FermenteaWhere food goes to change
Equipment · Historical object · Jars, pots and crocks
A reconstructed ceramic jar from Hajji Firuz Tepe, dated 5400–5000 BCE. Wine and terebinth resin residues identify its contents, while its museum record calls it a storage jar.
The Hajji Firuz jar is a reconstructed ceramic vessel catalogued by the Penn Museum as object 69-12-15. The museum dates it to 5400–5000 BCE and records it from Hajji Firuz Tepe in Iran. It was one of a group found set into the floor along an interior wall of a well-preserved Neolithic house described as a kitchen. This context places the jar among household storage equipment rather than in a separate, purpose-built winery. The group setting matters: this was one container within a domestic arrangement, not a single monumental vessel whose scale or function can stand for every early wine practice.
The reconstructed jar is about 32 centimetres high and 33.4 centimetres across at its widest outside diameter. The collection record describes a restricted mouth and carinated profile: the shoulder turns distinctly into the body rather than forming a simple uninterrupted curve. It is ceramic, with fragments reconstructed into the vessel now seen in the museum. Its approximate capacity is 9 litres, a manageable household-scale quantity. These details distinguish this specimen from much larger later jars and from modern Georgian qvevri; resemblance among ceramic wine vessels does not establish that they shared the same construction, installation or use.
Reddish residue inside the jar tested positive for wine and terebinth tree resin. That finding connects the vessel to wine storage and to resin among the substances associated with its contents. It does not, by itself, show that resin was applied as a waterproof lining, how much wine the jar held at a particular moment, or how the jar was cleaned and sealed. The museum identifies it as a storage jar. The residue is not independent proof that primary fermentation took place inside this particular vessel, so its best-supported role here is containment of wine rather than an asserted fermentation method.
The floor-set arrangement shows that these ceramic containers were integrated into the house, where their bodies could be supported by the surrounding floor. The sources do not give a measured temperature, sealing method, oxygen transfer rate, or evidence that the floor position was chosen for a specific fermentation effect. Those properties should not be supplied by analogy with later buried wine jars. The object is a useful early record of ceramic wine containment in Neolithic Iran, but it cannot establish a continuous line from this household jar to any present-day vessel tradition. It is a museum-held archaeological object, not a working design or a validated process guide.
Penn Museum dates this reconstructed object to 5400–5000 BCE. It was one of a group of jars found sunken into the floor along the interior wall of a well-preserved Neolithic house described as a kitchen. The date belongs to this excavated vessel; it is not an endpoint for the broader practice of storing wine in ceramic jars.
Wine-associated residue does not establish that this vessel was used for primary fermentation; the museum identifies it as a storage jar.
Source →Find provenance for object 69-12-15; this row does not assign the origin of all wine jars to Iran.
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Penn MuseumForm · Materials · Dimensions · Capacity · Archaeology · Use · History
Wine Jar - 69-12-15The collection record identifies the vessel as a reconstructed ceramic storage jar from Hajji Firuz Tepe, Iran, dated 5400–5000 BCE.
It gives a height of 32 cm, outside diameter of 33.4 cm and approximate capacity of 9 litres.
It records a restricted, carinated form, a floor-set domestic context and reddish residue tested positive for wine and terebinth tree resin.
Cited in: A household jar from Hajji Firuz; Form, material and scale; What the residue can tell us; Reading the vessel in context
Penn MuseumHistory · Archaeology
The Beginnings of Winemaking and Viniculture in the Ancient Near East and Egypt: Neolithic IranThe museum places Hajji Firuz Tepe in the northern Zagros region and describes the house-floor context as a Neolithic kitchen.
The page contextualizes the jar among a group of vessels and discusses early wine evidence in the region.
Cited in: A household jar from Hajji Firuz; Reading the vessel in context