The wineskins were containers made with the skin of an animal and used to carry liquids, mainly and were used in Roman times (and even earlier). It is an easy to manufacture container, very manageable and the liquid remains inside at the desired temperature.

In the classical texts there is hardly any mention of this type of vessel, except for a reference found in the Digest (XIII, 7, 43, 1), which refers to a requisition of wineskins destined for the annona. From the iconographic point of view, the use of wineskins is well established in the Roman world.

We take as reference different iconographic sources for its realization: a marble relief of the I-II century A.D. from Christie’s house; the silene on a wineskin from the Villa dei Papiri of Herculaneum; the silene present in the decoration of a piece of Aretian pottery from the Augustan period; or the mosaic of Paphos, Cyprus, which shows Icarius transporting wine (III century A.D.).