In the Champagne region of northern France, a Greek wine jug has been unearthed at a 5th century BC burial site of a Celtic prince whose tomb dates back to the famous Hallstatt period.

Archaeologists from the Institut National de Recherches Archeologiques Préventives (Inrap) have been excavating the site in Lavau just outside Troyes since late last year.

The body of the prince and his chariot were found surrounded by items such a bronze cauldron of Etruscan or Greek origin. Inside the cauldron was an intact Attic ceramic wine jug − otherwise known as an oinochoe or oenochoe.

The jug depicts Dionysus in a banqueting scene, reclining on a couch beneath a vine and facing a woman. The cauldron, one metre in diameter, is decorated with the horned and bearded head of the river god Acheloos and the heads of eight lionesses.

Similar Greek and Etruscan artefacts have been discovered at sites in Germany, Switzerland and in at Côte-d’Or in Burgundy, France, but it is the furthest point in northern Europe that Greek culture is known to have spread.

It is possible, that the jug and its accompanying wine might have come from the Greek city of Massalia, modern-day Marseille, but tribes along the Loire, Seine, Saône, Rhine and Danube were frequently exposed to Greek trade items which might also have changed hands through trade, gifting or warfare.