This is a Gnathian oinochoe (jug) from Sicily circa 300 BCE. There are always one or two objects in every museum which make a lasting impression on me. This oinochoe was one of those objects. After I first saw it, I returned to look at it again and again. The color, the shape, the graceful lines … everything about it appealed to me in a very personal way. I tried to imagine what the maker of this oinochoe would have said if a time traveler had informed him that he had achieved a certain degree of immortality by the creation of something so elegantly simple. I feel certain that he would have said, “By the gods man, it’s only a jug!” How wrong he would have been.