A friend on another board is on vacation and noted that he picked up a Hittite decanter on his trip and that started me thinking.
Anyone here into collecting wine antiquities (not the Jefferson Bottles....)? I started not so long ago when an antique dealer I know in Boston that we buy pieces from started to talk to me about his love for Pinot Noir. He started collecting some very serious wine related antiquities pieces (Five figures) and started to show them to me. Of course if I can't drink Lafite, I won't buy five figure antiques, but I did start picking up lesser pieces.
I have a few 2000 yr old wine drinking vessel (the ear cup) called a yushang made of ceramic (looks like the ones shown here http://history.cultural-china.com/en/53H2040H5107.html). This shape essentially stayed unchanged for 2000 years. I have several ceramic wine vessels from the Shang dynasty 650 AD. Some drawings showing wine consumption. I've bid on (but unsuccessfully) 18th -19th century wine glasses, decanters, etc,..etc,.. I did not collect these mindfully but they were nice curiosities.
I'm not likely to decant my next bottle into this but have continued to look into these artifacts as an interest. People WAYYYYY back were interested in wine and they have specifically shaped vessels to hold and consume them. Thought provoking.