Dressel-43 type Amphora

Amphora for the transport of wine produced in Crete in the I-II centuries AD.

The Dressel 43 amphora (also extensively classified in Aegean typologies as the Amphore Crétoise 4 or AC4) is a distinctive type of Roman transport vessel primarily manufactured on the island of Crete. Used predominantly during the 1st to 2nd centuries AD (and extending into the 3rd century AD), it served a major role in distributing Cretan products across the Roman Empire.

Key Architectural Features
Unlike the massive globular shapes of Spanish oil containers (like the Dressel 20), the Dressel 43 features a slender, elongated silhouette:
• Body & Base: An elongated, cylindrical to ovoid body that tapers down to a short, solid basal spike or rounded knob.
• Neck & Rim: A long neck featuring a distinctly bulging profile.
• Handles: Long, single-rod vertical handles that rise above the neck line to form sharp, distinctive peaks.
• Fabric: Typically composed of fine-textured, light brown to reddish-brown earthenware clay. They are generally smaller, wider, and have much thinner walls than their Rhodian counterparts, which they structurally imitated.

Target Cargo & Contents
The Dressel 43 was an essential vessel for the highly active Cretan agricultural trade:
• Wine: Its primary use was the transport of famous Cretan wines. Crete was highly regarded in antiquity for passum (sweet raisin wine) and specialty sweet wines processed with sea water using traditional Aegean technologies.
• Preserved Fruits: Archeological findings (such as those from the Dramont D shipwreck) have occasionally revealed the remains of figs preserved in syrup, wine, or sapa, proving these jars also served as general export packaging for sweet agricultural preserves.

Distribution & Economy
While produced locally in workshops across Crete, the Dressel 43 achieved wide commercial success. It is frequently uncovered in major maritime trading hubs all around the Mediterranean. Furthermore, a significant trade network distributed these amphoras further inland across the northwestern Roman provinces, leaving a notable scatter of fragments across Gaul (France), the Rhineland (Germany), and Roman Britain.

The object is made of quad polygons only with unwrapped and non-overlapping UV.
Two different sets of textures are included (color, ambient occlusion, roughness, specular, normal and bump) to get the same amphora with two different materials.