Cast and engraved copper alloy oil lamp with a
closed body, inspired by Byzantine prototypes,
two long covered wicks with spade-shaped
mouth, a small thumb-piece, a large ring-
handle projecting straight up with a three-
dimensional bird on top. The globular body
flattened and bearing an openwork foliage band
on the shoulder. In the centre a circular hole,
covered by a perforated domed lid with raised
knob hinged at the back of the opening. On both
sides of the body, a small three-lobed palmette
projecting handle. The lamp is supported by a
tall detachable base with large splayed foot, a
feature encountered mostly in Khurasan, and a
collared straight neck. On the foot, an incised
band of foliage scrolls with dotted perforations, a
row of incised simple palmettes leading to a
bulging collar and a plain neck.
The roots of Islamic metalwork are to be found in
Byzantium and Persia. In the early 7th century
the Arabs took over these two great empires and
absorbed local metal techniques and typologies,
and contributed to a new development in
metalwork by adding inscriptions in kufic script.
Not much is known of the art of metalwork in
Persia and Central Asia in the early Islamic
period, with the exception of few large dishes
datable to the Ghaznavids, until the Seljuk
period, when new forms started to appear, while
lavish inlays and incrustation of gold, silver and
copper crept onto the surface.
This lamp was cast in separate pieces then
soldered together. It was probably made of high
tin bronze (also called quarternary bronze- an
alloy of copper and about 20 per cent tin). This
alloy was known in early Islamic times as
asfidroy, literally 'white copper' and was used for
bowls, stem bowls, dishes, ewers and
candlesticks. Amongst the particular properties
of high tin bronze is that it can be red-hot
forged, like iron, and if quenched, becomes
reasonably malleable when cold. If permitted to
cool slowly than hammered, it shatters. Three
centres of quarternary bronze manufacture are
recorded in Islamic texts of the 10th-11th
centuries: Rabinjian near Bukhara, Hamadan in
western Persia and Sistan province in eastern
Persia. Transoxiana, i.e. Eastern Persia and
Afghanistan, provided the inspiration for the
Hamadan industry as well and kept on producing
high-tin copper alloy vessels well into the 13th
century, although with less originality than
before.
The presence of an openwork foliage band and
the sculptural finial of a bird, a feature often
encountered on ewers handles from the Seljuk
period in Eastern Iran and Afghanistan, would
seem to indicate a date ranging from the 10th to
the 12th century AD and a provenance further to
the East, i.e. in the Transoxian area of
Afghanistan. Indeed Afghanistan was allegedly
the main centre of production for the most
ambitious cast bronzes of the early Islamic
times, as it continued its pre-Islamic tradition of
Buddhist cast images with work for an
increasingly non-Buddhist clientele. This
beautifully decorated oil lamp, also called
'cheragh',would seem to corroborate it.
For a similar bird finial see: Allan, J.W. Metalwork
of the Islamic World, the Aron Collection, 1986:
pl.26, p. 117. And for a discussion on early
Islamic oil lamps see, Allan, J.W. Nishapur,
Metalwork from the Early Islamic Period,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1982:
pp. 45-9.
