The lekythos shape is frequently used to hold special oils for cosmetic, massage, or ritual purposes.  Athletes often carried a lekythos full of oil with a stopper attached by a strap to their wrist on their way to the gymnasium where the oil would be applied over the body prior to athletic events.  Many lekythoi were also used as funerary offerings and buried with the deceased . 

  Although the black figure style of vase painting originated in Corinth, it was the rise to power of the city-state of Athens and its subsequent export of pottery throughout the Mediterranean that brought the Athenian black figure vase painting style to the forefront in the 5th Century. Black figure vases were first completed in the well-known yellow-orange color by mixing red ochre with the clay.  The figures and scene were then painted on the vase in black in a silhouette format.  The artist could then engrave or incise lines of clothing, faces, and other details on the black figures, allowing the ochre color to show through.  Often times another color such as white or red, or sometimes purple, was added to a few objects on the vase.