Two Things Tuesday: On Roman Lamps

My interest in Roman lamps has not grown over the last few years where I’ve been studying them (albeit in a rather desultory way). As readers of this blog know, we have a lamp deposit from Polis and have been working to say something about this odd little assemblage of lamps. The most unusual thing about it is that excavators discovered these lamps nestled amid the Late Roman leveling fill for the so-called South Basilica.

The lamps themselves are relatively well preserved and several derive from the same mold. The types are well-known on Cyprus and appear — as far as we can tell — to be in Cypriot fabric. There is every reason to assume that these lamps were manufactured on this island and most likely at Polis. There are two interrelated aspects of publishing these lamps that makes it more of a challenge (beyond lamps being inherently boring).

Thing the First

In the spring of 2013, someone broke into the Polis storerooms and among the rather unusual collection of things they stole (which included a partially complete Saraçhane Type 54 amphora) was an assortment of Roman lamps from the site.

Fortunately, the summer before, Brandon Olson had photographed most of the lamps with the idea that he might study them for publication (Brandon discovered that almost anything was more interesting than studying lamps and moved on). Brandon’s study photographs proved invaluable as we try to study both the lamps left behind and those stolen.

The photographs are not perfect. As you can see below, this photograph is probably better for study than publication. That said, it is good enough for us to be able to identify a close parallel (perhaps a later generation from the same mold) in the Cesnola Collection at the Met in New York. Note the planta pedis on the base which in the Met example is described as an “I”, but in the British Museum is more refined.

Thing the Second

The challenge of studying lost lamps goes beyond trying to salvage hastily taken study photographs for publication (and to be clear, I’m not complaining about Brandon’s photos! Had he not taken them, we’d have had even less of a record of these lamps).

We also have descriptions of the lamps by Kit Moss who did a preliminary study of the objects over the course of several seasons. As we moved toward publication, we planned to include Moss as a co-author on our work to give him credit for his initial analysis which often saved us a good bit of time identifying sometimes fragmentary lamps.

For this lamp, Moss’s notebook recorded:

Nearly complete short nozzle type; missing top half of handle and base of nozzle area. Very fine fabric usual color fired somewhat irregularly: mostly tan, buff, slightly orange on disc. Pierced handle. Flat base with two impressed circles and three semi circles and planta pedis. Salamis VII examples with planta pedios are all [word] and with more articulated, elaborate nozzles (e.g. 162, 340, 597). Nozzle volutes are extremely sketchy; only bare semi-circles. shoulder tongue pattern. disc: horizontal grape vine with four leaves and two pendant grape clusters.

While we have prepared proper catalogue entries for the lamps that we can can, we are in an awkward position for the “non vidi” lamps. In the end, we’ve concluded that some catalogue entry is better than none at all and we can add comparanda and photographs.