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

Reply to Twitter feedback

Ben Westwood, Finds Liaison Officer for Durham, Darlington & Teesside, has responded on Twitter to my earlier post about the silver seal from Shropshire. I'm grateful for his willingness to discuss the issue and his points deserve a thoughtful answer but rather than be constrained by the 280-character-per-tweet limit on Twitter I'll answer them here.

"I/we have no problem with debate or discussion, & don't always get things right. i'm very far from 'outraged' as your alternative interpretation, in fact i think it's very interesting." 

Sorry if I misjudged your level of reaction but a series of no less than fourteen tweets which included the boast "Like it or not, we are experts in portable antiquities & artefacts" did give the impression that you were ever so slightly miffed.

It's not an "alternative interpretation"; it's the only sensible interpretation - the interpretation your colleague should have reached.

"My problem, as i made clear was with the tone & offensive language used. describing a colleagues work as vacuous because you disagree with the way he has chosen to engage with current debate is a poor choice of words, especially given the context."

vacuous: showing a lack of thought

It was precisely "the way he has chosen to engage with current debate" that was vacuous. No matter how virtuous the cause, there is little excuse for a professional FLO to weave some wild fantasy around an artefact merely to fit topicality.

It doesn't require a great deal of 'thought' to show a tiny bit of sense and do at least a minimum of basic homework. It's a silver seal. The typical motif on a silver seal is heraldry - so open a book about heraldry. It's not rocket science. What on earth did he think it was? Some sort of weird trophy?

"That was only part of my critique though, & it's telling you've chosen not comment the main issue here. You part-quote me in relation to these two tweets, but seem to miss that i was drawing attention to @PortantIssues [Paul Barford]"

Huh? Please try to stay focused. Paul and I are not joined at the hip. Paul has his blog, I have my blog. I am discussing the post on my blog. Whatever your "main issue" may be, it has no connection to my post on my blog.

"more worryingly, in your defence of @PortantIssues blog [...] you make no reference to the very offensive language used ['negroid'] ..."

See my comment above. That word makes me uneasy and I personally avoid any terminology that may be insensitive but the term is still used by other people. Indeed, before going ballistic on Twitter, you might want to have a word with your own colleagues at the British Museum (e.g. see Curator's Comments: here, here, here).

"However, you seem sadly to have missed the point of my thread. We encourage, welcome, debate & discussion, but hyperbole and polemicism are not helpful, neither is accusing a heritage colleague of 'pseudo-archaeology', which I really think is unwarranted, & below you."

Please point to a genuine example of 'hyperbole' in my post. 'Polemicism'? I'm not sure you quite understand the difference between polemicism and justifiably strong criticism. Perhaps I expect a higher standard from a professional FLO associated with the nation's most prestigious museum than to cobble together a piece of unresearched rubbish and publish it on an academic website that the public would expect to be reliable. My post about it may have revealed a little of my exasperation but it was in fact very restrained (this current post may be somewhat less so!).

My comment about pseudo-archaeology was intended as a plea. Archaeology starts with evidence and then draws tentative conclusions; pseudo-archaeology starts with a conclusion and then selectively misinterprets evidence to suit it. The Reavill article came dangerously close to the latter.

There's no need for "debate". The article is demonstrably crap. It's also very unfair to those of his colleagues who are more knowledgeable. If your friend wants to write about the slave trade, I suggest he does his colleagues (and the public) a favour, engages in some basic homework, and finds an artefact that actually has something to do with it.

PAS: Truth be damned, let's just be topical!

On Friday (7 August) Peter Reavill, a Finds Liaison Officer (FLO) for the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), posted a long article which misinterpreted a silver seal found in Shropshire in 2013 (HESH-0A2407). Apparently in a misguided attempt to be topical, the author gave his article the subtitle "How a single artefact can shed light on the transatlantic slave trade" and tagged it as 'Atlantic Slave Trade, Black Lives Matter, Enslaved Person'. Excited by that theme, the author then went on to make wild assumptions in the text - "... design depicting a Black man – most probably an enslaved person", "the depiction of an enslaved person on this seal" - while desperately trying to link the seal to "the enslavement of African people".

When Mr Reavill publicised his article on Twitter, Paul Barford noted the trite narrativisation on his blog and I added a comment underneath to point out the real interpretation of the seal.

I thought no more of it but I now see Ben Westwood, another FLO, is apparently outraged that anyone dared to challenge the nonsense in the PAS article. Let's have a look at his points:

"I’ve thought long & hard over whether to reply to this, but seeing comments describing Peter’s article  as ‘vacuously jumping on the BLM bandwagon['] ..., I think it’s important to respond. Firstly there’s nothing vacuous about what @findsorguk are trying to do in terms of the objects we record ..."

What is 'vacuous' is the warping of what should be a detached and impartial assessment of an artefact into an unlikely fantasy merely to fit topical agenda. Perhaps my standard for drawing a line between fact and wild flights of uninformed imagination is somewhat stricter than that of the PAS.

"[David Knell] argues that rather than Slave Trade, the device is a heraldic 'Moor's head', & of course such debate is welcome."

Any chance of an intelligent "debate" requires the immediate ditching of that "Slave Trade" narrative; it's a false accretion founded on an ignorance of armorial art. Instead of forcefully foisting topicality onto the artefact, we'll start from scratch.

Post-medieval seals could feature a wide range of motifs - ordinary copper-alloy examples tend to be generic (initials, sailing ships, classical busts, anchors, hatching, and so on) - but by far the most typical device on a personal silver seal of this quality was either a monogram or a 'family crest' (either literally the device displayed on a helm above the heraldic achievement, the main device ('charge') displayed on the shield, or the entire achievement). Regardless of whether the 'crest' was properly granted or merely assumed, it was nevertheless heraldic.

It shouldn't need me to point that out. There are more than two dozen examples on the PAS website, including one identified by Mr Westwood (DUR-A53171). Here's just one example (NLM-0D2C6D) that is fairly close to, though not quite as fine as, the one under discussion:

A variety of human heads occur as devices in heraldry: the 'wild man', the 'Saxon', the 'Englishman', the 'Saracen', the 'old man', the 'woman', the 'child', and so on. As I explained in my comment underneath Paul's blog post, the example on the seal is known as a 'Maure' ('Moor's head'). Although the device is by no means as common as a lion rampant, it is not exactly rare either (appearing on the arms of Corsica, Sardinia and Coburg among many others) and it's rather surprising that it threw the PAS team into a shocked wobbly. The use of human heads of any type is not to my taste - they run the risk of being insensitive - but that on the seal is very familiar to anyone with a passing interest in heraldry and, despite Mr Reavill's strenuous effort to make it topical, the device is most unlikely to have even the remotest connection with the "transatlantic slave trade".

As the name implies, the heraldic device of a 'Moor's head' was loosely based on Christian perceptions of the mainly Muslim population of northern Africa (the inhabitants of Sub-Saharan Africa, such as those used as heraldic supporters in the arms of the Royal African Company, were typically depicted wearing headdresses, not as bare-headed 'Moors') and is medieval in origin. Those examples proudly displayed by Corsica and Sardinia, for instance, date back to the 14th and 13th centuries respectively and probably allude to the defeat of Moorish rule during the Middle Ages; that displayed by Coburg honours the town's patron saint (Saint Maurice of Egypt) and was granted in 1493.

Saint Maurice

The 'Moor's head' featured in the arms of Freising wears a crown, since it represents one of the Magi, a saint or simply a king. Closer to home, legend has it that the device of the Moir family stemmed from fighting the Moors in Spain; more likely it is simply a pun on their surname - much like that granted to the Blackmore family and confirmed in 1620.

During the 18th century the main branch of the latter family (now using the variant spelling Blakemore but still bearing the same arms) was based at Darlaston [1]. Since Darlaston is less than twenty miles from Sheriffhales, it seems quite likely that the seal belonged to that family and was lost during a local visit. At any rate, still not much evidence of a connection to an "enslaved person", let alone to the "transatlantic slave trade".

"Either way, stereotypical African depictions, with the usual artistic tropes, are very problematic & must be acknowledged."

Absolutely agreed, it's long past time that stereotypical caricatures were consigned to oblivion. If the medieval legacy of heraldry is to be preserved, a modern heraldic depiction of any human being should be utterly free from any racist exaggerations or overtones. However, agreeing that I loathe stereotypical caricatures as much as Mr Westwood has nothing to do with a PAS article that favours sensationalist speculation over sound scholarly objectivity.

"The seal was found close to 2 wealthy C18th estates with Slave Trade connections"

That may well be - a disconcerting number of rich 18th-century families had invested in schemes such as the Royal African Company or benefitted in some way from the sugar, cotton or tobacco industries - but neither the company nor the Leveson-Gower family used that device as their emblem. And the Blakemore family made their money through the iron industry.

Or perhaps it is being seriously proposed that rather than following family tradition, a member of the English landed gentry crassly commissioned the seal as a one-off to gloat over the source of their wealth and advertise that they were nouveau riche? Really?

Sadly, I gather the topic is closed and my input counts for nothing:

"This record is published/green flagged, meaning that it has been written by the FLO, examined by the Treasure Registrar, & at least 1 (poss more) specialist British Museum curators. In addition, the article written by Peter has been checked/examined by specialists/experts in advance of publication. Like it or not, we are experts in portable antiquities & artefacts, & see more Treasure than anybody, thus well placed identify archaeological objects."

Well, that's that then. The PAS and the BM have spoken. But as much as I'd love to doff my cap in subservient awe, forgive me if I don't have undiluted faith in a PAS that described a common Syrian artefact as "Romano-British" and a BM that describes a depiction of Dionysus (1913,1021.2) as "a tragic mask of a woman" [2]. We all make mistakes (including in my own books and articles); the trick is to accept a blow to our ego sometimes and correct them.

In the meantime, I dare say the PAS team feel better for pointlessly letting us know they sympathise with the aims of BLM as if everyone somehow thought they were an isolated pack of Neanderthals. It's just a pity that they ignored the aim of their employment, threw any semblance of detached objectivity out the window and thoughtlessly distorted the reality of an artefact to do so. The phrase "context of diversity" normally refers to accepting different kinds of people, not inventing different versions of the truth.

Despite the misleading subtitle of the Reavill article, the artefact has not shed an iota of light on the transatlantic slave trade (hardly surprising since the artefact has nothing to do with it); the article merely illustrates the validity of Paul Barford's warning about narrativisation. It is a reckless reversal of archaeological practice: instead of dispassionately allowing an artefact to speak for itself and learning from it, a largely irrelevant sermon based on misinformed guesswork and irrational assumption has been clumsily piggybacked onto it.

There is already more than enough pseudo-archaeology in the world, please don't add to it.

----------------

By the way, hopefully Peter Reavill already knows the "Royal portraiture similar to that seen on coinage" is Queen Anne but seems unsure of the others. The "armoured male ‘adventurer’ in cuirassed armour [tautology epidemic?]" is Hannibal, the "classical revival imagery" is Hermes or a Greek hero, and the "18th century male gentleman [is there such a thing as a female one?] in a frock coat" is George III.

While Mr Reavill's failure to recognise common 18th-century iconography is understandable (his strength appears to be the Bronze Age), he was clearly far out of his depth in trying to guess that on an 18th-century seal. It is therefore alarming that despite that inexperience and hyped up almost exclusively on a huge diet of irrelevant slave trade literature rather than proper research (see his 'References') he decided to publish an article about it anyway. And it is even more alarming that his deeply flawed article was apparently "checked/examined by specialists/experts in advance of publication".

Is this the sloppy standard of academic rigour (or indeed copy editing) we should expect from a team of professional "experts in portable antiquities & artefacts"?

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Date:

By their very nature, seals have a traditional character and their designs often tend to be deliberately conservative. Thus, they can be difficult to date precisely. I noticed that many PAS entries refer to previous entries of similar items as a means of determining the date but there is a danger of simply perpetuating an error if the previous entry was itself based on unsound attribution. The dates given in a few entries strike me as somewhat earlier than is likely.

I'm not entirely convinced that the PAS date of "late 17th or very early 18th century (pre-1713)", though conveniently classifying the seal as Treasure when found in 2013, is correct for the item in question. The octagonal shape with beaded border is a common Neoclassical theme which, together with the artistic style of the head, might suggest a later date, perhaps around 1750-1800.

It would be useful to test the standard of the silver. The Britannia standard (95.8%) was in use between 1697 and 1720, after which the Sterling standard (92.5%) was revived. It is not a completely reliable method of dating since there are many exceptions (small items did not always adhere to the law and the Britannia standard has continued alongside Sterling in some cases up to the present day) but it might provide a reasonable clue.

The letter B stamped on the seal is likely to be one of the maker's initials, not a date letter, but tracking him down would be difficult.

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[1] Burke, Sir Bernard, Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry, London 1852, pp.106-7.

[2] see Green, J.R., 'Roman bronze lamps with masks', HEROM 2012, p.32.

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.

Leather books from Turkey: more thoughts

Further to my earlier post on the phenomenon of a constant stream of 'Golden Brownies' (GBs) emerging in Turkey, I note that yet another "Torah" (curious that almost all of these fake manuscripts are from religious minorities in that region) has been trumpeted in the Turkish press (Daily Sabah, 'Turkish police nab 3 suspects trying to sell ancient Torah for $1.25M', 25 March 2020; Hurriyet Daily News, 'Gendarmerie seizes historical Torah in Turkey’s Mus', undated). Not only is the object not even remotely a Torah (the first five books of Moses typically in scroll form), it is so obviously a modern piece of tat that a mere moggy can spot it as farcical.

Pages from another so-called "Torah", announced by the Daily Sabah in 2018 ...

Of particular concern is that the spurious imagery and concocted provenances of these GBs have been eagerly picked up by far-right conspiracy websites (such as The European Union Times) and heralded as confirmation that "Judaism is Satanism". Dr Sam Hardy has provided some interesting insights into the situation (Conflict Antiquities, 2 April 2020). (A link to the EU Times rant is included under Dr Hardy's blog post.)

I had initially assumed that the Satanic and Illuminati symbolism in these fake Turkish/Syrian manuscripts merely reflected the 'Jewish conspiracy' mythology endemic in that part of the world and accepted as fact by their ignorant non-Jewish authors. And thus, almost incidental to the main goal of making money from selling them.

However, I am now beginning to see that symbolism not as merely incidental but as at least one of the prime motivations for their manufacture in the first place - to present these supposedly ancient manuscripts as proof that the mythology is true.

Perhaps even more worrying than the fact that the GBs are being produced is the thought that the Turkish police and media are happily complicit in validating and publicising them. I have an uneasy feeling that their widespread publicity in that country is not so much a way of praising the police force.

Have any of these insanely-priced GBs ever actually been sold at all or were they intended to serve another purpose? It's strangely convenient that their purported "sellers" are constantly being caught, it's strangely unnatural that they are seldom found with anything else of remotely comparable value, and I sense a possibility that the whole operation may have been deliberately engineered as a sickening political tool - a devious way of covertly promulgating antisemitic propaganda in broad daylight. Any other artefacts supposedly "recovered" with the GBs would be merely 'smoke and mirrors'.

What better way to ensure support for an authoritarian regime than to stimulate mass fear of a 'hidden enemy'? It matters nothing that a few scholars recognise the fakery; the target is the general public and neither Turkey nor Syria will be the first country to fall for that fear tactic and endorse a tyrant.

Is apparently busting the illegal antiquities trade in Turkey really only a front for performing something far more sinister? Just a thought ...

Lesson from Croatia

Seismic Map

Zagreb is located in a zone of high seismic activity and a 5.3 magnitude earthquake struck a wide area around the city on Sunday, 22 March. Fortunately, there were few human casualties but the earthquake caused some heartbreaking damage to its cathedral and museums.

Moral: If you live in a known earthquake zone, make sure any antiquities in a display case are securely mounted.

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.

PAS: Just nod meekly or you're blocked

Ha! That was an interesting outcome. Paul Barford, an archaeologist, highlighted a recent Twitter announcement by Jo Ahmet, the Finds Liaison Officer (FLO) for Kent:

Kent FLO:
Heard about this fantastic #AngloSaxon #Treasure #Donation to @MaidstoneMuseum ? Before It goes on display, get a sneak peak now and hear the finder talk about its' discovery.
kentonline.co.uk video/maidstone-museum receives
find more info below: finds.org.uk database record 917780
#ResponsibleDetecting #Thanks 

Barford let the insane superfluity of hashtags (#Thanks - seriously?!) pass without comment but he did rib Ahmet about his apostrophe abuse in the phrase "its' discovery". When David Petts, a Durham academic, leapt to the FLO's defence, the FLO tweeted his gratitude:

Kent FLO:
Thank you David. Also, for once despite my specific learning difficulty I believe ” its’ “, in this context is correct. Being as the sentence is possessive....”it is discovery” is not what I had intended to say 

He then followed that with a GIF of Obama shrugging, as if to ask why the fuss since he was perfectly right anyway.

----------

Okay, it's a small point but having worked as a copy editor myself, I thought I'd just set the record straight. Without making any comment whatsoever on the FLO's content or anything else, I simply posted a single tweet to point out the correct grammar:

I thought no more about it but a couple of days later I idly wondered if he had thanked, or at least acknowledged, me. Here's what I found:

Whoa! A trifle touchy? If the representative of an organisation seeking 'outreach' to the public is so averse even to someone politely trying to settle a minor point about grammar, I can only imagine what the reaction would be if another member of the public had the audacity to question his attribution of a find. Something like this perhaps?

Kent FLO: Heard about this fantastic #AngloSaxon #Treasure?

Fred Bloggs: I believe the artefact actually dates from the Roman period.

Kent FLO: You're BLOCKED! You can't follow or see my Tweets any longer!

----------

I'm pretty casual with spelling and grammar in private emails to friends or even in posts on my personal page on Facebook. No big deal. However, perhaps the era of Political Correctness has changed everything but when I was at college we were told that public announcements are a different thing (Ahmet tweeted under the official 'Kent FLO' banner).

It was instilled into us that poor spelling and grammar not only diminish your own credibility, they reflect on the image and standards of the whole institution on whose behalf you are writing. Time to take EXTRA care - especially if you know you have a "specific learning difficulty". After all, finding correct spelling and grammar nowadays is only a mouse-click away.

I suppose you can take the other route - not give a flying fig about the image of the PAS or the British Museum - and I doubt an errant apostrophe is a capital offence even in the leafy suburbs of Kent but crudely blocking someone who merely confirms correct usage seems a bizarre overreaction. I've always had a fond respect for the institution behind the PAS and I'm not sure that somewhat paranoid response is the message its official representative should be sending out to members of the public.

Surely, a simple thanks (or even #Thanks) would have done the trick.

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.

----------------------------------

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!

Gaza Apollo - the story continues

Ever since a bronze statue of Apollo surfaced - and then promptly disappeared - in Gaza over five years ago, historians, curators, collectors, political groups and just about everyone have been yearning to either possess it or at least get a better look and know more about it. Currently, it appears to be in the custody of Hamas - and perhaps not likely to re-emerge any time soon.

In the meantime, a documentary by Nicolas Wadimoff was released last year and Al Jazeera have announced an abridged version. See it here while it lasts (until 14 August 2019). Frankly, I could do without the cheesy philosophical interludes but the film does offer a few excellent insights into some of the context and characters involved.

My personal thoughts? I suspect the statue is authentic (ancient Greek or a Roman copy) but its condition does not seem to suggest that it was lying under the sea for centuries. I tend to think it was originally found on dry land and perhaps, as one of the people in the film speculates, dropped overboard for some reason while being transported in modern times. It's quite possible it was being smuggled by boat between two other countries and jettisoned or lost off the Gazan coast when the venture was inconveniently interrupted. Who knows?

At any rate, whatever its origin, my two greatest concerns - assuming the statue really is authentic - are that it is likely to be in urgent need of conservation and that it eventually ends up properly curated on public display.

My thanks to Michael Press for publicising this news.

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".

Leather books from Turkey

I see that yet another dubious artefact has been seized from 'smugglers' in Turkey ('Hebrew manuscript recovered from smugglers in central Turkey', Daily Sabah, 12 March 2019). Turkish authorities love to publicise their leading role in 'recovering' truckloads of antiquities supposedly stolen from war-torn Syria - but there's a slight hitch. Pretty much all of the 'recovered' objects proudly displayed in their photos appear to be tourist-grade fakes (just one example).

The latest seizure is no exception. Lots of these peculiar leather books (aptly dubbed 'Golden Brownies') have been turning up over the past few years (none from reliable sources). Despite the self-congratulatory smugness of the Turkish police at having brilliantly cracked a Syrian smuggling ring, most scholars regard these garish items as no more than modern fake tat aimed at gullible buyers.

What's more, it seems quite likely that they are being produced in Turkey itself rather than in Syria - so actually not 'smuggled' at all. One has to wonder whether the part in the suspects' statement about the object having been "stolen from a museum [unnamed] in Syria" was naively believed by the suspects themselves or conveniently inserted by those who pressured them into signing it. After all, what self-respecting museum would curate such rubbish?

Paul Barford has compiled a list of the characteristics of these 'Golden Brownies' and his note of their sources suggests that most of them appear to be originating from western Anatolia (and quite possibly manufactured there or transported from a centre further east).

It would seem that far from helping to thwart the looting of Syria's cultural heritage, all the Turkish authorities have really done is expose a thriving fake industry in their own country.

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UPDATE: A more sinister dimension?

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.