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A Catalogue of the Lamps in the British Museum 1: Greek, Hellenistic, and Early Roman Pottery Lamps PDF

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A 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

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