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Pithos
Storage jar (pithos), from the west magazines (magazine X), Palace at Knossos, Crete 1700-1400BC, clay
This jar comes from one of 18 storerooms in the west wing of the Palace at Knossos. These storerooms were filled with large jars, the largest of which could hold up to 500 litres, revealing the grand scale of storage at Knossos. These jars were probably used for storing wine, oil, grain and pulses. Until Arthur Evans’s excavations which began in 1900, the site of Knossos was known to the locals as ‘the jars’ (ta pitharia), from the large storage jars found there during the first excavations by Minos Kalokairinios (1878-79).
