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While literally thousands of terracotta oil lamps
survive from the Roman era, their bronze
counterparts are remarkably rare. An average
Roman citizen would have had a few fragile
terracotta lamps scattered about the house to
provide light in the hours of night. Bronze
lamps were the domain of the wealthy elite
whose villas would have been decorated with
durable bronze lamps displayed on elegant
stands. Bronze oil lamps were inherently more
expensive due to the high cost of refining and
casting metal. While luxury items in their own
time, bronze lamps were often melted down for
their metal value in times of war, only increasing
their scarcity today.
This gorgeous bronze lamp, featuring a double-
spouted burner to provide even more luminosity
and a hanging chain, is especially rare. The
bronze chain is remarkably intact, connected to
the body by the side of each spout and along the
shell-shaped handle. In antiquity, the body
would have been filled with an oil, be it olive,
fish, or castor, whatever was most plentiful in
the region, and two wicks wound from fiber
would have produced gentle flames at the
spouts. Although a bit smelly and dirty, such a
lamp could burn for to several hours in one
filling. We can picture this lamp illuminating an
ancient temple, the light flickering against the
columns, throwing shadows onto the ground.
However, it is just as likely that this lamp may
have hung from a tree in the garden of a Roman
villa while a wealthy merchant or officer hosted
an evening party.
- (X.0076)
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