The situla, a bucket for rituals and for cooling wine at ancient banquets

To consider oneself a continuator of antique culture, one need not know Pindar and Archilochus by heart. In principle, one may simply carouse from morning till night, reclining on a couch amid handsome youths, beauties and the strains of a pipe, provided one is sipping wine chilled in an elegant little bucket.

Such a bucket was called a situla. It served chiefly ritual and ceremonial purposes and was widespread from the Celts and Germans to the Etruscans and Italic peoples. But quite often, like this glass bucket of polished, translucent greenish painted glass with silver handles, it was an attribute of feasts and banquets and was used for chilling and serving wine.