The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-08-06
BOTTLES OF The ANCIENYS.
MOST OFTHEM MADE FROM SKINS
or ANIMALS.


Wines Stim CONVEYED in Some European
Countries In Rags OF Goat or Fig
Skins-Great Jar OF Leopard Hides
-Use Of Leather Bottles In England.
The most ancient receptacles Of wine
were formed OF animal hides. These must
he almost as old as wine itself, for there Ger
tainly would have been very. little use In
expressing the juice Of the grape and allow
Ing II to Torment unless there had been
vessels OF some sort to contain 1t. Even
II stored In underground cisterns, as Is
still done in southern Europe, bottles would
be required for carrying the liquid on jour
neys or even for consuming 1t at home.
Frequent mention is made Of such bottles
In ancient literature. At feast In the
llidd the servants are described as bear
ing wine upon their shoulders In q bottle OF
goatskin from which the goblets Of the
guests were filed says Ridleys Wine and
Spirit Trade Circular.
Throughout the interior Of Spain wine IL
still conveyed from place to place in bottles
made Of goat or pig skin identical In every
respect with the description given by
Herodotus. 1t will doubtless be remembered
that in the penta on the Sierra Moreno
Don Quixote's room was hung round with
these cueros, and that the doughty knight.
mistaking them for the myrmidons Of q
wicked enchanter, valiantly alta ked them
with his sword until the room was inch
deep in red wine flowing from the gashes
made in the skins
In Portugal and Greece these skin bags
are also used for the conveyance OF wine,
as they are much more portable than
any other sort Of vessel, especially in a
mountainous district where they have
to be borne by mules. These leathern
bottles have a peculiar interest, for in
make and material they connect the vim
iculture Of to-day with it's origin in the I'M
known past. They are survivals which
have foated down to us on the stream Of
time unaffected by centuries Of age.
A leathern bottle capable OF holding an
armed man would seem to us too unwieldy
for practical purposes; but there Is evil
dence that many Of those used by the
Romans were of still greater dimensions.
Among the ruins Of the ancient city of
Pompeii mural picture has been discov-
cred representing an enormous skin bag
on wine cart. which Is being borne along
by q machine shaped like boat. Two
men were drawing the wine OF into am
phorB. In order to gain popularity q
Roman politician would occasionally dole
out wine wholesale to the clients whose
favor he courted, and this picture probably
portrays the conveyance on which the wine
skin was borne through the streets and
the men engaged in circulating it.
The coronation ceremony Of Ptolemy
Philadelphus excelled in pomp and pagean-
try every procession recorded In history,
not even excepting the triumphant progress
with which Alexander the Great celebrated
his escape from the deserts Of Gedrosia.
Perhaps the object Of Philadelphus was 80
to dazzle his subjects that they should
forget the domestic crimes with which he
inaugurated his ascent to the throne. The
cost of the p ocession is estimated at over
half million of our money 1t lasted the
whole day. being opened by the figure Of
the Morning Star and closed with that Of
Hesperus. Eighty thousand troops, cav
airy and infantry, clad in gorgeous uni
forms, marched past. Although the festi-
val was held in winter, owing to the de-
licious Egyptian climate abundance Of
great vehicles of the procession and q
vintage scene faithfully represented. To the
sound of flute and song, sixty satyrs, under
the superintendent of Silenus, bearing his
symbolic cdnthdrus, trod out the grapes and
flooded the streets with foaming must.
of the show was a car, 81 feet long by 81
broad, bearing a gigantic utter made of
leopard hides and containing 1900 am phoro
of wine. As the Greek dMphora Ia equiva-
lent to eight imperial gallons, the liquid
contained in the utter would have eq!aled
IF
The sides must have been strengthened
with some material stronger than leather
to enable the skins to resist the pressure
of such weight Of liquid. AS the car
moved along in the statel y procession the
80 that the thirsty multitude could ell their
drinking vessels as 1t passed.
The scholastic Latin term for O wineskin
Ia utter, but the colloquial word used was
butts, and thus small skin was the diminu-
derived our word 4bottle, and. with slight
linguistic modification, the same word has
been adopted in all modern languages.
Although skins were never used FOR wine
In England, even when grape juice was fer
mented here, the leather bottle or black
1t is celebrated in many old English ballads
and Is not an uncommon alehouse emblem
at the present day. Some OF these leather
bottles were silver lined and were orna-
mented with silver bells, to ring peais OF
drunkenness" as Becker says in his Eng
lish Villanies Seven Times Pressed to
Death When SO ornanfented they are
called "gyngle boyes.'
Many Of those in ordinary Use were made
in the shape OF boot, which occasioned
the French prisoners to report on their re-
turn to France that "the Englishmen used
to drink out OF their bootes" They evil
IDENTIFY took the fancy, however, Of some Of
the French nobility, for in the expenses Of
John King Of France, when prisoner in
England after the battle of Poictiers there
is the following entry: Pour deur bouteilles
de CUR achetees Londres pour Monseigneur
PHILIPPE, qs. sd, no uncomfortable price
in those days. A. D. $4,000.
As the arts improved leather bottles
were supplemented, but not displaced, by
vessels Of clay, great care being taken In
the construction to avoid sandy earth or
any substance likely to be porous. These,
like the hides. partly to prevent the liquor
from exuding. were all coated on the inside
with PITCH but principally as an antiseptic,
to keep the wine sound. These vessels
we're called amphore,. and doubtless orr
ginally held the standard gage OF eight
gallons, but as their use became limited
10 cellar storage their size gradually in
creased until they attained frequently
the capacity of 100 gallons and upward.
lIz-- ~.r~.~ Il H.