Ancient Greece and wine importance. Records inscribed on tablets in Linear B include details of wine, vineyards and wine merchants, as well as an early allusion to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. Greeks embedded the arrival of winemaking culture in the mythologies of Dionysus and the cultural hero Aristaeus. Early remnants of amphoras show that the Mycenaeans actively traded wine throughout the ancient world in places such as Cyprus, Egypt, Palestine, Sicily and southern Italy. As the Greek city-states established colonies throughout the Mediterranean, the settlers brought grapevines with them and were active in cultivating the wild vines they encountered. Sicily and southern
Stirrup jar jars. Haskell hypothesizes that the smaller were used for decanting from pithoi and for temporary storage. What makes a stirrup jar "fine" is the grain size of the clay. Powdered clay results in a smooth surface. "Coarse ware," or coarse texture, means a surface similar to that of oatmeal, composed of larger grains, formed by admixture with quartz (sand) and particles of other minerals. Haskell developed his idea of the larger, coarser type of stirrup jar found in storerooms at Akrotiri into the "transport stirrup jar," a vessel serving as a standard container for the export of olive oil, and