This bronze water jar (or "hydria") is from Ancient Greece. The hydria, primarily a pot for fetching water, derives its name from the Greek word for water. They were mostly used by women carrying water from a fountain, one of their duties in classical antiquity. That is why a hydria has two horizontal handles at the sides for lifting and a vertical handle at the back for dipping and pouring.

This particular one is ornated with the figures of Dionysos and Ariadne, the first one being the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness, fertility, theatre and religious ecstasy, and the second being his wife, who used to be Theseus' lover and who helped him defeat the Minotaur and escape the labyrinth.