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.