at the Pavlopetri
The city of Pavlopetri ( el, Παυλοπέτρι), in Vatika Bay underwater off the coast of southern Laconia in Peloponnese, Greece, is about 5,000 years old, making it the oldest submerged city known in the world. Pavlopetri is unique in ha ...
submerged city excavation (BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
program on YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
) - ( 5:53 The vessel is dug out, reconstructed and an explanation about its uses and origin in Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
is given.
{{Greek vase shapes
Ancient Greek pot shapes
Minoan vase painting
Mycenaean Greece