A lekythos is a type of ancient Greek vessel used for storing oil, especially olive oil. It has a narrow body and one handle attached to the neck of the vessel, and is thus a narrow type of jug, with no pouring lip; the oinochoe is more like a modern jug. In the "shoulder" and "cylindrical" types which became the most common, especially the latter, the sides of the body are usually vertical by the shoulder, and there is then a sharp change of direction as the neck curves in; the base and lip are normally prominent and flared. However, there are a number of varieties, and the word seems to have been used even more widely in ancient times than by modern archeologists. They are normally in pottery, but there are also carved stone examples.
Hypnos and Thanatos carrying the body of Sarpedon from the battlefield of Troy; detail from an Attic white-ground] lekythos, c. 440 BC
A red-figure pottery (terracotta) "kerch" style lekythos depicting a nymph and satyr playing a game of knucklebones, with two Eros figures (standing between Aphrodite) offering laurel wreaths of victory to the nymph and to a youth, c. 350 BC
A lekythos in Gnathia style with Eros depicted playing with a ball, Apulian vase painting, third quarter of the 4th century BC
Attic white ground lekythos, c. 490 BC, Achilles dragging the body of Hector
Pottery of ancient Greece
Pottery, due to its relative durability, comprises a large part of the archaeological record of ancient Greece, and since there is so much of it, it has exerted a disproportionately large influence on our understanding of Greek society. The shards of pots discarded or buried in the 1st millennium BC are still the best guide available to understand the customary life and mind of the ancient Greeks. There were several vessels produced locally for everyday and kitchen use, yet finer pottery from regions such as Attica was imported by other civilizations throughout the Mediterranean, such as the Etruscans in Italy. There were a multitude of specific regional varieties, such as the South Italian ancient Greek pottery.
Pottery of ancient Greece
Hellenistic Amphorae, stacked the way they were probably transported in antiquity, display in the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology
Disjecta membra (a fragment of ancient Greek pottery)
Neoclassical "Black Basalt" Ware vase by Wedgwood, c. 1815 AD