Dolia: the containers that made Rome an empire of wine

"The story of the Roman Empire's enormous wine industry told through the remarkable ceramic storage and shipping containers that made it possible.

The average resident of ancient Rome drank two-hundred-and-fifty liters of wine a year, almost a bottle a day, and the total annual volume of wine consumed in the imperial capital would have overflowed the Pantheon.

But Rome was too densely developed and populated to produce its own food, let alone wine.

How were the Romans able to get so much wine? The key was the dolium-the ancient world's largest type of ceramic wine and food storage and shipping container, some of which could hold as much as two-thousand liters.

In Dolia, classicist and archaeologist Caroline Cheung tells the story of these vessels-from their emergence and evolution to their major impact on trade and their eventual disappearance.

Drawing on new archaeological discoveries and unpublished material, Dolia uncovers the indust