A large section of Greek vases includes vessels for vegetable oil. One such vessel is the lekythos on display at the exhibition, an archaeological find from 1998. It is a black-glazed lekythos with red-figure decoration, of aryballos shape, with a slightly elongated body and a narrow cylindrical neck. This vessel has a squat form, with polychrome painting visible on its surface. On the front of the body, there is a fourteen-petalled palmette made in a schematic style. The crown is tall and bell-shaped, separated from the neck by a barely defined cut-in band. The handle has a ribbon-like shape.
Tableware in ancient Greece was highly valued. In everyday life, each vessel served a specific purpose. Some were used for water, others for oil, and still others for wine. Currently, there are about 20 main types of ancient Greek vessels known. The lekythos is one of the most common vessels on a low annular foot, with a narrow, elongated body, typically made of ceramic. These vessels were produced from the beginning of the 6th century BCE and were painted with mineral pigments and varnished. This technique emerged along with the transition from black-figure vase painting to red-figure style.
Lekythoses are an important part of ancient Greek art from the classical period. They were often painted for funerary purposes. The lower and upper portions of the vase were varnished, the handles were decorated with a delicate palmette pattern, and narrative painting was applied to the main body of the vase. The themes varied, including depictions of Hypnos and Thanatos carrying the body of a deceased person to the grave or Hermes guiding the soul of a deceased individual to the otherworldly river where Charon, the ferryman, was waiting in a boat. Some lekythoses depicted women preparing to visit or stay at a cemetery and at a tombstone monument.
Since the 5th century BCE, lekythoses were used for household purposes, primarily to store aromatic oils, which was both convenient and practical. Aromatic oils were applied by both women and men instead of perfumes, they were used in religious rituals, as well as during funerary rites.
