"Pithos" has two irreconcilable derivations, classical and Mycenaean. On the one hand, it was a well-used word of the Iron Age in Greece, dating to as early as the works of Homer. Julius Pokorny and other professional linguists developed a derivation from Proto-Indo European "*bhidh-", "container", that followed all the rules of language change and moreover was related to Latin "fiscus", "purse", from which English obtains "fiscal". Regardless of the real derivation, a pithos certainly seems to be a large purse containing economic goods in quantity. The derivation would have been elegant, tracing fiscality back to prehistoric Greece, it was thought, taking its place with "oikos", "house", the origin word for "economic", and others. At that time Greek and Latin were believed to have had a common ancestor other than Proto-Indo-European.