Table Of ContentA CATALOGUE OF THE
LAMPS
IN THE
BRITISH MUSEUM
I
GREEK, HELLENISTIC, AND
EARLY ROMAN POTTERY LAMPS
D. M. BAILEY
SENIOR RESEARCH ASSISTANT
DEPARTMENT OF GREEK AND
ROMAN ANTIQUITIES
PUBLISHED FOR
THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM
BY BRITISH MUSEUM PUBLICATIONS LIMITED
ISBN o 7141 1243 7
Published by British Museum Publications Ltd.
6 Bedford Square, London WCiB 3RA
Set in Bembo and
printed in Great Britain
at the University Press, Oxford
by Vivian Ridlcr
Printer to the University
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE, p. viii
INTRODUCTION
Scope and Plan p. I Survey of Lamp Development p. 12
The Collection 2 Notes on the Text 16
Techniques of Manufacture 2 Notes on the Plates 37
The Uses of Lamps 9 Acknowledgements 17
The Export of Lamps IO Abbreviations and Select Bibliography 18
CATALOGUE
Crete p. 21 Calymna p■ 183
Athens 29 East Greek Unattributed Lamps 198
Boeotia 65 Cyprus 205
Corinth 66 Al Mina 231
Laconia 7t The Levant 235
South Russia (The Crimea) 73 Egypt 239
Tsamourli 7P Eastern Libya (Cyrenaica) 285
Aeolis 84 Western North Africa 289
Pergamon 85 Malta 292
Sardis 87 Sicily 294
Ephesus and Southern Ionia 88 Sardinia 318
Halicarnassus JO Italy 323
Cnidus 124 Unattributed Lamps 354
Rhodes 160
INDEXES
Concordances }>■ 358 Index of Donors p- 383
Index of Find-spots and Alleged General Index 385
Proveniences 38T
PLATES
LIST OF PLATES
I to 3 Inscriptions and Marks 142 to 143 Cypriote Tomb Groups
4 to 7 Cretan Lamps 144 ‘Tomb Groups’ from Algeria
6 to 20 Athenian Lamps 145a Lamps from Al Mina, in Aleppo
20 to 21 Boeotian Lamps 145b Stone Lamp from Ephesus
20 to 23 Corinthian Lamps 146a R. Murdoch Smith’s plan of the
22 to 23 Laconian Lamps field of Chiaoux (after Newton,
Papers)
24 to 25 Crimean Lamps
146b Cpl. McCartney’s photograph of
26 to 27 Lamps from Tsamourli ?
the Tcmenos of Demeter at Cni
27 Lamps from Aeolis, Pergamon, dus in 1858.
and Sardis
147 Plan and Section of the Temcnos
28 to 39 Ephesian and southern Ionian of Demeter at Cnidus (after New
Lamps
ton, Discoveries, pi. LIII).
40 to 43 Lamps from Halicarnassus 148 Baby-feeders from central Italian
44 to 71 Cnidian Lamps lamp workshops
72 to 81 Rhodian Lamps 149 to 150 Towneley drawings of lamps
82 to 87 Calymniote Lamps (Note: the Second Towneley Col
lection, purchased from Charles
86 to 89 East Greek Unattributed Lamps
Towneley’s brother in 1814, in
90 to 99 Cypriote Lamps cluded a very large number of
100 to ΙΟΙ Lamps from Al Mina drawings, many of which were
of objects in the collection. The
ro2 to 103 Levantine Lamps
drawings of the lamps appear
102 to 116 Egyptian Lamps
to be by a number of different
117 East Libyan Lamps hands, but only two (not pub
118 to 119 Lamps from western North Africa lished here) have the artists’ names
written on them, by Towneley:
118 to 119 Maltese Lamps
a drawing of Walters 1142 has
118 to 125 Sicilian Lamps
‘drawn by Tendi’, and a drawing
126 to 127 Sardinian Lamps of the lamp-lid BMC Bronzes 1162
128 to 137 Italian Lamps has ‘Skelton’, most probably Wil
liam Skelton (1763-1848), who
138 Unattributed Lamps
is known to have worked for
139 to 141 Camirus Tomb Groups
Towneley).
PREFACE
The present work is the first volume of a new Catalogue 0/ Greek and Roman Lamps
designed to replace that by Η. B. Walters published in 1914. The need for a new
catalogue has arisen partly because of the substantial growth of the Museum’s lamp
collection over the past sixty years, but mainly because of the great advances this
period has seen in our knowledge of ancient lamps as a result of the extensive publi
cation of scientifically excavated finds. The present volume, winch will be followed
by three others, comprises Greek clay lamps of all periods from the Bronze Age to
the end of the Hellenistic Kingdoms and also Roman clay lamps in the Hellenistic
tradition. It has been written by Mr. D. M. Bailey and the typescript has been read
by Dr. R. A. Higgins and myself.
D. E. L. HAYNES
Keeper of Creek anil Romm Antiquities
INTRODUCTION
SCOPE AND PLAN
Η. B. W altehs’s Catalogue of the Greek and Roman Lamps in the British Museum was published
in 1914 and was one of the earliest works of any substance in the study of the subject.1 It made
available to the archaeologist and scholar a very large body of varied material, much of it illus
trated in half-tone and in line drawings. In the ease of Greek lamps, Walters had very little other
than the archaeological record to go on, and for the Imperial Period Fink’s simple but limited
classification of Roman lamps2 was all that was available to him. The subsequent publication of
oeschckc’s pioneering Lampen aus Vindonissa in 1919 was the first of a large series of impor
tant publications of lamps from archaeological sites, which together with catalogues (the catalogue
of the Hermitage Museums camc out jn t]lc samc year as Walters’s catalogue) have been appear
ing with increasing frequency, especially since the Second World War. These publications,
utilizing and describing the results of research not available when Walters wrote his catalogue
more than half a century ago, point to the need for a new catalogue of lamps. Such a catalogue
would in addition include the many lamps not published by ^Makers although they were
available for inclusion, and also the considerable body of material acquired since 1914.
The present volume is devoted to Greek and Hellenistic lamps and lamps of Hellenistic type,
including late Republican lamps from Italy. Only lamps of fired clay arc included. The range
[ii tune is from the Bionzc Age down to the caily fiist century a.d., from Adinoan lamps to the
Augustan lamps which still bear traces of the Hellenistic tradition. Other lamps of Augustan
limes, including the characteristic volute lamps, and the later lamps of the Roman Imperial
period, will be published in further volumes. Lamps in metal and stone will also be published
icparately. A certain number of lamps from other departments in the Museum have been in-
judcd, principally from the Department of Egyptian Antiquities, but also a few from the
department of Prehistoric and Romano-British Antiquities. The following groups of pottery
amps in the collections of the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities have been excluded as
, cing beyond the scope of this volume: Punic lamps ,4 open lamps from the Levant, ‘Parthian’
amps, and moulded lamps of Hellenistic type made in Mesopotamia.
As in R. A. Higgins’s BMC Terracottas the arrangement of the catalogue is geographical, the
amps being discussed chronologically within each area. In many cases, especially in the eastern
,alf of the Mediterranean, it is possible to place lamps within quite a small geographical area,
city or its immediate neighbourhood. In some regions, however, Sicily and Italy for example,
|iis has proved impossible in the present state of knowledge, and the lamps arc placed ilia wider
1 Petrie’s Roman Ehnasya volume of 1905 is little more 3 O. Waldhnuer, Kaiserliche Ermitage: die antiken
lan a picture book of massed lamps, and Brants’s Leiden Tonlampen (1914).
jtaloguc of 1913 is rather skeletal. 4 However, some of the lamps from Sardinia, 110s.
2 Sitzungsberichte der philos.-phihl. und der histor. Classe Q680 to Q 689, although of Greek form, may be of
of kgl. baycr. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Heft v (1900), Punic manufacture.
p. 68$ ff.
I B
INTRODUCTION
geographical context, with closer attributions where feasible. A typological approach has been
rejected for several reasons. In the case of lamps, a typology is only applicable to a limited
geographical area, and to devise one for a heterogeneous collection of lamps, acquired without
plan or purpose from many sources, would be wasted labour, involving the discrimination of an
incredible number of types if worked out logically, many of which would contain only one or
two lamps. Further, a typology based upon the Museum’s collections would be all the less signi
ficant since many lamp shapes and forms which are transitional from one type to another arc not
represented. Nor is it possible to fit all the lamps in the collections into other published typo
logies.1 These have, in the main, been devised for lamps excavated at particular sites and are
strictly only applicable to those sites. And even when dealing with material from a single site,
it may be necessary to abandon typology, as, for example, Judith Perlzweig felt bound to do
when publishing the Roman lamps from the Athenian Agora.2 Where necessary, however,
especially where this has a bearing on chronology, references to appropriate types within other
typologies are given in the catalogue entries.
The dates given to individual pieces are, in most cases, those deduced from published com
parative material; only a very few lamps come from dated contexts. Where no comparative
lamp is cited the date given is a balance of probabilities and, in such cases, wide chronological
limits are given rather than close ones: in this respect the catalogue must be used with caution.
It would be as well to emphasize that the chronological aspects of this catalogue are secondary,
that primary archaeological material is not to be found here. An attempt has been made to
limit references to comparative material only to those objects which throw some light upon
chronology or upon possible proveniences.
THE COLLECTION
The collection has been put together haphazardly over the last two hundred years, both large
groups of lamps and individual specimens having been acquired by gift, bequest, purchase, and
excavation. Rather than list comprehensively the various sources in the Introduction, it has
been decided that it would be more useful to give details of acquisition in the discussion of each
geographical group of lamps. Further notes on provenience and acquisition are given in Con
cordance B.
TECHNIQUES OF MANUFACTURE
A. FASHIONING
Although there was large-scale exportation of lamps from certain centres at different times, the
manufacture of these cheap, domestic objects normally satisfied a local market. Throughout the
Mediterranean world small workshops flourished, some for short periods, others for many years,
1 Those of Broneer and Howland, for example, for description of various lamp typologies see Ponsich, pp. 3
Corinth and the Athenian Agora. For a discussion and to 2Ö. 2 Perlzweig, p. 2.
2
INTRODUCTION
affected or passed over by the economic or political currents of their times, supplying their own
communities and making use of clay found in the immediate neighbourhood. These clays,
having their own differing characteristics when fired, often make it possible to determine with
some degree of certainty the place of manufacture. In such cases the fired-clay characteristics are
described in the chapter discussions and brief details of the clay bodies and superficial colouring
matters are given in the individual Catalogue entries.
In principle, three methods were used in antiquity for the fashioning of pottery lamps : model
ling by hand, throwing the body on a potter’s wheel, and pressing into two-piece moulds. The
technique of hand-modelling is self-evident: the prepared clay is modelled manually to the
desired shape and finished with a few simple tools. Only a very few lamps in the collections were
made by hand, for example, the Corinthian lamps Q 108 and Q 109, the Laconian lamp Q Il6,
the impasto vessels Q 690 and Q 691, and the bull’s-head toy, Q 704, from Italy; some of the
Cypriote examples of lighting equipment which incorporate plastic features are also largely
hand-modelled (Q 478, Q 478 bis, and Q 483).
Wheelmade lamps were relatively simple to produce and would be no problem to a potter
experienced in the production of domestic pottery. It seems very probable that many wheelmade
lamps were produced by pot-makers rather than by establishments specializing solely in lamps.
This certainly appears to be the case at some periods in Athens,1 but the large-scale production
of wheelmade lamps at Cnidus, for example, bears no obvious relationship to contemporary
Cnidian pot manufacture, which suggests the existence of a separate workshop or workshops
concentrating on lamps. The same was probably true elsewhere.
Wheelmade lamps can vary enormously in appearance and complexity. Some are very simple,
like the open lamps from Cyprus and Al Mina, which arc merely plates or shallow bowls with
the edges pinched in or folded over at two adjacent places to form a wick-rest between the
folded parts. This operation took place immediately after the plate was thrown, while the clay
was still in a very plastic condition. The lamp was then cut from the wheel with a string or wire;
occasionally it was left with the string marks forming a characteristic group of arched loops,
but more often the underside was hand-fettled when the clay was leather-hard,2 an operation
which removed the string marks and smoothed the surface.
Where a neatly turned raised base or base-ring was required it was necessary to wait until the
clay was leather-hard and could be handled without sagging and distortion. At this stage the
body of the lamp, to which the nozzle or handle had not yet been applied, was placed upside-
down on a turning-wheel and the desired base was produced by shaving off the surplus clay
with a wooden or a metal tool as the wheel was rotated. Turned bases or base-rings arc not nor
mally found on open lamps, presumably because its shape would make difficult the centring and
levelling of such a lamp on the turning-wheel. The term ‘unturned base’ is used in the Catalogue
when the lamp was not subjected to this finishing process, but left as it was when cut from the
throwing-wheel.
1 Howland, pp. 3-4, and see his General Index, where ard, Ceramics for the Archaeologist, pp. 365 if., although
many references are given under the heading ‘Potters, I have not been completely guided by these. See also
relation to lainpmakers’. For the Roman period see Council for British Archaeology, Research Report 6:
Perlzweig, pp. 59 ff. Romano-British Coarse Pottery.
2 For terms used in ceramic technology cf. A. O. Shep
3
INTRODUCTION
With the advent of the bridged nozzle, which in most areas superseded the wick-rest of the
open lamps, it became necessary to fashion the nozzle separately and then apply it to the thrown
lamp body; in the majority of cases it would appear that the nozzle was shaped as a solid clay
lump and pierced by a hollow tube after it had been luted to the side of the body. However, with
some lamps the nozzle was modelled from sheet clay or even thrown on the wheel, after which
it was cut to fit the lamp body. If a handle was to be fitted it was pulled or rolled in the normal
way and applied to the lamp in the appropriate place. Other applied decorative or useful features
as, for example, the moulded applique reliefs of Cnidian lamps or the pierced side-lugs intended
for the suspension of lamps when not in use, were added at this stage. After any necessary
finishing touches were carried out and while the clay was still leather-hard, the lamp was
covered with a slip if needed for decorative or functional reasons. If a glossy black slip or glaze
was required the surface of the lamp was burnished before the slip was applied.
It is somewhat surprising that lamps were apparently not produced by the technique of mould
ing in two-piece moulds before the early years of the third century B.c. Terracotta figures had
been manufactured by this method for 200 years or so before this1 and it is difficult to see why
the decorative possibilities and mass-production benefits of mouldmadc lamps were not recog
nized by lampmakers until a comparatively late date.
The series of operations leading to the production of a mouldmadc lamp ready for firing were
lengthy but the individual steps were straightforward. The lamp-maker’s first task was to
produce an archetype or model from which a mould could be taken.2 * This involved shaping
and carving a solid lump of clay into the basic form of the lamp body ; much of this work would
have to be done when the clay was in a leather-hard state. Decoration was added to the plain
archetype by carving and incision, by stamping with punches, by applying hand-worked
detail or moulded applique, or by a combination of these. Stamped or incised inscriptions
could have been added at this stage. When the archetype was complete with all the details which
the Iampmaker wished to reproduce by moulding, and after he had ensured that there were no
undercut features which would interfere with the withdrawal of the mould, it was allowed to
dry out and was then fired.
The vast majority of lamp moulds in Greek and Roman times were made of plaster. This can
be inferred by the negative evidence of the paucity of lamp moulds surviving from antiquity :
plasters, both gypsum and especially lime, are fairly unstable substances, which break down
easily in damp soil conditions. Some, however, have survived in dry climates, as in Egypt and
North Africa. Petrie found examples of plaster lamp moulds at Herakleopolis Magnai and
there are many in the Cairo Museum;4 several have been found at Carthage.5 The use of plaster
moulds can often be deduced from indications found on the lamps produced by these moulds.
1 Compare, for example, R. A. Higgins, BMC Terra have been found at Ptuj in Yugoslavia (Germania, 19
cottas, i. 49 and 57-9, of mid- to late-sixth-century date. (1935). pp· -27 if). See also BMQ xxvii (1963-4), p. 91,
2 There is one archetype in the collection, Q 105; for note 7.
another Hellenistic archetype see Howland 814. Some 3 W. M. F. Petrie, Roman Ehnasya, pi. lvi, a, b, and c.
fine examples of the Roman period have been found at 4 Cf. C. C. Edgar, Catalogue general des antiquites
Butovo in Bulgaria, perhaps the ancient Emporium egyptiennes: Greek Moulds, pi. xxvm. 32299, for a modern
Peritensium (Actes du Premier Congrès international des cast from a Hellenistic plaster lamp mould.
Études balkaniques et sud-est européennes, ii, p. 485, fig. 8, 5 J. Deneauve, Lampes de Carthage, pis. civ-cv, 1148 to
and Apxeomeuft, iv, 4 (1962), p. 32, fig· 7). and others 1153·
4
