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Did the ancients drink out of ceramic jugs?
#1
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.
Dan D'Silva

Far beyond the rising sun
I ride the winds of fate
Prepared to go where my heart belongs,
Back to the past again.

--  Gamma Ray

Well, I'm tough, rough, ready and I'm able
To pick myself up from under this table...

--  Thin Lizzy

Join the Horde! - http://xerxesmillion.blogspot.com/
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#2
I suspect a leather water bottle would be fine, but this may help, http://comitatus.net/greekschous.html
John Conyard

York

A member of Comitatus Late Roman
Reconstruction Group

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.comitatus.net">http://www.comitatus.net
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.historicalinterpretations.net">http://www.historicalinterpretations.net
<a class="postlink" href="http://lateantiquearchaeology.wordpress.com">http://lateantiquearchaeology.wordpress.com
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#3
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.
Dan D'Silva

Far beyond the rising sun
I ride the winds of fate
Prepared to go where my heart belongs,
Back to the past again.

--  Gamma Ray

Well, I'm tough, rough, ready and I'm able
To pick myself up from under this table...

--  Thin Lizzy

Join the Horde! - http://xerxesmillion.blogspot.com/
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#4
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
M. Demetrius Abicio
(David Wills)

Saepe veritas est dura.
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#5
By coincidence, in Myarmoury they are discussing the leather bottles too.

[Image: 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.
-This new learning amazes me, Sir Bedevere. Explain again how
sheep´s bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes.
[Image: escudocopia.jpg]Iagoba Ferreira Benito, member of Cohors Prima Gallica
and current Medieval Martial Arts teacher of Comilitium Sacrae Ensis, fencing club.
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#6
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.
Visne partem mei capere? Comminus agamus! * Me semper rogo, Quid faceret Iulius Caesar? * Confidence is a good thing! Overconfidence is too much of a good thing.
[b]Legio XIIII GMV. (Q. Magivs)RMRS Remember Atuatuca! Vengence will be ours!
Titus Flavius Germanus
Batavian Coh I
Byron Angel
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#7
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.
Non mihi, non tibi, sed nobis

Joe Patt (Paruzynski)
Milton, FL, USA
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#8
Quote:By coincidence, in Myarmoury they are discussing the leather bottles too.
Not coincidence Confusedmile: 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.
Dan D'Silva

Far beyond the rising sun
I ride the winds of fate
Prepared to go where my heart belongs,
Back to the past again.

--  Gamma Ray

Well, I'm tough, rough, ready and I'm able
To pick myself up from under this table...

--  Thin Lizzy

Join the Horde! - http://xerxesmillion.blogspot.com/
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#9
The Macedonians will have drank from spittoons were they filled with unmixed wine...
Paralus|Michael Park

Ἐπὶ τοὺς πατέρας, ὦ κακαὶ κεφαλαί, τοὺς μετὰ Φιλίππου καὶ Ἀλεξάνδρου τὰ ὅλα κατειργασμένους

Wicked men, you are sinning against your fathers, who conquered the whole world under Philip and Alexander!

Academia.edu
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#10
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/uploa...920-03.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
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#11
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.
Dan D'Silva

Far beyond the rising sun
I ride the winds of fate
Prepared to go where my heart belongs,
Back to the past again.

--  Gamma Ray

Well, I'm tough, rough, ready and I'm able
To pick myself up from under this table...

--  Thin Lizzy

Join the Horde! - http://xerxesmillion.blogspot.com/
Reply
#12
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.


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Dan D'Silva

Far beyond the rising sun
I ride the winds of fate
Prepared to go where my heart belongs,
Back to the past again.

--  Gamma Ray

Well, I'm tough, rough, ready and I'm able
To pick myself up from under this table...

--  Thin Lizzy

Join the Horde! - http://xerxesmillion.blogspot.com/
Reply


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