The Lekythos in Ancient Greece: Form, Function and Ritual
Tall, slender and usually furnished with a single handle, the lekythos (Greek λήκυθος, plural lekythoi) is one of the most recognisable shapes of ancient Greek pottery.
In antiquity, however, the word referred primarily to the vessel’s function: a container for oil or perfumed oil, rather than to one strictly defined shape. The term already appears in Homer’s Odyssey, where Nausicaa takes olive oil in a golden lekythos when she goes with her companions to wash clothes by the river.
A vessel designed for oil
Small bottles for oils and aromatic substances had existed in the Aegean since the Bronze Age, but the recognisable Attic lekythos developed during the early 6th century BC. Early forms appeared around 590–580 BC; the shoulder lekythos followed soon afterwards, and by about 530 BC Athenian potters had developed the elegant cylindrical form that became characteristic of the Classical period.
Its construction was particularly suited to precious liquids. The narrow neck and mouth allowed oil to be poured sparingly, while the single handle made the vessel easy to control.
Lekythoi were used for perfumed oils, bathing and grooming, but gradually became strongly associated with funerary ritual. Oil was used in the preparation of the body, offered to the dead and deposited at graves.
From black-figure to red-figure
The development of the lekythos also follows the history of Athenian vase painting. In the 6th century BC, lekythoi were frequently decorated in black-figure, with mythological subjects, athletes and scenes from daily life. A typical example is our Dionysus Black-Figure Lekythos, based on a shoulder lekythos attributed to the Taleides Painter, ca. 550–540 BC. Dionysus sits holding a drinking horn while a maenad and satyrs dance around him.
Another example is the Study on the Amasis Painter – Black-Figure Lekythos with a Rider, where a horse-racing scene is reconstructed with the added white and purple colours characteristic of Archaic vase painting.
With the development of the red-figure technique around the end of the 6th century BC, lekythoi also offered painters new possibilities for drawing the human body and movement. Our RF Lekythos – Eros with Victor’s Ribbon, after MFA Boston is based on a Late Archaic original of ca. 490–480 BC and shows the winged Eros carrying the tainia, the ribbon awarded to a victor.
The white-ground lekythos
During the 5th century BC, the lekythos became especially associated with the white-ground technique and funerary use. A pale slip covered the vase, allowing figures to be drawn in fine lines and enriched with added colours.
Some scenes show mourners, offerings and grave monuments; others evoke farewell and remembrance more subtly. Because these added colours were relatively fragile, the technique was particularly appropriate for vessels intended primarily for ritual or burial rather than everyday handling.
A beautiful example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, attributed to the Carlsruhe Painter and dated ca. 460–450 BC, depicts Nike carrying a fillet with which to crown a victor. The exceptional preservation of its added colours even reveals the use of a second white for Nike’s flesh. View the original lekythos at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
This same vase was successfully reproduced in the THETIS workshop, allowing us to explore experimentally not only its form and firing technology, but also the combination of white ground, fine drawing and added colour.
Some larger funerary lekythoi even concealed a small internal container, reducing the amount of costly oil required to fill the apparently large vessel — rather like the way expensive perfumes nowadays may be held in a small inner vial within a luxurious outer bottle.
From a practical oil flask to an object associated with burial and remembrance, the lekythos illustrates particularly well how function, ceramic technology and ritual could shape the evolution of an ancient Greek vessel.
