A Study of an Ancient Oil Lamp: Iconography, Glazing and a Human Connection
In 2019, late emeritus Professor James Turnure (Samuel H. Kress Professor of Art History) donated a sizable collection of ancient artifacts, including seventeen ancient oil lamps. These lamps were unstudied prior to their donation, and the overall long-term research goal of this project is to properly publish the artifacts and make their data accessible to the international archaeology community. Oil lamps were widely used in the Ancient Mediterranean world, and since they were often used by those who were not well represented in the written records we have from their time, oil lamps and other ordinary objects can shed light on the daily life on underrepresented people. One of Turnure’s donated lamps, which is the focus of this study, has two nozzles and plant imagery on its discus. This lamp was drawn, measured, photographed, and described. Such careful examination and documentation of the physical characteristics of this lamp and looking through the records of documented collections of ancient oil lamps allow for conclusions about the lamp’s creation, including estimates of the lamp’s age and region of origin. Studying the iconography on the lamp can connect it to other ancient pieces of pottery. Details like the lamp’s imperfect glazing and the marks of fingerprints left on the lamp’s walls also give the lamp a human element. This kind of connection to the people who created or used an artifact is perhaps most easily seen through once mundane, small objects like oil lamps.