Ancient Greek Lamps: The Genius of the Central Tube

Athens, 5th century BC
(Getty Museum)

A distinctive feature of ancient Greek pottery lamps is the conical tube that began appearing in the centre of many of them towards the end of the 7th century BC. Its use has intrigued scholars for many years and various theories have been proposed. 

At first, it seemed obvious that the lamps were designed to "fit on a peg" [1] or were mounted on the tapered spike of a stand. However, it was pointed out that such an arrangement would be "unstable" [2], some of the tubes are too angled or narrower at the bottom than at the top, and, crucially, examples of the tubes did not show any traces of the wear that would be expected on the inside. In short, although the tube may have sometimes allowed lamps to be mounted on a spike, that is unlikely to have been its primary function. 

Perhaps the lit lamp was held aloft by a cord passing through the tube and knotted at its end? But it was noted that while that scenario could apply to lit lamps with evenly-spaced multiple nozzles, it would clearly unbalance lamps with a single one [3]. 

Another theory - that both the tubes and the closed cones found in contemporaneous lamps were intended as a method of reducing the amount of fuel the lamp could contain - strikes me as counter-intuitive and unlikely. 

Masterpiece 

In fact, the central tube is likely to be a masterpiece of design ingenuity, a blend of form and function that any modern designer would be revered for. The clue to its probable true purpose lies not in what is present but in what is missing. Almost no lamps of this tubed type have a handle. 

Handles on wheel-made lamps must be separately fashioned by hand and luted onto the body. The shallow depth of early lamps dictated a narrow point of contact. Their projecting nature made conventional handles vulnerable and, as evidence shows, they were easily broken. A fragile and unreliable handle was clearly an unwelcome risk while carrying a lit lamp and a more dependable method of holding it was needed. 

The solution was to incorporate the method actually into the body. The central tube, typically with a fairly wide cavity under the base, is "simply a convenient finger hole to aid in grasping firmly and carrying safely a slippery lighted lamp" [4]. Indeed, placing the index finger under the base cavity and the thumb over the shoulder or the top of the tube provides a good grasp. The concept is much like that of the grip provided by the hollow indentation in the underside of mesomphalic phialai. 

Sicily, 5th century BC
(RomQ Reference Collection)

Not only did the tube provide the holding ability of conventional handles, it also offered another important part of their function. The same author suggested that the open tube would allow lamps to be hung on a cord [5], but not in the way previously suggested. This would not be while the lamps were lit and being used but while they were empty, perhaps when displayed for sale, in transit or in storage. 

Spanner in the works? 

At first glance, the fact that similar tubes occur on contemporaneous lamps having a fixed pedestal would seem to make all those proposals redundant and it has been suggested instead that the tube may have "provided an anchor for tying or wrapping the end of the wick" [6]. However, lamps on fixed pedestals are unusual and it may well be that they merely replicated the accepted standard design of lamps without them, regardless of whether the tube was fully functional - much like the relatively pointless solid lugs on pottery factory lamps replicated the pierced ones on metal lamps. 

I believe some of the proposals advanced as an explanation of the central tube are still perfectly valid for common lamps: a means of improving the grip when carrying lamps that typically lacked a conventional handle, while also offering the options of hanging them on a cord when not in use or, indeed, perhaps occasionally mounting them on the tapered spike of a stand if desired. 

In addition, I suggest another advantage, regardless of whether the lamp has a fixed pedestal or not. A wick inserted into the nozzle of a circular lamp with a flat floor will merely hit the back wall. A wick inserted into the nozzle of a circular lamp with a central tube (or a substantial cone) will be deflected to one side and is more likely to coil neatly inside the perimeter. 

New times 

Whatever advantages central tubes may have had, they were less suited to lamps that were evolving with deeper bodies and smaller filling-holes, and they gradually fell out of fashion. Nevertheless, the problem posed by conventional handles remained. As lamps generally became deeper and thus heavier, the typically horizontal handles of the period proved even less equal to the task [7]. The increased body height made handles that were attached vertically more viable but they too were vulnerable and a large proportion of lamps simply omitted handles altogether.

Lamps were being provided with a side lug by the end of the 4th century BC and although early examples are normally pierced and are likely to have been primarily intended to allow the lamp to be hung on a cord, unpierced asymmetrical lugs survived as a vestigial feature for over two hundred years. That seems to suggest that the protrusion may not have been always purely a hanging device on early lamps or always merely decorative on later ones but may also have been valued as a basic means of helping to improve the grip when carrying lamps that lacked a handle.

However, neither conventional handles nor lugs equal the classic elegance of the integral and symmetrical tube. The simple beauty of Athenian lamps of the Periclean period, with their fine black glaze and stylish design, is striking even today. 

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[1] Broneer, O. 1930, Corinth, Vol.IV.2: Terracotta Lamps, p.33
[2] Thompson, H.A. 1933, Hesperia, Vol.2.2: Terracotta Lamps, p.198 (n.1)
[3] Howland, R. H. 1958, The Athenian Agora, Vol.IV: Greek Lamps and their Survivals, p.24
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Bookidis, N. & Pemberton, E.G. 2015, Corinth, Vol.XVIII.7: The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore: The Greek Lamps and Offering Trays, p.104
[7] Howland, p.68

Reinventing the wheel (or hook)

Back in November 2019, I noticed a somewhat awkward description of a Roman object on the PAS database (SOM-EFC2F3). Although the object was correctly identified as a 'lamp hook', there seemed to be some doubt and some sort of medical implement was offered as an alternative.

"The finder has suggested that the artefact may instead have been a medical implement. The small diameter of the hooks, their position, with one curving up and one down, and the small suspension loop, all suggest it would be hard to securely suspend a lamp calling in to doubt the existing interpretation."

I used the 'Report a mistake' button at the bottom of the PAS page. I pointed out that the object was indeed undoubtedly a lamp hook and that the confusion may have been due to the fact that the hook was depicted upside down.

It's not a fish hook - designed to dangle in a river. It's a suspension hook - much like that on a coat hanger - designed to hang something from a peg or whatever. The object is much easier to understand when it's the right way up.

The object was not hung from the "suspension loop" (the hole is at the bottom of the object, not "at its top"); it was hung from the large hook near the top and a lamp would have been attached by chains to the hole at the bottom. An example on my website explains their use in more detail.

And as proof of their use, there are many lamps where the hook is still attached. Here are two museum examples.

I received a cordial reply from the FLO. She thanked me and stated she would amend the PAS record. That was back in November but I imagine both the backlog of other work and the disruption of COVID-19 have since delayed that intention.

In the meantime, I have posted this as a reminder to anyone else who is puzzled by such objects. There's no need to reinvent the wheel; the research has already been done long ago and the hooks get a chapter all to themselves in D.M. Bailey, A Catalogue of Lamps in the British Museum, Vol. IV, 1996.

An enduring tradition

I noted a truly amazing supply of bronze lamps offered by Artemission, a dealer based in London, over five years ago. Far from being exhausted, that supply continues to this day. And, true to tradition, this example below bears an uncanny resemblance to a series of very obvious fakes ...

It can be yours for a mere $900 ...

This version below - with not only two nozzles at ridiculous angles but also a head plunked on top - may be even more tempting. Just stump up $2,200 for this one ...

In these times of a pandemic crisis it's heart-warming to see that some old customs remain unchanged. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Please Do NOT Wash

An eBay seller based in East Sussex states "Here for Sale is a Very High Quality Roman Bronze Double Spouted, Double Busted Oil Lamp. Dating From Around 200 - 400 AD" and makes an earnest plea to the successful buyer:

"Please Do NOT Wash as This May Cause Damage to The Item."

I can totally understand his worry. It must have taken ages to put all that fake orange crap on the item in the first place. It would be tragic to wash it off and reveal the brand new shiny metal underneath.

(A genuine patina would of course be unaffected by soap and water - and does not wash off.)

But perhaps more worryingly, the fact that the item doesn't even remotely resemble any real Roman lamp (or is even a decent replica) appears to be lost on the people bidding for it.

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UPDATE: Sold for £118.

It's a trifle disconcerting to see how readily some people are parted from their money. I could understand someone willing to pay, say, £50 or even £60 for a really good-quality accurate replica of a Roman bronze lamp to use in an historical re-enactment - but that thing is nothing even remotely like a real Roman lamp. If they turned up with it in front of knowledgeable people, it would just be a laughing stock.

But then, perhaps I'm being too much of a purist. I watched a bit of the 2014 movie Exodus: Gods and Kings on TV last night and winced as I noticed the pharaoh was happily using Hellenistic lamps that hadn't even been invented until over a thousand years after the supposed events in the movie. I'm guessing Ridley Scott wasn't overly bothered by anachronisms.

The most disconcerting thought is the niggling suspicion that at least some of the people bidding for that eBay monstrosity were under the impression that it was actually genuine - despite clearly not having the vaguest idea of what a genuine example looks like. At that level of brainlessness, I imagine they would still be none the wiser even if they DID wash it and saw the brand new shiny metal underneath.

Sigh, I give up hope in humanity!

Latest find at Vindolanda

Loving this latest find announced yesterday (15 July 2019) by the Vindolanda Trust. The artefact was merely described as a "beautiful little oil lamp that was uncovered from the Antonine excavation" but I'll flesh that out a bit with my own analysis. The object is a Firmalampe (factory lamp), a late form of Loeschcke Type X, and was made in the Rhineland during the 2nd century AD. Although Trier was the prime production centre, the style and fabric here suggest it was possibly made in Cologne. Many examples bear a maker's mark in raised letters on the base, sometimes of an Italian maker with a branch workshop(?) in the Rhineland, but the marks are less common on this later style.

Oil lamps never really caught on to a large extent in Britain. British-made examples tend to be relatively crude and typically mica-dusted. A large proportion of the oil lamps found in Britain were imported, normally from Gaul, Germany or Italy. They are found mainly in urban or military contexts, and are very rarely found in any context at all after the 2nd or 3rd century.

The likely reasons for their comparative rarity in Britain are the cost of importing olive oil and their unfamiliarity outside urban or military environments. The preferred lighting in most of Britain consisted of open lamps (e.g. Loeschcke Type XI) burning animal fat, or possibly tallow candles.

Puzzle jug solution? The mystery of an ancient Egyptian lamp.

Getty Museum

A "curious" type of lamp produced in Ptolemaic Egypt has caused even leading scholars in lychnology to scratch their heads over the years. The lamps are made of pottery, some examples on a wheel and some in a mould, they date from around the 3rd to 1st centuries BC and are said to be quite common at excavations in the Alexandria area.

Popularly known as 'jug' lamps, they do indeed resemble that type of object but what would be a spout is located near the bottom rather than at the top. The frequent presence of carbon residue around the 'spout' confirms that it is actually a nozzle for a wick and the object is a lamp.

But here's the conundrum that has puzzled scholars: Not only does a chamber that rises far higher than the fuel level dictated by the lowly placed nozzle seem completely pointless, the upper part of the chamber is riddled with holes. What on earth is the point of adding an apparently useless perforated extension above the fuel chamber of a lamp?

Could the object have been used as a burner to produce smoke (e.g. as insect repellent)?

No, the function I propose may have helped to discourage insects but not through the application of smoke. While carbon residue around the nozzle proves use of a flame there, that around the holes above it is merely secondary and there are no burn marks inside the vessel itself. In addition, that scenario would not explain why all the holes are concentrated in only one place.

Could the object have doubled as some kind of filter or sprinkler?

No, but it is likely that the object did perform two roles and it is those holes that give the best clue to the object's true probable purpose. While the bottom part of the chamber would have contained liquid fuel (such as olive oil) for the lamp to function, the part above the nozzle clearly did not. The contents of the upper part would need to be a relatively dry and solid substance.

That substance was almost certainly incense. Incense was used not only for religious and other formal occasions at public locations in the ancient world, it also played a traditional role in the domestic environment where it was commonly heated at household shrines, valued for its supposed medicinal properties or simply employed as an aromatic amenity.

If the upper part of the chamber was intended to hold incense, why are there no burn marks inside it?

Incense does not always need to be literally burnt to be effective. Merely heating it is sometimes a preferable alternative. Slow, gentle heating not only avoids the smell of charring and the discomfort of smoke, it releases the fragrance of the incense over a much longer period. The concept is still practised today.

How did the fuel and incense stay separate if they shared the same chamber?

It is important to bear in mind that these lamps tend to be very small (typically only 4 to 6 centimetres in diameter) and it was apparently not thought necessary - or even desirable - to create a physical barrier between the fuel and the incense. The liquid fuel would naturally sink to the bottom of the chamber and, as found in modern practice, lumps or pellets of incense heated on top of a bed of olive oil produce a harmonious aromatic blend.

Okay, so why the holes when any aroma would have vented perfectly well through the open top of the chamber anyway?

As I said, it is the holes that give the best clue to the object's probable purpose. But it is easy to misunderstand the reason for them. Confusion can be caused by incorrect assumptions about the direction of flow. I suspect the holes were not created primarily to let aroma out; they were created to let heat in.

Pottery is a poor conductor. The body of a pottery lamp does not become warm enough to have much effect on any incense placed inside it. The heat would be provided by the flame on the outside of the lamp - which is why all the holes are concentrated in only one place, directly above a scoop-sided wick-hole deliberately located as close to them as possible. The holes allowed the heat from the flame to reach the incense.

Conclusion: The objects would thus serve as both lamps and censers. Though not always immediately obvious to the modern eye, ancient technology could be quite ingenious.

RomQ Reference Collection

I was not around when the lamps were made and used, and of course my solution to their unusual form is only a hypothesis. Not quite as dramatic as solving murder mysteries perhaps but I personally find that trying to interpret the more intriguing artefacts from the past can be just as satisfying - even if my simple deductions may sometimes strike other sleuths as "elementary".

How reliable is the PAS database? (Part 2)

While idly exploring the database of the UK's Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) I came across this entry for a pottery lamp supposedly found in Norfolk in 1986 (record created 11 years ago, updated 2 years ago):

Here is the PAS identification (with my comments below):

"Romano-British"
It has nothing to do with Romano-British culture.

"known as a 'factory lamp' or firmalampe"
It does not even remotely resemble that type of lamp.

"Probably made in Gaul or Germany."
It was made in northern Syria, at the opposite end of the Roman Empire.

"2nd or 3rd century."
It is not earlier than the 5th to 6th centuries AD.

I appreciate that PAS staff have a large workload and I hate to nitpick but artefacts of this type are very well known (Kennedy Type 20) and extensively recorded in the literature. More worryingly, although they are common on the modern antiquities market, it is extremely unlikely that they ever formed part of Britain's ancient archaeology.

The PAS identification (a 'factory lamp' made in Gaul during the 2nd century) fits plausibly into Romano-British archaeology. The reality is far more doubtful.

The difficulty here seems to be that the identification of the object was an unwarranted assumption, guided by the narrow confines of what would be expected within a supposed British context and tailoring it to fit, rather than accepting that the discovery of the object was very different to that of a documented excavation and that the object could not safely be treated in the same way. Familiarity with a much wider international typology than that of Wheeler's localised (and long outdated!) London in Roman Times was called for. The episode highlights the importance of recognising that PAS recording is not a substitute for traditional archaeology.

I once mentioned that PAS records are inherently open to abuse and are thus unreliable. A careless and  incorrect identification compounds the problem. It is misleading and potentially distorts our perception of the British past. Moreover, it lends credibility to nonsense invented to exploit that misperception.

How to Spot Fake Roman Lamps

Figure 1

Inspired by a recent article on 'How to Spot Fake Cuneiform Tablets', I've decided to do the same for fake ancient lamps. Well no, that's actually a bit of a porky. The article on cuneiform tablets is quite long and I have no intention of trying to cram even a general introduction to spotting fake ancient lamps (history, motivation, case studies, manufacture, regional variation, analysis, repercussions and so on) into a mere blog post. I'll leave that for a chapter in the proverbial 'future book'. My post will be more in the nature of making a couple of very quick observations.

The finest fake lamps can be quite difficult to detect and to cover that end of the topic in the depth necessary would require a thesis rather than a blog post so I'll lower the tone and, without going into detail for fear of alerting fakers to amend their future products, simply confine most of my post to a few brief comments on some of the commonest duds (though, despite my title, not only those purporting to be 'Roman').

Although detecting fake Roman lamps is not always as easy as knowing the difference between a Roman gladiator and Robin Hood (Fig.1, top left), recognising a great deal of the rubbish churned out to flog to gullible tourists or eBay punters needs little more than common sense.

Army uniform

Figure 2

Lamps were produced in huge numbers in ancient times but, despite what some sellers would like you to believe, lamps that were made in different workshops in different areas at different periods were not all made from identical clay with identical colour and did not acquire identical patination. That observation applies to this sample of well-known fakes from the 'Syrian Series', offered, among a plethora of other spurious nonsense, by a notorious dealer in New York City (Fig.2, above).

Figure 3

The same applies to this selection of blatant fakes from the 'Bulgarian Volute Series', offered for prices ranging from $396 to $1,596 by an American dealer on both eBay and VCoins (Fig.3, above). Noting the huge variety of real Roman volute lamps (plus the plastic and factory types included here) is only a mouse-click away.

Sensing the dubious nature of a single presentation of lamps that all have almost identical fabric despite purporting to have different origins is of course child's play. The task becomes more difficult when, instead of being shown together, those same lamps enter circulation and are unwittingly mingled with authentic ones by inexperienced collectors or uninformed dealers. At least three of the lamps in this publicity shot for the sales catalogue of an upmarket business in Chicago (Fig.4, below) are also likely to be modern fakes from the 'Bulgarian Volute Series' but picking them out from the other items requires a sharper eye. While most products of that series should be clear enough, a few of them can be quite deceptive when isolated from their siblings and their detection may involve an analysis that is outside the cursory scope of my blog post.

Figure 4

Variations on a theme

Figure 5

The uniformity of the modern items mentioned in the previous section is probably due to their production in only one or two workshops in very recent times. The situation changes when a style of fake lamp has been made over a long period. Workshops alter their methods over time and, inspired by their success, other workshops copy the style, perhaps adding a few idiosyncrasies of their own to the basic design. The clay and finish then also begin to vary quite dramatically over the years, as can be seen in such hackneyed classics as the infamous 'Hathor Type' (Fig.5, above), a fantasy produced in vast quantities to dupe credulous tourists in Egypt since Victorian days.

Figure 6

Much like the Egyptian makers of the 'Hathor Type' with its enigmatic face, a few enterprising citizens of Tunisia have also long ago recognised the irrepressible urge of tourists to buy the improbable but exotic and have been busily fulfilling that demand with items from the 'La Marsa Group' since the 1950s. This group, likewise with a variety of clay, finish and detail, includes a lamp in the form of a head with no less than three nozzles, backed up by one depicting an archer and another displaying a disproportionately huge Christian symbol (Fig.6, above).

Far from putting tourists off, their childlike crudity, artificially time-worn condition and frequently dark and dirty surface are calculated to win over a species of clientele who very often fail to appreciate that real ancient lamps were largely intended for discerning adults and typically spent most of their existence sealed from the wear and grease of human handling by being buried underground.

Swimming with the tide

Figure 7

Never one to neglect an orphan merely because its origin is obscure, I feel another quirky lamp is due for consideration. The 'Dolphin Type' (Fig.7, above) appears to be based on genuine Hellenistic lamps found in Asia Minor but the feature of an offset handle is strikingly exaggerated into an obvious fishtail shape and its body often bloats out on the opposite side so that the whole thing resembles a classical dolphin. Differences in clay and finish suggest the type was made by different makers over a long period yet, contrary to the other variations normally found in such cases, the same crude pattern of slapdash ridges adorns the upper surface of every example encountered, almost as if the manufacturers were terrified of updating, modifying or refining the moulds for fear of making the product look too sophisticated and alienating a clientele who expected it to look primitive.

Although examples of this boldly unconventional type are very common on the commercial market, where their zoomorphic design appeals to buyers, I am not aware of any example from a documented archaeological excavation, their curiously arrested development beyond an endlessly repeated basic concept gives pause for thought, and I have long been doubtful of their authenticity. They share some aspects with the 'La Marsa Group' and I suspect they may be related. Like members of that family, lamps of the 'Dolphin Type' are a crudely executed exotic form circulating for many decades and show the consequent variations in clay, finish and detail that prolonged manufacture tends to entail but the fabric of some examples is remarkably similar to that of examples belonging to the Tunisian series (Fig.8, below).

Figure 8

Tunisia was a French colony for over seventy years, the French language is still widely spoken there and, with the exception of those from neighbouring countries, people from France form by far the largest number of foreign tourists today. Small wonder then that fakes from the 'La Marsa Group' crop up on the French market far more often than elsewhere in Europe. The fact that the same applies to lamps of the 'Dolphin Type' seems unlikely to be mere coincidence.

A touch of class

I'm nearing the limit for a blog post but in case any readers are complacent in the thought that spotting fake ancient lamps is simply a matter of avoiding those that come in identical batches and those in improbable styles, I'll end with an example of the better class I mentioned earlier. The lamp shown here (Fig.9, below) is an accurate style with a very convincing clay, finish and patination, a type that can easily fool many curators and dealers into accepting it as an ancient artefact from Imperial Rome.

Figure 9

The lamp is indeed Italian and it is indeed old - but not nearly as old as you might think. Closer examination reveals that it is a 19th-century fake belonging to the 'Naples Group', a series named after the city where they were made from about 1870 up to the First World War. Some of the most convincing fakes are those made many decades ago and the older they are, very often the more plausible they become. Time and time again I find undoubtedly old but nevertheless fake lamps proudly displayed in provincial museums or advertised in the catalogues of reputable dealers and auction houses. Thus, they can even acquire an impressive provenance over the years.

As to the gladiatorial scene shown on the discus: although an accurate copy of a genuine motif, it is always wise to be extra cautious with any lamp depicting gladiators or bawdy sex scenes. Lamps with those themes were produced in large numbers in ancient times since Romans apparently loved them but fakers are well aware that modern people love them too and pay high prices for them.

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A pictorial summary of over 30 fake ancient lamps is included on my website. An example of one of the items shown in Figure 4 is listed as FB5.

A useful series of observations and case studies is also included on the website of a prominent ADA member.

Ancient Lamps updated ... finally!

Many years ago, when more than half of the UK was still on dial-up internet access, my specialist interest in Classical lychnology became known online and I found I was being bombarded with questions about ancient lamps. It was very often necessary to use images of artefacts to answer the questions properly but in those days there were very few images of ancient lamps already online to use as a reference and constantly sending scans of them illustrated in specific books or papers was taxing.

Eventually, in May 2006, I decided to compile the photographs I had taken of the lamps in my own modest collection and arrange them on a website to use as a ready-made reference (the name 'RomQ' came from a domain I intended to migrate to at the time). The website was basic but it was gratifying to note that it was being consulted by both scholars in the academic community and people who were otherwise unfamiliar with ancient history. I then occasionally updated the resource over the next four years but due to personal circumstances it remained untouched beyond 2010. 

After a hiatus of almost eight years, I have finally spent the last few weeks updating the catalogue portion. As with many other fields, eight years is a long time in the world of lychnology. Fresh research moves at a rapid pace. Old books soon become outdated in the light of new information and I have taken the liberty of writing identifications that may sometimes differ from those in established catalogues, even those of the British Museum. I therefore offer the caution that my own conclusions may also be subject to revision or correction. 

The internet has likewise moved on since I created the website. A plethora of museums and other institutions have now made details and images of their collections available online. However, although that is an excellent development, some of those resources are clearly composed without specialist knowledge of ancient lamps and the fact that care needs to be taken is perhaps illustrated by texts such as this on the archaeological museum website of a very prestigious university (name withheld to avoid embarrassment):

"The lamps in this collection, dated between the second century BCE and the second century CE, represent a common type. In these examples, a central discus contains the main decoration and the filling hole, where a wick would have been inserted to create a small flame. Lamps had one or more nozzles through which oxygen flowed, allowing the wick to burn for continued illumination."

I would have thought the terms "filling hole" and "nozzles" would offer a clue as to how an oil lamp actually functions. Nevertheless, the publication of collections is a very welcome step in the right direction and I am also deeply grateful to people who have shared information about those in private hands.

Above all, I am particularly indebted to those people who have published papers, articles, excavation reports and other material which give detailed information about the discovery of ancient lamps in situ. The place where an artefact is found is of course by no means necessarily the region where it was made (quantitative statistics, fabric analysis, workshop remains, wasters and moulds give a clearer indication of that) but it provides equally important information about its area of distribution, its potential relation to trade networks, its date of currency, its status and the role such objects played in the society that used them. By extension, such data can aid the interpretation of a range of similar artefacts where the context is unknown.

No ancient artefact is an island. In that regard, it is vital to appreciate that the ideal key to exploiting them as a learning tool stems from discovering not only what the context tells us about the object but, often more importantly, from discovering what the object can tell us about its context. Thus, divorced artefacts can be anathema to archaeologists and historians alike (my own policy is given here). Nevertheless, there is a huge number of such artefacts already stored in institutions or other collections and they are still an invaluable source of information.  

To mangle a hackneyed metaphor yet again, lamps can indeed help to shed light on the ancient world.

Donald Bailey (1931-2014)

Donald Michael Bailey, a major force in the field of lychnology, was one of my heroes when I was a kid. I would buy Roman lamps in antiques markets and I regularly took my latest purchase to the British Museum for his opinion. You'd think he would get sick of seeing this pestering nuisance but instead he always gave me a warm welcome. Perhaps he was glad to see my youthful enthusiasm. He was gentle and modest but seemed delighted to impart some of his encyclopedic knowledge when eagerly questioned.

We were last in touch about ten years ago. I realised he was getting on and may have passed away since then. But it was still a sad shock to come across the obituary in the Guardian by sheer chance and see his death confirmed.

It gives me pleasure that I still have all the lamps that he examined for me - all apart that is from the occasional dud that he good-naturedly chided me for, saying I should have known better with a twinkle in his eye. I soon learned to discriminate and I consider myself extremely lucky to have had him as a mentor in a pursuit that has given me enormous enjoyment in my life.

Now that's what I call a mark-up!

Authentic lamp (Christie's)

Ancient lamps made from "bronze" (or to be more technically accurate, copper alloy) can fetch a good price on the antiquities market but real examples that allow the trade a reasonable profit margin can be hard to come by. However, one "leading" antiquities dealer in London - Artemission, owned by Antoine Karawani, a committee member of the Association of International Antiquities Dealers (AIAD) - seems to have chanced on a remarkable supply. It must be a pretty large and pretty old supply because they have been selling a substantial quantity of their distinctive bronze lamps with a curiously uniform 'patina' for some years. Unfortunately for their customers, there is a slight hitch  ...

The Bulgarians have been making fake Roman bronze lamps for years. At first, they tried selling them as the real thing on eBay and other outlets - but most of them are blindingly obvious rubbish, buyers eventually got wise to them, and many are nowadays openly sold as "replicas" (though of course for much lower prices than real ones).

They are very recognisable. Here's one of them, sold for $24.99 in 2011 ...

An amazingly similar lamp turns up in Artemission's magic supply. All they have to do is plunk it on their posh website selling "Antiquities and Ancient Art", describe it as "Roman Bronze Oil Lamp ... c.1st Century A.D." and ask their customers for $1,800 ...

Not bad - but Artemission can do better than that. Here's another Bulgarian bronze lamp on eBay - sold openly as "modern" ...

And here's another one (though this one was mistakenly offered as genuine and crazily priced) ...

The eBay example failed to attract any bids at $99. But not to worry, Artemission come across a more refined version (the Bulgarian repertoire offers slight variations) in their legendary supply. Okay, it's still got big unarticulated eyes, tiny pointed ears, and that silly meaningless* lug on its forehead - so still pretty obvious it's rubbish - but it's got a nicer base. Add a little elbow grease and the fake patina is much prettier too. Just plunk it on the posh website, describe it as "Roman Oil Lamp ... c.1st Century A.D." and for this one, ask your customers for $2,500 ...

Hey, that's not bad at all. Assuming Artemission bought them at the going rate - or maybe a bit cheaper with trade discount - so far that's a profit margin of about 97% or over $4,100 profit on just two lamps alone.

Sadly, life is not always so good and sometimes the dealer has to be less ambitious. Well, let's be honest, this Bulgarian monstrosity (below) is even less convincing than the first two and even a punter with one glass eye and a patch over the good eye ain't going to be fooled by it. Even the Bulgarian sellers ask only around $25 for this sort of grade. But Artemission innocently grab one from the uglier part of their supply, plunk it on eBay instead of their website, describe it as "Byzantine Bronze Oil Lamp ... c.6th-8th Century A.D." and ask a mere $500 ...

I'm not vindictive but I do get tired of seeing this rubbish from them year after year. We have to be charitable and assume either that, despite his "over 40 years" in the business, Karawani is astonishingly naive or that his eyesight is no longer what it used to be. Of course, there is a possibility that if his customers ever find out he sold them fakes at high prices and suspect he actually knew very well what he was doing, they may take a somewhat dimmer view.

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* The lugs on real lamps are meant for hanging chains from; thus they tend to be flat and of course pierced. (The central protrusion on the hair of the genuine lamp shown at top left is in fact a lidded filling-hole, so not a lug at all in this case.)

Note: Apart from the first lamp shown at top left, ALL the lamps illustrating this post are demonstrably modern. 

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UPDATE: Five years later ...

Constant Vigilance: Lamps found in Syria

The widespread looting and destruction of archaeological sites in Syria, exacerbated by the deep civil unrest in that area since the spring of 2011, are well known. Looting is driven by market demand and it is therefore vital that anyone considering the acquisition of any ancient object that may have originated in Syria should be particularly vigilant.

Archaeological sites are trashed by looters searching for common saleable objects every bit as much as they are by looters searching for rare treasures. Supplementing the somewhat inadequate Emergency Red List of Syrian Cultural Objects at Risk issued by ICOM in September 2013, and in recognition of guidelines outlined by the EU (Council Regulation No 1332/2013 of 13 December 2013), I thought it might be useful to publish a small selection of the types of ancient lamps that are typically found in that region.

Open image in new tab to enlarge

It should be noted that while some of the lamps shown are peculiar to Syria, most of those shown were also produced or distributed in neighbouring countries in ancient times. Many thousands of these lamps were legally exported from the Levant over the years and the huge number of those that are still circulating need cause no concern.

Nevertheless, all the lamps illustrated represent types commonly found in Syria and, since in the absence of records it can be difficult to distinguish between artefacts which were legally exported years ago and those which have been smuggled out during the current upsurge in looting, an extra degree of caution is demanded. Due diligence should of course be practised in the acquisition of any ancient artefact whatever its region of origin at any time but it is good to be aware of those whose acquisition may pose a particular threat to archaeological sites in the present crisis.

While the clandestine nature of the trade in illicit antiquities prevents a realistic estimate of the precise amount being smuggled, it is clear that a vast number of Syrian artefacts are making their way through middlemen in countries such as Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and the UAE. Some will be sold on immediately to buyers in the West or elsewhere, while others will be stored until media attention has abated and eventually surface in international markets at a later date.

Note: The composite image of lamps above, formed entirely of my own material, is released into the public domain and free to use.

British history revamped by London road works during the 1970s

Now a season of rock festivals and other general summer debauchery has abated, it's time to add a little to my blog ...


A couple of "Roman" lamps from "c.100 A.D." being sold on eBay caught my eye:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/351154976647 (ending 4 September)
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/141391709622 (ending 6 September)

Both are described as "British found in London during 1970s road works". Since both lamps are actually types made in northern Syria during the 5th - 6th centuries AD, the finds could add a whole new exciting dimension to British history. Are they evidence of an early attempt to found a Syrian monastery in darkest Maida Vale?

Sadly, such musings are doomed by the harsh reality that lamps of this type are not found in Britain until brought back from the Levant as souvenirs in modern times, typically by either tourists or dealers rather than Byzantine monks. It is of course possible that workmen involved in the "1970s road works" inadvertently blasted through the basement stockroom of a London antiquities dealer in that era of black-outs and power cuts - oops! - but the reputation of the eBay seller suggests another reason for the sensational claim.

The seller is the infamous "Saxby's Coins". Even he seems to balk at trying to pass off ancient Greek, Egyptian and Chinese items as having come from an English meadow but he has no hesitation in describing almost everything else he sells as "British found". Despite the fact that much of his stock appears to derive from metal detecting on the European mainland, such as this "c.1450 A.D British Found Medieval Period Hammered Type European Silver Coin" (actually minted at Elbing in Poland and clearly dated 1632), the seller is apparently convinced that pretending it has all been discovered in the UK will enhance the price.

The stories weaved to launder 'high-end' antiquities are old news but these lamps demonstrate just how far some dealers are prepared to go in fabricating the provenance of even minor items. Not content with a mere "British found", it seems this seller has happily invented a place (London), a time (1970s) and an event (road works) to increase plausibility.

Just how much faith can we place on mere hearsay, whether it is a dealer's undocumented claim of provenance when selling an item or a person's undocumented claim of a findspot and circumstances when getting an item recorded in the PAS database?

There is much to be said in favour of Elizabeth Marlowe's contention (Shaky Ground: Context, Connoisseurship and the History of Roman Art. Bloomsbury Academic, 2013) that only 'grounded' (archaeologically documented) antiquities form a truly reliable basis for scholarship; those which are 'ungrounded' (lacking archaeological confirmation) can be risky and, if the stories attached to them are simply taken at face-value, may be thoroughly misleading.

How reliable is the PAS database?

In recent examinations (here and here) of the database used by the UK's Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) to record archaeological artefacts found by members of the public in England and Wales, Paul Barford, a British archaeologist based in Warsaw, noted that several of the coins he spotted in his search had a questionable origin. Since the artefacts do not derive from scientific excavations, perhaps a degree of unreliabilty is to be expected but some results are quite alarming.

Some objects are clearly not derived from the archaeological record of England and Wales at all but are likely to be modern imports from another country altogether. While a proportion of these were perhaps lost by a modern collector or discarded by heirs unaware of their value (I know of an ancient Egyptian ushabti that now lies buried somewhere in a local landfill), some of them are likely to have been deliberately 'planted' as a joke or their findspot fabricated to enhance their resale price on eBay (a PAS record suggesting a British find raises financial value considerably). It is not difficult to see how the PAS database could also be used to launder foreign artefacts lacking a licit provenance.

I know little about coins so I tested the PAS results myself with a search for 'lamp', an artefact I am more familiar with. Roman lamps are a relatively rare find in Britain and the search took little time to go through. One of the Roman lamps was recorded as a "chance find during metal detecting" in Essex. That chance find would be more credible if the lamp was not a Syro-Palestinian type (Kennedy Type 5) found almost exclusively in the Levant and not brought into Britain as popular tourist souvenirs until modern times.

Another lamp, also described as "Roman", is recorded as having been found in Kent and only "identified from photograph". In fact, the lamp is not Roman at all; it was made during the Hellenistic period (more precisely the 3rd century BC) in the Eastern Mediterranean. While nothing is impossible, it is extremely unlikely that it ever formed part of Britain's ancient archaeology.

It was also a trifle disconcerting to see that several artefacts entitled "Unidentified Object" (e.g. here) were nevertheless classified as "Object type certainty: Certain". I'm not quite sure what that means. Does it indicate that the cataloguer is certain that they are not certain?

At any rate, that's just a quick glance at the limited number of Roman lamps recorded. I have no idea how many, if any, of the metal finds (buckles, fibulae, keys, coins, etc.) were actually modern imports from the Balkans and elsewhere. From what I've seen so far, my confidence in all of them really being found in Britain is not high.

The PAS system is often touted as a perfect panacea to unrecorded looting - and a model for other countries to follow. To be fair, I suspect it was only ever envisaged as a pragmatic compromise, a form of 'damage limitation' to appease the metal detecting lobby, and it also works well for genuinely chance finds. It could be argued that without it the situation would be worse and no finds recorded at all. But sadly, the PAS is inherently open to abuse.

What serious scholar can rely on the PAS to compile studies when so many of its records are likely to be polluted with false claims? Is the scholar expected to take pot luck, perhaps basing the study on the sheer number of finds in one location and desperately hoping that some laundering dealer didn't pretend to have found a dozen Bulgarian brooches in a small area? Or realistically, in many cases where accurate data is a must, is the whole system too flawed to be reliable enough for practical use?

If the PAS really is ever adopted as a model for other countries to follow, perhaps we can all look forward to some truly unexpected delights: a Ban Chiang jar discovered in Guatemala or a Haida totem pole turning up in Egypt. I may be exaggerating but personally, in the meantime, I would treat any study or survey based on it with a caveat the size of Stonehenge. At least we know Stonehenge really was found where it was purported to have been found. And I feel safer classifying that as "Certain".

Man vs. Bull - Trying to shed light on a Roman lamp

Scenes depicted on ancient lamps are sometimes hard to pin down. What may have been blatantly obvious to people living almost two thousand years ago may not be quite so clear to people living today. The motif on the discus of a fairly common pottery lamp made in the Roman province of North Africa (Africa Proconsularis) during the 3rd century AD is a case in point. The motif depicts a muscular man, head turned to the viewer and grappling a bull, holding one of its horns with his left hand. I was fairly confident that the scene represented Hercules and his capture of the Cretan Bull (one of his rather daunting Twelve Labours). Although I could not discern any of his attributes (club or lionskin), these are also sometimes omitted in other Roman representations of him and the composition bore a strong resemblance to ancient figures, reliefs and mosaics of the episode.

Roman ivory figure of Hercules capturing the Cretan Bull, British Museum 1814,0704.1652. (www.KornbluthPhoto.com)









Hercules (Herakles to the Greeks but since this is North Africa, his Roman name seems more appropriate) was never one of my favourite heroes - he was a bit bi-polar and had decided 'anger management' issues - but at least he only captured the bull. Another divine figure popular among 3rd-century Romans, the god Mithras, slew his bull - which I always thought was a trifle harsh.

But perhaps it isn't Hercules ...

A similar composition appears on another Roman lamp from North Africa in the Carthage National Museum, illustrated by Jean Deneauve (Lampes de Carthage, Paris 1969, pl.LXXVI, 827). Although Deneauve identifies the animal as a horse, I believe this too is actually intended as a bull. However, the man here is most definitely clothed and doesn't look at all Herculean.

Moreover, there is another (first generation?) version of the first lamp I mentioned that includes a group of objects in the upper left of the discus scene. These appear to be a rectangular shield (scutum) in front of a spear (pilum). I wonder if the motif does not depict a mythological scene at all but instead shows an arena entertainment, a bull being subdued by a venator or bestiarius.

Yet another Roman lamp from North Africa clearly depicts a venatio involving a bull.

Roman floor mosaic depicting a venatio, from Zliten, Libya, about the 2nd century AD. Note the shield in the foreground.








Any comments shedding light on these lamps would be welcome.

(With thanks to Guy Cloetens and Skander Sayadi, and to Hervé Dejean for permission to use an illustration from his Lampes Antiques à travers les Ages: Le Corpus, Editions Archeo-Numis, 2012, pl.111.)

University Challenged: What standard is Mercer setting its students?

"Hathor lamp"

On an online coin forum in September last year, someone living in Libya posted an image of a purportedly ancient pottery lamp he had been offered. The lamp was a very common and very well-known fake, depicting a face normally identified as Hathor on its upper surface and made in Egypt for the tourist market. Although the poster was dubious of the lamp's authenticity, he had noted another example described as "from the Hellenistic Ptolemaic period (300-100 BC)" on a university website and wondered if his doubts were therefore unjustified. After all, you can trust a university right?

The website belonged to Mercer University, a private institution based in Macon, Georgia, in the southern United States - so not quite Ivy League or Oxbridge but nevertheless ranked "in the top 10% of all colleges and universities in North America". While their example of a "Hathor lamp" was clearly as fake as all the others, even the best university can make a mistake - so no big deal?

Sadly, a closer look at the website quickly reveals a more worrying picture. The "Hathor lamp" is one of four lamps in an exhibition bizarrely entitled "Sex and Violence in the Ancient World: Gender, Sexuality, and Warfare from 2000 BC - 400 AD", displayed from April 2012. All four of the four lamps are not only very likely to be fakes; three of them are basic tourist-grade fakes that should not fool anyone over the age of twelve. So far, so bad.

But it gets worse. The fake "Hathor Type" lamp was also included in an earlier exhibition (named "The Divine Image in Everyday Life: Religion in the Ancient Near East", displayed from November 2010 until January 2012) along with yet two more dodgy lamps. One of them is highly questionable; the other, a childishly crude fantasy of seven wick-holes topped by a menorah, is another well-known fake, this one recognisable as likely to have come from a certain notorious dealer in New York City and if anything even more outrageous than the lamps in the later display.

But hey, it's not all bad news. The owner of the collection seems to have struck lucky with four primitive "saucer" lamps and one Roman lamp in that exhibition; they appear to be authentic. I suppose the law of averages dictates that even the hapless collector can get it right occasionally (though what the four plain lamps have to do with the "Divine Image" is beyond me). So, out of a total of eleven lamps described as ancient, five may be real, two are extremely dubious and four are definitely utter rubbish. My expertise lies in ancient lamps and I won't comment on the other bits but my confidence in all of them being as described is not high.

I accept that it would be folly to trust the authenticity of items simply because they are being exhibited in a university. A degree in History typically has no bearing whatsoever on an ability to authenticate antiquities. But in this case, I can only shake my head in disbelief at the sheer gullibility of both the collector who loaned the blatantly fake lamps and the curator who accepted the loan for the exhibitions.

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Hosting exhibitions that make Mercer University a laughing stock is one thing but the debacle also raises another question. The collector, Dr. Yulssus Lynn Holmes, who "has published numerous scholarly papers on ancient History",  describes how his collection of antiquities was acquired. After seriously beginning his own assembly about 1973, he bought someone else's "collection of several hundred pieces" to expand it in 1984. He states that "I [...] continue to buy ancient artifacts in Israel and Egypt each time I visit there. I also buy a few things off of eBay whenever I can find artifacts that I think are good and will enhance the collection."

Despite his involvement in archaeology, I cannot find even the vaguest hint in the online prefaces of the exhibitions that Dr. Holmes is concerned about conserving the archaeological record and that he has taken steps to ensure that his active collecting does not encourage the looting that destroys it. Admittedly, with his track record, he is unlikely to cause it much harm but even he must chance upon the occasional genuine item by sheer happenstance now and then. Bearing in mind the dynamic nature of the collection, it is surprising that neither Dr. Holmes nor Dr. Eric Klingelhofer, the curator, saw fit to include a prominent reassurance that the acquisition of pieces displayed in the exhibitions conformed with the ethical attitudes typically expected of a university.

Mercer University "embraces the historic Baptist principles of intellectual and religious freedom". I wonder if that freedom includes the right to misrepresent a large proportion of tourist tat as antiquities and to ignore valid concerns about the origin of those pieces which may be authentic.