Bucchero ware is a kind of pottery fired by a special process that gives it a uniform black colour and a glossy surface, in imitation of more expensive metal vessels. First produced at Cerveteri around 675 B.C., it rapidly spread to other centres in southern Etruria, such as Veio, Tarquinia and Vulci, where its production became standardized.

The vessels shown here were all made in southern Etruria from the late 7th to the end of the 6th century B.C. Those most frequently found are the kind used for wine drinking: the oinochoe and the small olpe for mixing and pouring wine, the goblet and kantharos for drinking it. The latter is the most widely diffused bucchero ware drinking vessel, often found together with wine amphorae, bearing witness to the great loads transported by Etruscan cargo ships all over the Mediterranean basin.