amphora [Latin]

(Latin plural, amphorae.) In the Classical world, a unit of capacity. The Roman amphora was about 26.2 liters, and the Greek was 1½ times the size of the Roman.

The amphora was both a unit and the name of a container for oil, wine and other liquids in the ancient Mediterranean.

The container itself was the classical world's equivalent of the 20th century's ubiquitous 55-gallon steel drum. Mediterranean underwater shipwrecks often contain row after row of amphorae. In Rome, a site called “Pot Mountain” consisted mostly of the shards of hundreds of thousands of amphorae.

display of Roman amphorae

Roman amphorae

An amphora had a narrow neck, two handles at the top like today's acid carboy, a plump middle, and usually a pointed bottom that could be pushed into soft earth. Some were made with bases so that they could stand upright on a flat surface. The prize at the Olympics was such an amphora, filled with olive oil and painted by a master, treasured then as they are now in the world's museums. Amphoras did not necessarily contain 1 amphora, the unit of capacity.

H. T. Wallinga.
Mnemosyne 1964, page 1-