ABSTRACT
Amphora The Greek word amphora (αμφορεύς) is composite (αμφί + φέρω) and describes (albeit partly) both the form and function of a multi-purpose vessel (Daremberg and Saglio 1877: 248-250, s.v. amphora), one that could be carried or moved by two handles positioned opposite each other. The first reference to the word in written sources comes from the Knossos Linear B tablets: a-pi-po-re-we (Evans 1935: 731, fig. 714). The relevant ideogram resembles the vessel in question but there is also another word (ka-ra-re-we) that describes the Cretan Transport Stirrup Jar (TSJ, see further below). Strictly speaking, then, the word ‘amphora’ was not a generic synonym for an MTC, at least not during the Late Bronze Age. Several references to αμφιφορεύς in their sense as MTCs are found in Homeric poems (Iliad 23: 92, Odyssey 2: 290, 349, 379) and in later classical sources (Herodotus, Histories 4: 163; Aristophanes, Plutus 807; Xenophon, Anabasis 5.4.28; Thucydides Historiae 4.115.2; see also Grace 1961: 9). In Latin literary sources, MTCs have several names, including amphora (Peña 2007: 369), whereas in Greek texts of Late Roman Egypt the terms κούφον and μαγαρικόν appear (Bees 1944; Cockle 1981: 87; Bakirtzis 1989: 70-71). Nonetheless, most works that treat the period of time from the Iron Age to the Roman era refer to the vessels we call MTCs as amphorae or transport amphorae, perhaps because most Iron Age versions were amphorae, i.e. closed vessels with two handles, positioned opposite one another, with which the vessels could be carried. A key group of MTCs discussed in this study, however, were not amphorae in the strict sense of the term: the ‘Torpedo Jars’ of the early Iron Age, for example, have two vertical loop handles, but they are too small for the purpose of carrying the jar, even when empty.
