From Pithos to Küp: Thousands of Years of Storage Jars in Anatolia

Few objects have been as useful, for as long, as a big jar of fired clay. It can hold a household's grain, oil or water, or a state's reserves. In Anatolia the story runs from clay bins in Neolithic houses to inscribed Urartian jars, Aegean olive-oil workshops and the küp in a village pantry.

Here is what the evidence shows about what these jars held, how they were made, and why the form has lasted.

What is a pithos, and what is a küp?

Pithos (plural pithoi) is the Greek word archaeologists use for a large storage jar. An open university textbook on ancient Greek households describes pithoi as bulk containers for fluids and grains, comparable to the barrels and casks of later times. In Turkish, a big storage jar is a küp.

The names differ, the job is the same: a thick-walled vessel built to hold more than one person can easily carry.

When did Anatolia start making pottery?

Pottery was not there at the beginning. Sites such as Göbeklitepe belong to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. Work published in Documenta Praehistorica says pottery became a regular technology in the early 7th millennium BC, in a wide area from Upper Mesopotamia through central Anatolia to the Lakes District.

At Çatalhöyük, Polish archaeologists reported in 2014 that a small room of about 7 square metres in a house occupied some 8,200 years ago held four clay containers, each full of barley. Reed chaff and fragments of dried mudbrick were mixed into the clay of the town's pots, a production study found. The idea of a dedicated clay container for the household's food is very old here.

How did the Hittites and their neighbours store food?

Hattusha, the Hittite capital, is known for storage on a state scale. A paper in Antiquity describes an underground silo complex with intact grain stores. It shows how the Hittite state collected grain as tax in the 16th century BC. Those were silos, not jars, but they show how central stored grain was to the state.

In the Iron Age kingdom of Urartu, around Lake Van, excavators at Kevenli Castle on the slopes of Mount Erek found pithoi inscribed in cuneiform. Hürriyet Daily News says such jars were used for oil, grain and drinks, and reports say the inscriptions record what the jars held and how much. Reports differ on the number: Hürriyet and Qazinform say 42 jars, while other outlets say 76.

At Gordion, capital of Phrygia, the Levantine Ceramics Project notes that storage vessels were abundant from the 9th or 8th century BC through the Hellenistic period. Smaller household jars could be moved, while the much larger coarse pithoi were suited to long-term storage because they stayed put.

Where does olive oil come in?

On the Aegean coast, excavations at Klazomenai near Urla in İzmir uncovered an olive-oil workshop of the 6th century BC. Local culture authorities describe it as the oldest known olive-oil production site, and say amphorae distinctive to Klazomenai were used to store and ship olive oil and wine.

Further south, the Hatay Museum Directorate has excavated a Roman-era olive-oil factory at İskenderun, dated to the 5th to 6th centuries. Hürriyet Daily News calls it the largest in Anatolia. Olives were pressed and washed there, and the oil was shipped out in storage containers.

How were storage jars made, and why do forms differ?

Forms follow clay, climate and use. At Çatalhöyük, a Ministry of Culture and Tourism summary says many early pots seem to copy stone and wooden vessels, a reminder that clay learned its shapes from older materials. A Çatalhöyük pot, a Phrygian gray utility vessel, a Klazomenai amphora and an Urartian inscribed pithos differ because their makers worked with different clays, tempers and needs. Çanakkale University researchers note that the traditional way of shaping ceramics there was on the potter's wheel.

Avanos in Cappadocia makes pots from the red clay of old Kızılırmak riverbeds. The tradition is often said to reach back to the Hittites, but continuity over so long is hard to prove, so treat that as tradition rather than established fact.

Do the traditions survive?

Partly. Avanos belongs to the European Route of Ceramics, a Council of Europe-certified cultural route. Researchers at Süleyman Demirel University describe Hüyük in Konya as one of the centres where a pottery tradition of thousands of years still survives. But they also warn that Hüyük pottery shows signs of ending with its last masters.

Making very large jars takes skill, space and a big kiln, which helps explain why few makers remain.

Why do old storage jars still work in gardens today?

A jar built to hold oil or grain has a thick wall, a stable base and a generous belly. Those same qualities make it a strong, simple form for a terrace or courtyard, either planted or left alone as a sculptural object. Fired clay also weathers in a way many people value.

If you are buying one for outdoors, ask the seller about drainage and winter care in your climate.

Key facts

• Pithos is the Greek term for a large storage jar; in Turkish it is küp.
• Pottery became a regular technology across Upper Mesopotamia and central Anatolia in the early 7th millennium BC.
• Çatalhöyük had clay storage containers holding barley, in a house occupied about 8,200 years ago.
• Hattusha's underground silos show grain stored and taxed on a state scale in the 16th century BC.
• Urartian pithoi from Kevenli Castle carry cuneiform marks of contents and volume; counts differ between reports (42 or 76).
• Klazomenai's 6th-century BC olive-oil workshop is described locally as the oldest known.
• Avanos and Hüyük show living traditions, but some are fragile.

The jars in our atelier are ethnographic household objects, not archaeological finds. Still, each belongs to this long line of clay made to hold what a household depends on, and in a garden or a hallway today it quietly carries that history along.

Sources

1. Houses and Households in Ancient Greece (eCampusOntario open textbook): Storage, on pithoi
2. Science in Poland: Poles discovered an over 8 thousand years old grain storage in Turkey (Çatalhöyük)
3. Documenta Praehistorica: Ulucak Höyük, the pottery emergence in Western Anatolia
4. Clues of production for the Neolithic Çatalhöyük (central Anatolia) pottery
5. Antiquity (Diffey, Neef, Seeher and Bogaard, 2020): The agroecology of an early state, new results from Hattusha
6. Ministry of Culture and Tourism, TAED archaeological settlements directory: Çatalhöyük pottery summary
7. Hürriyet Daily News: Cuneiform-inscribed jars found in Urartian storage
8. Qazinform: Historic Urartian discovery in Türkiye, 42 ancient storage jars unearthed in Van castle ruins
9. Levantine Ceramics Project: Phrygian Gray Utility Ware (Gordion)
10. Visit İzmir: Klazomenai Ancient City
11. İzmir Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism: Klazomenai (Urla)
12. Hürriyet Daily News: Anatolia's largest olive oil factory unearthed (Hatay)
13. Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University: Traditional Çanakkale ceramics detected in Tabaklar village
14. In Craft and Art: From Traditional to Contemporary Avanos Pottery
15. Süleyman Demirel University repository: traditional pottery centres of Anatolia, including Hüyük (Konya)
16. GoTürkiye: European Route of Ceramics (Council of Europe certified route; Avanos)