Pithos originally referred in ancient Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 (πίθος, πίθοι) to a large storage jar of a characteristic shape. The word was at one point used by western classical archaeologists to mean the jars uncovered by excavation in Crete

Crete

Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

 and Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, it has now been taken into the American English language as a general word for a storage jar from any culture.

Although the word is Greek, many of the pithoi of the ancient Mediterranean were not produced on the Greek mainland

Mainland

Mainland is a name given to a large landmass in a region , or to the largest of a group of islands in an archipelago. Sometimes its residents are called "Mainlanders"...

; for example, they are known from Crete

Crete

Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

 and the Levant

Levant

The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...

 in non-Hellenic contexts. Many pithoi were excavated in the Palace of Knossos and the ancient shipwreck of Uluburun. The Ancient Iberian

Iberians

The Iberians were a set of peoples that Greek and Roman sources identified with that name in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula at least from the 6th century BC...

 culture of El Argar

El Argar

El Argar is the type site of an Early Bronze Age culture called the Argaric culture, which flourished from the town of Antas, in what is now the province of Almería, south-east of Spain, between c. 1800 BC and 1300 BC....

 also used pithoi for burials in its B phase (1500-1300 BC).

The pithos is better known in its Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 form as the fiscus, sometimes taken as meaning a place where funds were stored. Anything could be placed in a pithos; however, they were used primarily for grains, seeds, wine and oil. They were commonly associated with administrative and trade centers, which shipped, kept or received large quantities.

Pithoi were almost universally of ceramic

Ceramic

A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...

, which kept out water, dirt, insects and rodent

Rodent

Rodentia is an order of mammals also known as rodents, characterised by two continuously growing incisors in the upper and lower jaws which must be kept short by gnawing....

s. Most were as tall or taller than a human. The base was flat so that they could be placed in rows in a storage magazine or lined up along a hallway, walkway or staircase. Lugs or more rarely the more breakable handles were located on the upper sides for ease in handling. Some pithoi were set into holes in the floor.

Pithoi were often handled with ropes. Some vases display raised decorative ropes. Those with pointed rather than flat bases and narrow, sealable mouths were made specifically for shipping: a pithos, however broad-based, had no chance of remaining upright in an ancient ship; therefore pithoi with pointed ends were packed together as tightly as possible, and secured with ropes around their necks for the duration of the sea voyage.

A pithos for storage could be turned to the advantage of an enemy, who had only to knock over a pithos full of oil and touch a torch to it to produce a major conflagration. Most of the palaces of the Bronze Age

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...

 Aegean

Aegean civilization

Aegean civilization is a general term for the Bronze Age civilizations of Greece around the Aegean Sea. There are three distinct but communicating and interacting geographic regions covered by this term: Crete, the Cyclades and the Greek mainland. Crete is associated with the Minoan civilization...

 were burned at one time or another in this way.

The extensive surface area of a pithos was a common field for decoration. For example, pithoi recovered at Knossos

Knossos

Knossos , also known as Labyrinth, or Knossos Palace, is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and probably the ceremonial and political centre of the Minoan civilization and culture. The palace appears as a maze of workrooms, living spaces, and store rooms close to a central square...

 exhibit simulated rope designs. The best decor was reserved for table and service ware, but most pithoi have some kind of pattern or scene, most often raised and arrayed in bands around the jar.

Like the ceramic bathtubs of some periods, the size of a pithos made it a convenient coffin, especially where wood was in short supply. There is evidence of Middle Helladic burials in Mycenae

Mycenae

Mycenae is an archaeological site in Greece, located about 90 km south-west of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Argos is 11 km to the south; Corinth, 48 km to the north...

 and Crete

Crete

Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

 where the bones of the interred have been placed in pithoi.

In ancient Greek Mythology the fabled 'Pandora's Box' was in fact a Pithos, but was mistakenly translated to the form we are familiar with today.

In popular culture

Pithos is the name of a Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

 desktop client for the Pandora radio service. It's name is derived from the fact that the fabled 'Pandora's box' was not a box at all, but a clay pithos.