During the Late Bronze Age, they were used in the export of oils, and are found in large numbers at sites around the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond.

[2] The term "stirrup-jar" is a translation of German "Bügelkanne", the name assigned to them by Heinrich Schliemann who found the first instances during his excavations at Troy.

Haskell, a theorist of the later 20th century, proposed that it originated in the Middle Bronze Age as a one-time invention intended to reduce wasteful pouring of expensive fluids.

[3] Haskell's view was based on MM III jars found at Kommos (Crete) and Kea (island).

[7] Stirrup jars have been found at archaeological sites throughout the Eastern Mediterranean region, including those in mainland Greece, the Cyclades, Crete, Cyprus, Rhodes, Asia Minor, and Ancient Egypt.

As this is not a convenient weight for decanting or table use, the jars that came to Ventris’ attention were probably of the transport type; that is, intended for export.

The early stirrup-jars were not distinguished by special type; i.e., the sizes and shapes varied within a maximum height of 45 centimetres (18 in).

[11] By LM I B, the smaller Cretan jars had developed into one of the two subsequent major types, the "fine ware", which Haskell proposes spread to the rest of the eastern Mediterranean: LH I B, LC I A, etc., and the equivalent periods on Cyprus and Rhodes.

Before then, while Knossos was still under the Linear A administration, the stirrup jar moves into the Cyclades and is found at Akrotiri before the volcanic eruption.

The neutron activation analysis performed by the British Museum sparked a field-wide interest in the topic and the method.

A number of research groups were to assume the challenge of refining the technique and applying it to other caches of stirrup jars to more fully ascertain its provenance and uses in trade.

Contemporaneously with Haskell's theoretical work and the British Museum's neutron activation studies, excavations were being conducted at Kommos on the southern coast of Crete by the University of Toronto, 15 years of excavation in all, ending in 1995, which turned up thousands pieces of what looked like export and import pottery.

Following the lead of the British Museum, the project archaeologists decided it would be illuminating to the subject of trade contacts and relationships to conduct neutron activation studies of the origin of this pottery.

[13] The goal was to test non-random geographical hypotheses about the compositional profiles of the samples; that is, the provenances, as had the British Museum.

[14] The study found 26 fabrics concerning which hypotheses could be tested by neutron activation and analysis of variance; that is, for each group, were the samples in it randomly or not?

In a sufficient number of samples, the measured concentrations are expected to vary at random (defined mathematically) around a mean.

When the stirrup jar began on Crete, its administrative citizens used a syllabary termed by Evans Linear A, reflecting a yet unknown language, probably not Indo-European, sometimes called "Aegean".

In the vocabulary of pottery, clay pots are considered earthenware ceramics and are typically labelled terracotta, etymologically "baked earth".

[22] In the last few decades of the 20th century a number of questions became current about the provenance of Mycenaean pottery excavated by the British Museum from Tell es-Sa'idiyeh in the Jordan Valley.

[23] The preliminary tests determined the construction of the stirrup jars by xeroradiography, which had been adapted to archaeological images from medical technology.

It is allowed to dry until shrinkage is complete and it reaches a state called in the trade leather-hard, a descriptive term.

The tedious methods of qualitative analysis by chemical isolation of the components went out of general use with the invention of mass spectrometry in the early 20th century.

Most generally, mass spectrometers turn the sample into a gas (destroying it) and by bombarding it with a stream of electrons create a plasma, or supercharged cloud of ions, which loses the energy imparted to it by radiating wavelengths characteristic of the elemental atoms at an intensity that depends on the concentration of the element.

The nuclei acquired more neutrons than nature ordinarily permits, creating short-lived isotopes, which decayed emitting a radiation characteristic of the elemental atoms, etc.

Analysis of variance on the profiles of the sample jars found that minor variation of constructional features was random.

Because the Jordanian stirrup jars were so late, the project confined itself to the relative time period, LH/LM III, long after the invention on Crete and introduction of the type to Greece.

[27] The manufacturers, however, as indicated by the historical documents of Linear B, might not have been free men according to today's understanding, and might not have reaped the profits.

In the earlier period, East Peloponnesian stirrup jars were exported to Egypt, Palestine, Rhodes, and Cyprus.

In later III, Cyprus and Rhodes made their own jars, while East Peloponnesus contributed none, presumably because they did not make them any longer.

The authors attribute this deficit to the destruction of the mainland palaces and the fall of Mycenaean culture there, to be replaced by Dorian.