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+--- Thread: Did the ancients drink out of ceramic jugs? (/showthread.php?tid=21485)
Did the ancients drink out of ceramic jugs? - Dan D'Silva - 09-03-2012
Or in other words: Would a small amphora-like jug make a good water bottle for all-day reenactments and marches, or would drinking straight out of one just look silly? I know normal custom was to pour from a jug into a drinking cup...
I bring it up because ceramic jugs are easily documented, while I have doubts about the hard waxed leather bottle I've been using, and because ceramic would have certain advantages -- won't spring leaks from being left in the sun, can be run through the dishwasher if needed and so on.
Did the ancients drink out of ceramic jugs? - John Conyard - 09-03-2012
I suspect a leather water bottle would be fine, but this may help, http://comitatus.net/greekschous.html
Did the ancients drink out of ceramic jugs? - Dan D'Silva - 09-04-2012
Neat. Do you find it makes a feasible water bottle for carrying around?
About the leather bottle, it depends on what you mean by "be fine." It works, with certain care, and it looks cool. But I've found only a few mentions of Classical leather vessels for liquid and no descriptions or pictures other than of large wineskins. I figured a pottery container would be more clearly authentic -- if I'm using it in the right way.
Did the ancients drink out of ceramic jugs? - M. Demetrius - 09-04-2012
Wouldn't a wineskin (waterskin) be simply the size of the animal from which it was made? Kids and goats are commonly used today, so surely they were then, too. But you're probably right about pouring into a cup. After all, it's difficult to hold a ten liter bottle overhead to get a drink.
The Spanish "bota" that's sold all over, is probably a modern simulation of some kind of animal bladder or stomach.
http://spanishfood.about.com/od/drinks/a/botas.htm
Did the ancients drink out of ceramic jugs? - Iagoba - 09-04-2012
By coincidence, in Myarmoury they are discussing the leather bottles too.
![[Image: d6d0b26371ce74e9f80d31807ccd886e.jpg]](http://www.wicmoel.com/wicmoel/components/com_virtuemart/shop_image/product/d6d0b26371ce74e9f80d31807ccd886e.jpg)
The traditional "bota" is made of goat leather, treated with vegetable tanines, and with resines of pine and juniper in the inside surfaces.
The wineskin (a whole goat skin) has been used until well entered the XXth century, my great-granddad bought still the wine in it. BTW, they caught fire quite well when empty and dried.
Did the ancients drink out of ceramic jugs? - Gaius Julius Caesar - 09-04-2012
Getting back to a ceramic bottle, I have two which work fine, and are a made by
Venitian Kat. I do believe they are made from find evidence.
Wine skins are certainly popular, though.
They keep water cool by sweating, so no need to be totally water proofed.
More of a wet kit issue though.
Did the ancients drink out of ceramic jugs? - Redguru - 09-04-2012
I submit to you that gourds were rather prevalent for drinking in Roman times, and in fact, were probably carried across the land bridge by the predecessors to the Inuits.
From "What the Roman emperor Tiberius grew in his greenhouses"
H.S. Paris1* and J. Janick2
1 Department of Vegetable Crops & Plant Genetics, Agricultural Research Organization, Newe
Ya’ar Research Center, P. O. Box 1021, Ramat Yishay 30-095, Israel
2 Department of Horticulture & Landscape Architecture, Purdue University, 625 Agriculture
Mall Drive, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2010, USA
* Corresponding author e-mail: [email protected]
Quote:Pliny noted, as did Columella, that there was also much variation in the shape of fruits of cucurbita and that shape was related to usage: There are a larger number of ways of using gourds…gourds have recently come to be used instead of jugs in bathrooms, and they have long been actually employed as jars for storing wine… The longer an thinner gourds are the more agreeable they are for food, and consequently those which have been left to grow hanging are more wholesome; and this kind contains fewest seeds, the hardness of which limits their agreeableness as an article of diet.
Did the ancients drink out of ceramic jugs? - Dan D'Silva - 09-05-2012
Quote:By coincidence, in Myarmoury they are discussing the leather bottles too.Not coincidence
mile: That was what got me thinking more about what to be using. Especially since I reenact as a Persian, Greek-style wineskins may not be correct. But I especially like the two-handled jug, as the basic shape is pretty common.
Did the ancients drink out of ceramic jugs? - Paralus - 09-05-2012
The Macedonians will have drank from spittoons were they filled with unmixed wine...
Did the ancients drink out of ceramic jugs? - hoplite14gr - 09-19-2012
Not only the ancients drunk or stored water in clay vessels but moderns too.
In this artistically colored photograph from 1929 you see Greek women in 1920 bringing water home from the river in clay vessels.
http://www.otherside.gr/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/ellada-to-1920-03.jpg
Remote villages got running water after 1950. Most people drank in clay cups.
A metal or porselan vessel for drinking was offered to the guest only and it was considered a mark of high honor.
Kind regards
Did the ancients drink out of ceramic jugs? - Dan D'Silva - 12-21-2013
Hiya. I stumbled across another answer to this yesterday: The finds in OIP 69 include multiple clay canteens that are mostly a pretty normal flattened-sphere shape, sometimes with ears.
RE: Did the ancients drink out of ceramic jugs? - Dan D'Silva - 09-28-2016
I picked this up for a couple dollars at a thrift store. Do you think it would be passable? I know clear glass is much rarer in archaeology than ceramic. Also this one has a number of modern-looking details (the secondary ridge around the neck, for instance) which are molded in.