Pithos, plural pithoi (Ancient Greek πίθος, πίθοι) was the Ancient Greek name of a large storage container used for shipping and bulk storage—primarily fluids and grains—among the civilizations that bordered the Mediterranean Sea in the Neolithic, the Bronze Age and the succeeding Iron Age. They were comparable to the drums, barrels and casks of recent times. Although the word is Greek, many of the pithoi of the ancient Mediterranean were not produced in Greek-speaking regions; for example, they are known from Crete and the Levant in non-Hellenic contexts. The name was different in different languages; for instance, the Hittites used harsi-.
Secondarily, discarded pithoi found other uses. Like the ceramic bathtubs of some periods, the size of a pithos made it a convenient coffin. In Middle Helladic burials in Mycenae and Crete sometimes the bones of the interred were placed in pithoi. The Ancient Iberian culture of El Argar used pithoi for coffins in its B phase (1500-1300 BC). In warfare the pithos full of the incendiary olive oil was a liability to the defense of a palace. An enemy had only to knock over a pithos full of oil and touch a torch to it to produce a major conflagration. Most of the palaces of the Bronze Age Aegean were burned at one time or another in this way.
The external shape and materials were approximately the same: a ceramic jar about as high as a man, more or less, base for standing on the ground, sides nearly straight or generously curved, large mouth with a lip, lid for the mouth, sealed for shipping. Jars of this size could not be handled by individuals, especially when full. Various numbers of handles, or lugs, or some combination, gave a purchase for some sort of harness used in lifting the jar with a crane.
Pithoi were manufactured and exported or imported over the entire Mediterranean. They were used most heavily in the Bronze Age palace economy for storing or shipping wine, olive oil, or various types of vegetable products for distribution to the populace served by the palace administration. Consequently they became known to the modern public as pithoi when western classical archaeologists adopted the term to mean the jars uncovered by excavation of Minoan palaces on Crete and Mycenaean ones on mainland Greece.
The term has now been adopted into the English language as a general word for a storage jar from any culture. Along with this universality has come a problem of distinguishing the smaller pithoi from other types of pottery. Many ceramics are not any easily classifiable shape. If they were used for transport or storage, they are likely to be called pithoi, even though they are not the size of the palace pithoi, and even though the forms might well have fit other types. Reconciliation of pre-classical pottery types with classical types has long been a problem of classical archaeology.