amphora Facts For Kids

The word for amphora comes from ancient Greek. The older Greek form, amphoreus, comes from an even older word that means “carried on both sides.” This idea points to the two handles, one on each side, which help you carry the jar.

Parts of the word also come from Greek bits: “amphi-” means “on both sides,” and the rest comes from a verb meaning “to carry.” People wrote the word in very old scripts, and later the Romans and other groups borrowed the name into their languages.

Amphora is the name for a tall jar with two handles and a pointed bottom. People used these jars long ago to carry and store things like wine, oil, olives, grain, and water. Because of their shape, amphorae could be packed close together in ships or stored standing in soft ground or in wooden racks.

Most amphorae are made of pottery, but some were made from metal or other materials. They were often pretty, with painted or carved decorations, and sometimes used on a table or shown near a dining area. Their pointed base and two handles made them useful for travel and trade.

Shapes like amphorae show up very early in many places from the Caucasus to China. Pots with pointed bottoms were made by Neolithic people, and some were found at sites like Banpo in China that are thousands of years old.

By about 3500 BC amphora-like jars appear along Mediterranean coasts, and in the Bronze and Iron Ages they spread across the region. Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians, and others used them for trading food and liquids. In some places amphora-making continued much later, and their shape also influenced pottery far to the east.

Most amphorae are made of ceramic, a hard clay fired in a kiln. Craftspeople worked in industrial-style workshops that could make many jars quickly. This continued until about the 7th century AD in the west. By the Roman period, makers focused on plain, strong jars for moving things rather than fancy tableware. Amphora styles also traveled: Eastern Mediterranean, North African, and Aegean traditions each shaped how jars looked.

Over time people began to use other containers, like wooden boxes and skins, so amphora use dropped in many places. In the later empire some regions, especially North Africa, still produced many jars while other areas stopped. Would you recycle an old amphora into a planter or a lamp?

In ancient Greece pottery makers made two main amphora shapes. The neck amphorae have a clear join where the narrow neck meets the round body. Later, around the 7th century BC, potters favored one-piece amphorae with a smooth, continuous curve from neck to body.

Greek amphorae were often painted with scenes from daily life, animals, or stories. Families used decorated amphorae at meals or displayed them nearby. They were also used in trade, carrying wine, oil, and other goods across the sea, and their pointed bottoms helped keep them steady on ships or in storage racks.

The bottom of many jars is pointed so the pots stand in soft ground or fit into racks and sand aboard a ship. Crews packed amphorae close together and sometimes tied them with ropes so they would not roll. This tight packing saved space, and one ancient ship near Kefalonia carried about 6,000 amphorae—imagine that many jars!

When jars arrived empty, people often broke them because they were cheap. These broken pieces piled up into big dumps, like Monte Testaccio in Rome, which is a whole hill of pottery fragments. Archaeologists use the shapes, stamps, and marks on amphora pieces to date shipwrecks and to learn where the goods came from. What story could a broken pot tell you about travel long ago?

Amphorae are stout jars made mainly to move food and drink, not to sit on a table. In Roman times workshops made them by the hundreds, so they were simple and useful. Some types changed to make ships carry more: the thick, heavy Dressel 1 came first, around the late 2nd century BC, and later the lighter Dressel 2–4 arrived in the mid-1st century BC. Lighter jars meant a ship could carry more cargo without sinking.

Different places made their own styles. Italy, Spain (places called Baetica and Tarraconensis), Gaul (near Marseille), North Africa, and the Aegean islands (like Rhodes and Crete) each had shapes for wine, olive oil, fish sauce, or fruit sauce. Some North African jars show Phoenician echoes with small handles. Which shape do you think would be easiest to carry?