No title

The

BIBLICAL

ARCHAEOLOGI ?or~

Published by THE AMERICAN SCHOOLS OF ORIENTAL RESEARCH Jerusalem and Bagdad Drawer 93-A, Yale Station, New Haven, Conn.

Vol. XXVII

December,1964

No. 4

The Household Lamps of Palestine in Intertestamental Times (Second in a three-partseries*) ROBERT HOUSTON SMITH The College of Wooster

The periodbetween the Old and New Testamentsis largelyxthat of the HellenisitcAge in Palestinianhistory,which beganwhen Alexanderthe Great marchedinto Palestinein 332 B.C. and ended approximately when Herodthe Great,a consciouspurveyorof Romanculture,came to powerin 37 B.C.xDuringthis time Palestinewas ruledfirstby Alexander(332-323), then by Alexander'ssuccessorsthe Ptolemiesof Egypt (323-198) and the Seleucidsof Syria (198-165), and finally by Hasmoneankings (165-37). Throughoutthis period householdlamps underwenta rapid and complex developmentwhich was relatedto the broaderculturalhistoryof the period. *The first article, "The Household Lamps of Palestine in Old Testament Times," appearedin the BA, XXVII (1964), pp. 1-31. Note two correctionsto the text of that article: p. 27, line 22, 17." Unless otherwisenoted, each illustrationin the presentarticlehas been reducedto one-thirdof the size of the original object. For technical reasons line-drawingstaken from previous publications have been redrawn;this occasion for redrawinghas been utilized to introduce a moderately unifiedformatfor the line-drawings. read "Figure 12" instead of "Figure 11"; p. 30, line 4, read "Figure 18" instead of "Figure

1. \any scholars prefer to date the end of the Hellenistic period to 63 or 50 B.C.

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. XXVII,

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is published quarterly (February, May, September, December) The Biblical Archaeologist by the American Schools of Oriental Research. Its purpose is to meet the need for a readable, account of archaeological discoveries as they relate to the reliable non-technical, yet thoroughly Bible. Editor: Edward F. Campbell, Jr., with the assistance of Floyd V. Filson in New Testament matters. Editorial correspendence should be sent to the editor at 800 West Belden Avenue, ChicaIllinois. 14, go Editorial Board: W. F. Albright, Johns Hopkins University; G. Ernest Wright, Harvard University; Frank M. Cross, Jr., Harvard University. Service Agency, 31 East 10th $2.00 per year, payable to Stechert-Hafner Subscriptions: Street, New York 3, New York. Associate members of the American Schools of Oriental Research receive the journal automatically. Ten or more subscriptions for group use, mailed and billed to the same address, $1.50 per year for each. Subscriptions run for the calendar year. In England: fifteen shillings per year, payable to B. H. Blackwell, Ltd., Broad Street, Oxford. Back Numbers: Available at 604 each, or $2.25 per volume, from the Stechert-Hafner Service Agency. No orders under $1.00 accepted. When ordering one issue only, please remit with order. The journal is indexed in Art Index, Index to Religious Periodical Literature, and at the end of every fifth volume of the journal itself. Second-class postage PAID at New Haven, Connecticut and additional offices. Copyright by American Schools of Oriental Research, 1964. PRINTED

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Fig. 1. Wheelmade lamp of ca. the end of the 4th century B.C., from Megiddo. Photograph courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago; drawing from R. S. Lamon and G. M. Shipton, Megiddo I, pl. XXXVII, no. 2, modified, used courtesy of the Oriental Institute.

The

Earliest

Hellenistic

Lamps

Prepared by several centuries of increasing contact with the western world, the people of the eastern Mediterraneanlands entered the Hellenistic era easily. The large amount of imports from the west during the last centuries of the Iron Age shows that many of these people had already recognized the technical and aesthetic superiority of Greek pottery; all that remained was for them to adopt Greek ceramic styles in their own manufacture of pottery. This final stage came as local potters began to cater to the interests of soldiers and merchants left in the wake of Alexander the Great, spurred on by an ever-growing popular demand for Greek wares. By this time the quality of the lamps of Greece had begun to decline, with the result that local manufacturers were able to compete successfully for the eastern Mediterranean market. The lamps which they produced were truly international in style, so much so that it is sometimes impossible to deter-

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mine the place of origin of a lamp solely on the basis of its appearance.Some lamps manufactured in places such as Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch in Syria may have found their way into Palestine, but there also must have been a Palestinian industry which produced lamps in this international style. Thanks to archaeometric techniques of pottery analysis which are currently being developed, we may look forward to the time when the exact place of manufacture of almost any lamp can be determined; then it will be possible to reconstruct in considerable detail the history of international trade during early Hellenistic times.

Fig. 2. Wheelmade lamp of ca. first half of 3rd century B.C., from Atlit. From Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities of Palestine, II (1932), pl. XXXVI, no. 1002 and fig. 92.

Along with the rest of their culture the Greek soldiers and merchants brought their language, which already included a large stock of terms dealing with lamps. As Greek increasingly became the language of culture, commerce and government, some of these terms came into use in Palestine alongside the older Hebrew and Aramaic words; a household lamp, for example, became a lychnos and its nozzle a myktcr or myxa. Sometimes Greekspeaking Palestinians retained their old terminology in new wrappings, as when they referred to a lampwick not by the common Greek words lychnitis and ellychnion but by the term linon, "flax"or "linen," a direct translation of the Hebrew pishtah; such a designation would have been unusual in Greece, where wicks were not ordinarily made of flax but of plantain (thryallis).2 Palestinian lamps from the beginning of the Hellenistic period are not numerous, perhaps in part because the population of the country had not yet fully recovered numerical and economic strength following the depletion which had occurred during the Persian period; such evidence as there is, however, shows that lamp development took a course similar to that else2. H. B. Walters, A History of Ancient Pottery, vol. II, p. 395. Other substances were sometimes used, such as the phlomos (mullein). Flax wicks were used on certain occasions. The earliest use of the term linon in Jewish literature is that in the Septuagint, e.g., Isa. 42:3, a passage which Matt. 12:20 quotes.

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where in the Hellenistic world. Typical of late 4th century B.C. lamps, exceptfor the optional(and rare) handle,is the wheelmadespecimenfrom Megiddoshown in Figure 1.3 Of thick brown-ochre clay, the lamp is very well made,as lampsof its time generallywere. The potterfirst turnedthe bowl of the lamp on his wheel, then, when the clay had partlydried,added the nozzleand handlewhichhe had previouslyfashioned.Finallyhe applied a dull blackor brownslip of high-gradeclay in an attemptto imitateblack Greekglaze,andfiredthe lampuntil it wasquitehard. Somewhatlater in date, possiblyfrom the first half of the 3rd century B.C., is the wheelmadespecimenshown in Figure2, which still retainsthe heavycoatingof lime which it acquiredwhile lying for centuriesin a tomb. Lampsof this kind ordinarilyrangefromreddishware (as in this specimen) to light brown, alwaysheavy and fine-textured.The thick, inward-sloping (or, in other specimens,almostvertical) walls of the oil reservoirgive the lamp considerablestability.Like lamps of the precedingkind, such lamps ordinarilyhada brownor blackslip whichimitatedGreekglaze.

Qo

SR Fig. 3. Wheelmade votive lamp, probably ca. middle of 3rd century B.C., from Samaria. From G Reisner, Samaria, fig. 189, no. II 3a.

These lamps were intended for everyday use, but not all lamps were. The little lamp of reddish ware with a red wash, found at Samaria (Fig. 3), clearly had some special function. The lower portion is unfortunately missing; the excavatorssuggest that the lamp may have been attached to a hollow ceramic ring, but analogies from elsewhere in the Mediterranean world suggest that it originally had a columnar base.4 It will be noted that the oil reservoir opens directly into the column. The lamp could be used only so

long as the fuel level was high and oil could easily flow up the wick by capillary action, and thus was not suitable for everyday use. The lamp is 3. The drawing of this lamp in R. S. Lamon and G. M. Shipton, Megiddo I, pl. 37, no. 2, is inaccurate;

cf. R. H. Howland,

264, 269 and 285. 4. Cf. Howland,

Greek Lamps,

The

Athenian

nos. 443-444,

Agora 611-612;

IV:

Greek

0. Broneer,

Lamps

and Their

Corinth

p. 49 (fig. 24); D. Ivdnyi, Die Pannonischen Lampen, pl. LXVII, no. 8.

Survivals,

IV2: Terracotta

nos.

Lamps,

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almost surely a votive one, intended not so much to be lit as to contain a fixed amount of oil as an offering.5One is reminded of a lamp from Athens, found many years ago, on which had been inscribed the words ME APTOU, "Do not light"; perhaps it, too, was a votive lamp.6 So far as we know, the user of the Samarian lamp was not a Jew but a pagan. He may have taken his votive lamp to the temple, but it is also possible that he dedicated it to a household shrine. About the middle of the 3rd century B.C. a somewhat different kind of lamp appeared in Palestine, the so-called "pocket watch" type (Fig. 4). More strongly eastern-Hellenistic than its predecessors, it is especially distinguished by its sharply angular oil reservoir. The walls of the lamp are thinner and often buff-colored, and are regularly covered with a rich red or brown slip. This kind of lamp seems to have been most popular in northern

es

Fig. 4. Wheelmade lamps of ca. last half of 3rd century B.C. Left: specimen from Samaria. From J. W. Crowfoot, et al., Samaria-Sebaste 111, fig. 85, no. 6, used by permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund. Right: specimen in a private collection.

Palestine. Some specimens may have been imported from Syria, where the lamp was enjoying considerable popularity at this time; thus we see the old tendency of Samariato have cultural ties with the north. An interesting feature of lamps in this style, and some earlier and later ones as well, is the little pierced knob on the shoulder (usually, but not always, on the right side as one holds the lamp with the nozzle facing outward). This lug may have been an invention of the lampmakersof Athens. In its earliest form it curves outward like a dolphin's fin, a fact which prompted late 19th century scholars to dub lamps with such lugs "delphiniform"; archaeologistsstill use the term occasionally, not only for specimens 5. Even in modern times the people of Palestine who bring votive lamps to shrines stress the oil as their offering, not the lamp itself; cf. T. Canaan, Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society, VI (1926), pp. 20-22. 6. The lamp and its inscription are mentioned by Walters, Ancient Pottery, vol. I, p. 107. For some inexplicable reason Walters translates the inscription literally as "Do not touch." In Greek idiom, to "touch" a lamp was to light it. Votive lamps of gold and silver, obviously not intended for use, are mentioned in lists of temple vessels in Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 1449, from the early 3rd century A.D.; one lamp seems to be of silver-plated wood. 7. Howland, Greek Lamps, p. 167.

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in which the fin is prominent but also for those later ones in which it is vestigial. The function of the lug has never been conclusively determined. Some investigators have suggested that potters made the projection to hold a needle with which the wick could be pulled forward as it burned. Others have thought that it provided a means of attaching a string so that the lamp could be hung on the wall when it was not in use.8 Perhaps the most satisfactory procedure is to combine some elements of both of these ideas and suggest that the lug originally was a device for tethering a wick-adjusterto the lamp by means of a string. In any case, the wick-adjustercannot have been more than a twig or splinter, for although iron and bronze pins are known to have been attached to certain finer lamps-usually of bronze-in the Roman period and presumably in the Hellenistic as well, there is no archaeologicalevidence that they were attached to ordinary terracottalamps.

'0SD Fig. 5. Wheelmade lamps of ca. 3rd century B.C. Left: specimen from Beth Zur. From O. R. Sellers, The Citadel of Beth-Zur, fig. 42 (exact size of lamp unknown). Right: specimen from Tell en-Nasbeh. Photograph and drawing courtesy of the Palestine Institute of the Pacific School of Religion.

Along with the lamps of international design which we have been discussing we find some plainly local lamps, particularlyin central and southern Palestine. The two wheelmade specimens9 in Figure 5 probably both date from the 3rd century B.C.10The most notable feature is the sharply pointed nozzle on each specimen. The rim around the filling-hole varies considerably, sometimes being high and flaring and sometimes consisting only of an incurving of the bowl of the lamp. Lamps of this kind are generally poorly made of coarse, drab buff to soft red-orangeclay, and are sometimes covered with a thick slip of only slightly better clay. The Palestinian potters who made such lamps were apparently willing to go along with Hellenistic styles 8. Howland, Greek Lamps, pp. 72, 131, 153, refers to earlier discussions of this question and decides in favor of suspension as the original purpose of the lug; he goes on to suggest that the lug must soon have been discovered to be useful as a holder for the wick-adjuster. 9. The lamp from Beth Zur shown in Fig. 5 is not molded as the excavator states that it is. 10. Of the same family, and almost surely of similar date, is the lamp found in a tomb at Beth Shemesh (E. Grant and G. E. Wright, Ain Shems Excavations IV, pl. XLVIII, no. 10), which (contrary to Wright's opinion in Ain Shems Excavations V, p. 145) is neither Mesopotamian in origin nor from the Persian period. Cf. the lamps in Tomb 103 at Gezer (R. A. S. Macalister, The Excavation of Gezer III, pl. XCVII, nos. 1-5).

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of lamp-making, but not concerned enough to imitate any one lamp closely or to try to achieve any aesthetic effect. Of larger, finer Palestinian lamps during the 3rd century B.C. we know almost nothing. This lack of information may in part be accidental, but the major factor was probably the lack of wealth and sophistication among most Palestinians. The market for fine lamps probably existed only in the rich

-L-L

Fig. 6. Interior of late 3rd-century B.C. Tomb 2 at Tell Sandahannah. Top left: photograph of painted lamp and lampstand on the south wall, courtesy df W. F. Albright. Top right: line drawing of the lamp and lampstand, by R. H. S. (reduced to % original size). Below: sketch of parts of the south wall of the tomb. From J. P. Peters and H. Thiersch, Painted Tombs in the Necropolis of Marissa, fig. 6 (scale approximately 1/200).

Hellenistic cities of lowland Palestine. One interesting indication of the use of such lamps comes from Tell Sandahannah, formerly the flourishing Graeco-Roman city of Marisa. Around the turn of this century archaeologists discovered two handsome, painted family tombs of Sidonian aristocrats who had lived at Marisa. Cut from the bedrock, these tombs were decorated in the latter part of the 3rd century B.C. In Tomb 2 was a pair of paintings of tall lampstands on opposite sides of the central chamber, each surmounted by a bowl-like object which seems to represent a two-spout

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THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. XXVII,

lamp (Fig. 6). The lamp is seen in profile, and from each nozzle emerges a long red flame."lThe drawing on the south wall (illustrated here) is more than eleven feet tall and the lamp is 71/4inches across.The figures standing beside the lampstand are about half-size, a fact which suggests that the artist may also have drawn the lamp and lampstand to half-scale; but a precise calculation of scale is impossible, for Graeco-Roman genre art often shows little concern for uniform proportion. The lampstand in this drawing is painted a bright yellow, perhaps in imitation of gilt bronze; the lamp is a rusty red, an imitation of bronze12or of red Greek glaze.13 The representationof a red-glazed lamp is by no means unlikely, for very large red-glazed lamps with two spouts of very much the same design have been found in the 4th-3rd century deposits in Greece,14 the artist would not have thought it incongruous to depict a clay lamp on a gilt-bronze lampstand, since an elegant lamp of this kind would probably have been a valuable imported piece. A lid seems to cover the filling-hole of the lamp, but the photograph does not show enough detail for the shape to be determined exactly. Much of the difficulty in interpreting this painting is also due to the fact that the design has been repainted at least once during the use-span of the tomb--not to mention the damaged state in which the painting was found. The lampstand is also noteworthy, since it constitutes the only surviving indication of a Palestinian lampstand of the Hellenistic period, albeit one which only the wealthiest and most hellenized people in Palestine would have used. The form has its origins in Phoenician metallurgy, perhaps having first been used in stands for incense bowls;'5 many centuries later the influence of this pervasive design would crop out in Roman lampstands such as archaeologists have discovered in large numbers at Pompeii and Herculaneum.'6 Fine objects, particularly ones in metal, always tended to be sensitive to older, classical designs. This tomb illustrates well one use to which lamps were put by Palestinians, at least the more hellenized ones, during this period. Tall lampstands and lamps regularly stood in the large central chamber, or aulj, of a Hellenistic house. When a man died his body was laid in state in the aul , surrounded by these lamps, as well as by various objects used in funerary 11. The vessel cannot be a cresset or thymiaterion (incense bowl) as W. F. Albright suggests in BASOR, 85 (February, 1942), pp. 18-27, since such objects were regularly represented as having the flame or smoke rising from the center of the bowl rather than at each end. A true censer is drawn in Marisa Tomb 1 (J. P. Peters and H. Thiersch, Painted Tombs in the Necropolis of Marissa, frontispiece). 12. So suggests Albright, BASOR, 85, p. 21. 13. Excavators Peters and Thiersch take the color to indicate a pottery lamp (Painted Tombs, p. 32). 14. Howland, Greek Lamps, no. 466. 15. Albright gathers a number of examples in BASOR, 85, pp. 22-25. 16. See L. Barr6 and H. Roux, Herculanum et Pompli, vol. VII.

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rites, such as censers and garlands on the walls.17 The tomb to which the body was taken often reproduced features of the Hellenistic house, as does the Marisa tomb with its aul2 and surroundingchambers in which the dead were laid to rest as if in bedrooms. In painting the walls of this tomb the artist has placed lampstands approximatelywhere pieces might actually have stood in an auli. The small figures standing beside the lampstand, probably servants, complete the picture of the tomb as the house of the deceased in which attendants see that all necessary duties are performed for their master'scomfort. Because the Marisa tomb had been looted before archaeologists found it, few of the many objects left there with the dead are known to us, but one may suppose that lighted lamps and torches may have been carried by mourners who accompanied the body to the tomb, and that these were left burning in the tomb.18 The evidence of this tomb points to pagan practices, but one can assume that, on a more modest scale, many Jews of Palestine practiced some similar rites involving lamps. The concept of the lamp as a symbol of life was known in Palestine long before Hellenistic times. In all tombs of Hellenistic times, whether Jewish or pagan, lamps are standard funerary equipment, and often appearin considerablenumbers. Palestinians undoubtedly made some use of the lampas, or torch, for large scale illumination. Indeed, some linguists, having in mind that the stem of the Greek word lampas is lampad, have thought-perhaps mistakenly-that the Greek noun was related to the Hebrew word for torch, lappid. Ordinarily torches must have consisted of bundles of pithy wood or grass. The Greeks had other terms for torches, especially dais, but that word was usually applied to a firebrand of resinous wood and therefore was not appropriatefor the materials commonly available in Palestine."9As in earlier times, Palestinians probably did not often use torches in their everyday life, for fuel was scarce; they may, however, have used them for special ceremonial occasions such as weddings, religious festivals and funerals. In some public and religious buildings, such as the temple in Jerusalem, torches were used to illuminate important chambers or passageways;20these may have been permanent torches constructed of metal, into which pitch and other combustible substances could be stuffed. No archaeological evidence of metal torches has, however, yet been discovered in Palestine.21In any case, torches lay outside the realm of household lamps. 17. Such a scene, little changed from Hellenistic times, is depicted in detail in a 1st century A.D. relief from the Haterii tomb in Rome; see P. Gusman, L'art ddcoratif de Rome, vol. III, pl. 142. 18. See J. C. Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion, pp. 505-514. 19. See E. Pottier, "Fax," Dictionnaire des antiquitis grecques et romaines (ed. Daremberg and Saglio, vol. II, pp. 1025-1019. 20. The Babylonian Talmud mentions torches in the temple (Middoth 1.2; cf. 1.9). 21. Regarding metal torches, see the comments of F. W. Robins, The Story of the Lamp, pp. 7-8 Robins also discusses the fuels used in torches.

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Throughoutthis century and the Hellenisticperiod in general, olive oil continuedto be the chief fuel for lamps.Petroleumfuels were beginning to be known by this time, but were unsuitablefor lamps.Palestiniansmay have been burningpitch for centuries,and amplequantitieswere available from the Dead Sea; but, except possiblyin torchesand vessels of special religiousfunction, it was an impracticalfuel, being much too thick and irregularin its burningto be dependable.Crudeoil, called by the ancients naphtha,was in use in Babyloniaas a lamp fuel by the end of the Hellenistic period (if not earlier), as the first centuryB.C. pagan scholarPoseidonius informs us;22 some passagesin the Babylonian Talmud (e.g., Shabbat

20b ff.) also mentionnaphthaas a lamp fuel, but these referencesseem to be no earlierthan the 3rd centuryA.D.23

. Fig. 7. Lamps of the "Cnidus" type, ca. 2nd century B.C. Left: specimen from Tell Sandahannah. Photograph courtesy of the Palestine Archaeological Museum, Jerusalem, Jordan. Right: profile of specimen from Samaria, restored. From Samaria-Sebaste III, fig. 86, no. 1, used by permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

On the whole, this early phase of Hellenismin Palestinewas marked by passiveacceptanceof new ceramicforms but little creativeness.Palestiniansseem to have regardedHellenismnot as a new way of thinkingbut as a matterof style which could be imitated.Palestinehad no one to comwho inpare with Heron of Alexandria,a 3rd centuryB.C. mathematician vented a self-trimminglamp in which the wick advancedas the level of oil in the lamp dropped,24nor anyone like Philo of Byzantium,who around 200 B.C. inventeda complicatedmechanicallamp with a sphericaloil reservoir.25Old ways of thinkingwere far too deeplyetched to be easily displaced by the westerntide. But Palestinianswere at least becomingmore accustomedto change, a fact which contributedto the diversityof lamp forms which appearedin the following century. 22. The passage is cited in R. J. Forbes, Studies in Ancient Technology, vol. 1, p. 36. 23. II Macc. 1:18-36 gives a lengthy discussion of naphtha as a fuel divinely revealed during the Persian period, but does not speak of the substance as fuel for lamps. 24. A. Neuburger, The Technical Arts and Sciences of the Ancients, pp. 241-242. 25. Neuburger, Technical Arts, p. 241.

4, 1964)

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST Lamps in Seleucid

and Early Hasmonean

111

Times

As the 2nd century B.C. began Palestine was wrested from the Ptolemaic empire by the Seleucid kings of Syria, one of whom, Antiochus IV, became anathema to conservative Jews of Palestine 'for his policy of hellenization (I Macc. 1-2). Already extensively hellenized, the lamp tradition of Palestine shows no particular evidence of Seleucid influence, unless it be perhaps in increased commercial contacts between Palestine and coastal Syria and Asia Minor, trade patterns which lasted long after Palestine esease with which trade caped from Seleucid control. One indication of was carried on is the occasional appearance in .the Palestine of lamps manufactured in western Asia Minor. One of the most distinctive of the imported lamps is that of the "Cnidus" type, so called because many specimens of its kind have been found at Cnidus in southwestern Asia Minor. Like 3rd century B.C. lamps, the Cnidus lamp has a wheel-turned body and handmade nozzle and handle (Fig. 7). Here we encounter for the first time a lamp made of gray ware, a feature which predominates in 2nd century lamps of Palestine and indeed much of the eastern Mediterranean region. The clay is fine, carefully shaped, covered with a dark gray slip, and fired hard. By using clay which turned gray as it was fired, the potter avoided a difficulty which had plagued earlier lamps which had a dark slip on light clay, that of showing light spots when the slip was accidentally chipped. The most interesting aspect of this lamp, however, is the fact that the potter has decorated its shoulder with a molded floral design; thus we meet for the first time the use of molding techniques in the manufacture of lamps. Aware of the charm of their product, the potters who made the Cnidus lamp never varied their lamps to any significant extent but continued to make the same design throughout much of the 2nd century B.C. Early in the century completely molded lamps also begin to appear. In Greece potters had begun to mold lamps early in the 3rd century B.C.,26 but this new method of manufacture had been slow to reach Palestine. The molding process required first a patrix, or model lamp, perhaps made of wood or clay. From this two molds were made, probably of clay, one for the upper part of the lamp and another for the lower part. The craftsman pressed clay into each mold, trimmed off the excess clay, and then joined the two sections. When the clay had dried enough to permit handling, it was removed from the molds and the exterior was further smoothed and the filling-hole and wick-hole were punched out. After further drying, the lamp went into the kiln for firing.27This method of manufacture, so different 26. Howland, Greek Lamps, p. 129. 27. See D. M. Bailey,

Greek and Roman Pottery Lamps, pp. 13-14.

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THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. XXVII,

from that of wheel-turning, represents the greatest technological change which took place in the history of the ancient lamp. The earliest molded lamps imitated closely the form of wheelmade lamps.28This fact shows clearly that the molding process was introduced not for the sake of making possible new designs, but only as a more efficient means of manufacture. Since molded lamps threatened the traditional craft of the potter, it is likely that they were often produced in new factories, ones not connected with the existing potters' shops; evidence from the Roman period tends to confirm this supposition.

-7m

From SamariaFig. 8. Lamp of the "Ephesus" type, ca. 2nd century B.C., from Samaria, restored. Fund. Sebaste III, fig. 87, no. 5, used by permission of the Palestine Exploration

Among the 2nd century molded lamps of Palestine were a certain numof ber imports. Some lamps may have been brought in from Egypt, parmolded ticularly into southern Palestine.29 The most distinctive imported covware of Made Asia Minor. in gray lamp came, however, from Ephesus this "Ephesus"lamp ered with a heavy black slip which was almost like glaze, (Fig. 8) had several unusual features, one of which was the three tiny holes to punched in the rim in order to allow any oil spilled during the filling run down into the oil reservoir.The angularly spatulated nozzle and groove running the length of the nozzle are also novel. Lamps in this style regushown larly had geometric or floral designs on the shoulder. In the specimen here the decoration consists of alternating clusters of leaves and berries which are intended to represent either olive or laurel. The arrangemen'tof the floral elements strongly suggests the kind of wreath worn by officiants in religious ceremonies, by victors in athletic contests or battles, and by the dead as they were laid to their final rest. This design, of all those on 28. Compare types 11la and 1lb in R. Stillwell, Antioch-on-the-Orontes III, fig. 75. A 2nd incentury 0. R. Palestinian molded lamp which shows strong influence from wheelmade forms can be seen Sellers, The Citadel of Beth-Zur, fig. 42 (specimen in the middle of the second column of lamps). 29. Note especially Sellers, Citadel of Beth-Zur, fig. 42, middle lamp in column 2 and the bottom lamp in column 3. Though of local manufacture, these specimens show affinities with Egyptian types.

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Ephesus lamps, was to be influential in Palestinianlamp decorationfor centuriesto come. Importedlamps accountfor only a small part of the lamps in use in Palestinein the 2nd centuryB.C.; the great majoritywere of local manufacture.Predominantlyof gray ware with darkgray slip, they variedfrom very simple to moderatelyornateforms,and comparefavorablywith everyday lampsproducedelsewherein the Hellenisticworld. Specimensseldom have handles,probablybecausethe lampmakerssaw no great aestheticor practicalvalue in such troublesomeappendages.They did put handleson a few molded lamps of better quality, however,a fact which suggeststhat

zz: Fig. 9. Lamp of ca. 2nd century B.C., from Atlit. From Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities of Palestine, II (1932), pl. XXXIV, no. 907 and fig. 83.

they regardedhandles as a luxury. In holding this view lampmakersdifof the Cnidus and Ephesuslamps, fered radicallyfrom the manufacturers who regardedhandlesas integralto the formsof theirlamps. Amongthe moreinterestinglampsof this kind is that shown in Figure a 9, lamp of graywarewith a blackslip. On the shouldertwo chubbygenii face one anotherand hold some object aloft. Lampshaving the same decorationbut differingform have been found at severalplaces in Palestine and in many other partsof the Hellenisticworld.The differencesof detail among these lamps show that they did not emanatefrom a single factory world. at manyplacesthroughoutthe Mediterranean but were manufactured Like the "willow"patternof china in recentcenturies,this motif had caught popularfancy and been reproducedwidely. The decorativedesign is significantin its own right, for it can be tracedto ancient Near Easterncultic motifs.SeveralNorth Syrianorthostatsof the Iron Age show the prototype of this design, mythicalcreaturesholding between them a table or footstool on which restsa wingedsun-disk.30 By the time the design had found its way into 2nd centurylamps it had been thoroughlyhellenized,the un30. H. Frankfort, The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient, pl. 159A; other similar orthostats can be found in M. von Oppenheim, et al., Tell Halaf III.

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appealing monstrous creatures of the earlier design having become innocuous babies. This design appears frequently in Graeco-Roman art, often in the form of genii holding up a garland, above which is suspended a sunemblem such as a circle or a Medusa'shead. Sun imagery appears again in a very large number of lamps decorated with a geometrical "sunburst"design, consisting of bars radiatingout from the lamp's filling hole. Two typical sunburst lamps are shown in Figure 10. Both are gray-ware specimens with gray slip. The sunburst design appears on lamps in Greece as early as the 3rd century B.C., but it did not originate

Fig.

10. "Sunburst" lamps of ca. 2nd century B.C Left: specimen from Atlit. From Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities of Palestine, II (1932), pl. XXVI, no. 619. Right: specimen from Samaria. From Reisner, Samaria, pl. LXXXI, no. K.

in the west;3' possibly one should trace it to Syria, a region which a few centuries later would give to the Roman emperor, as the incarnation of the sun deity, a sunburst diadem. Whatever its origin, the design spread widely through the Mediterranean world during Hellenistic times. It underwent many transmutations,sometimes appearing in the form of radiating leaves or petals32 or other guises, but never completely losing its identity. The sunburst design presupposes that a lamp is a miniature sun. The analogy was a natural one, which had suggested itself to Greeks in earlier times. The historian Herodotus, writing about 400 B.C., tells of the Egyptian king Mycerinus who, according to legend, attempted to turn night into day by lighting many lamps each evening (History 2.133). A surviving fragment from a lost Greek play alludes to the idea that men, by their cleverness, steal the light of the sun for their lamps.33The early Greeks did not develop this idea greatly, for stress upon the sun as the divine source of life on the earth was not a part of their religion. With repeated exposure, however, to Near Eastern concepts of the importance of the sun, they became increasingly interested in the religious motif of light, to the extent 31. Howland, Greek Lamps, p. 143, asserts that the earliest lamps began. imports, though it was not long until local manufacture 32. Howland, Greek Lamps, types 45-46 Samaria likewise have leaves and petals.

are good

33. J. M. Edmonds, The Fragments of Attic Comedy, Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 5.5.51-2.

examples

of this kind

of this tendency;

vol. IIIA, p. 421;

at Athens

some

the passage

were

specimens

at

is preserved

in

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that by Hellenistic times they were receptive in no small degree to mystery religions in which truth came as an overpowering light. It is not surprising, then, that lamps played an important part in Hellenistic rites for the dead, for the lighted lamp left at a tomb expressed the hope for the ongoing life of the deceased in the presence of the eternal pure light of the deity. 0@

Fig. 11. Multiple-spout lamp of ca. 2nd century B.C., from Samaria. From Samnaria-SebasteIII, fig. 87, no. 8, used by permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

Multiple-spout lamps, having anywhere from two to a dozen or more nozzles; were by no means rare in the Hellenistic world during this century, but not many specimens have been found in Palestine. Lamps of this kind, which usually have a common oil reservoir for all the nozzles, took many shapes. The miniature gray-ware lamp shown in Figure 11 shows little inventiveness, for the craftsman has simply placed several single-lamp designs on a tray-like base. Other multiple-spout lamps have a more satisfactory unity of design, such as the seven-spout gray-ware specimen in

........c...2

Fig. 12. Seven-spout lamps of ca. 2nd century B.C. Left: specimen of unknown Palestinian provenance. Photograph courtesy of the Palestine Archaeological Museum, Jerusalem, Jordan. Right. Profile of a specimen from Samaria. From Samaria-Sebaste III, fig. 87, no. 9, used by permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

Figure 12. Such lamps were probably used especially for festive occasions, when it was particularly desirable to push back the shadows with cheerful light. Although they had largely freed themselves from the restrictionsof the potter's wheel, Palestinian lampmakers were slow to realize the full implications of the molding process. They now had the technical means of shap-

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ing their lamps almost without restriction, since once they had prepared a mold they needed to expend little or no more effort to produce an irregular form than a simple one. But the tradition that the body of a lamp should be circular refused to die, not only during this century but in the following several centuries. The otiose lugs which appear on one side of many 2nd century lamps represent a small attempt in the direction of baroque forms, but artisans loved symmetry so much that they often placed lugs on both sides of the lamp, in perfect balance (as in the specimen shown in Figure 9). Occasionally manufacturersadded a tongue-like handle at the back of a lamp which they curved into an asymmetricaldesign. In the slender specimen of buff clay with a red slip shown in Figure 13 the lampmaker has given both the handle and the nozzle a gentle curve so that the lamp takes on a slight S-shape. It will be noted that the lug on the shoulder of this lamp is reduced almost to nothing. The lamp probably dates from the latter part

Fig. 13. Lamp of ca. 2nd century B.C., perhaps from Beit Jibrin. Photograph courtesy of the Palestine Archaeological Museum, Jerusalem, Jordan.

of the 2nd century B.C., when manufacturerswere beginning to return to the red-slip tradition which they had shunted aside during much of the century. More thoroughly plastic designs-that is, lamps shaped like persons, parts of the body, animals, objects of daily life and the like-were less popular in Palestine at this time than they were in, say, Alexandria in Egypt. Molds of such intricate forms required a great deal of time and skill to prepare, a skill which was generally lacking in Palestine. The finest molding of the period was done by workers in bronze, who were willing to take the trouble to execute complex anthropomorphiclamps such as that shown in Figure 14. The lamp is in the form of a curly-hairednegro slave, represented in an exaggeratedly realistic manner characteristic of Hellenistic art, with bulbous nose, receding chin and puffy folds of skin below the eyes. In a moment of whimsey the artist has placed the filling hole at the back, in the form of a half-shell. Because it differs so much from ordinary lamps, this fine specimen cannot be dated closely, but a 2nd century date is perhaps as likely as any. Because it is so thoroughly Hellenistic in style, this lamp could

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have been manufactured almost anywhere in the Mediterranean world, but there is no reason to deny that it could have been produced in Palestine, where it was found. ::::::i:::, ;-:l:i:i:i:::;i:::~:~:II

:?:

Fig. 14. Bronze lamp, possibly of 2nd century B.C., exact Palestinian provenance unknown. Photograph courtesy of the Palestine Archaeological Museum, Jerusalem, Jordan.

Partly plastic in form, but much less so than the preceding specimen, is the cast bronze lamp in Figure 15. The design is typically Hellenistic, and probably dates from around the 2nd century B.C. When Macalister found this lamp at Tell Sandahannah at the turn of this century, it was

Fig. 15. Bronze lamp, possibly of 2nd century B.C., from Tell Sandahannah. Photograph courtesy of the Palestine Archaeological Museum, Jerusalem, Jordan.

considerably corroded, and the lugs on the shoulder appeared to be only large knobs; when the lamp was chemically cleaned, however, the lugs proved to have the form of small bulls' heads. The sharpness of the lamp's lines suggests that the form goes back to a prototype which had been hammered out by hand in several sections and then joined, but no such specimens have yet been discovered in Palestine. The bronze lid of the fillinghole, cast separately and attached like a hinge, is missing. Lamps such as this and the preceding specimen obviously could have been afforded only by the well-to-do,and probablyappealed only to the sophisticated. At the very time when most lamps of Palestine were being manufactured by the process of molding, there appeared in the southern and central part of the country a new kind of wheelmade saucer lamp, usually of red to buff ware and sometimes coated with a crude slip (Fig. 16). Having heard nothing from saucer lamps since the latter part of the Iron Age, we might have supposed that the saucer lamp tradition had died as lamps in the Greek style swept into Palestine; yet this "cornucopia"lamp, as we may call it because of its appearance, stands within the saucer lamp tradition,

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for it is made by folding the rim of a wheelmade bowl. One must conclude that the saucer lamp tradition had continued down to this time, though submerged under the flood of lamps in the Hellenistic style. Isolated specimens which might be regarded as transitions to this little saucer lamp have occasionally appeared, though none in narrowly-dated contexts."4Cypriote and Carthaginian saucer lamps also offer suggestions concerning the kind of development which may have been taking place in the saucer lamp tradition in Palestine during the 4th-3rd centuries B.C.35

L7 Fig. 16. Wheelmade "cornucopia" lamp of ca. 2nd century B.C., from Tell en-Nasbeh. Photograph and drawing courtesy of the Palestine Institute of the Pacific School of Religion.

Just why the cornucopia lamp had evolved as it had, and why it became noticeably popular in the 2nd century, are questions which can be only partly answered. The development from the large, heavy Iron Age saucer lamp into this small, light-weight lamp suggests considerable influence from Hellenistic types, as does the closing of the rim to form two separate openings, a filling-hole and a wick-hole. It seems likely that Palestinian potters were making a concentrated effort to produce a wheelmade lamp which was both aesthetically appealing and, because of its size, economically competitive with the products of the lampmakerswho worked with molds. The makers of the cornucopia lamp may also have reaped the benefit of the trend toward conservatism which began in 165 B.C. under the Hasmoneans,36 although there is no evidence that molded, decorated Hellenistic lamps were in any way prohibited by the new regime. Cornucopia lamps are, in fact, sometimes found in association with molded ones.37 A three-spout wheelmade lamp found at Tell Sandahannah, of pinkbrown ware, resembles the cornucopia lamp in some ways, since it consists 34. Cf. perhaps J. W. Crowfoot, Excavations in the Tyropoeon Valley, Jerusalem, 1927, pl. XVII, no. 1. 35. See E. Gjerstad, Swedish Cyprus Expedition III, pl. CLXXIV, nos. 4-5; P. Cintas, C'ramnique punique, pl. XLI, nos. 13-17. pp. 22-24. 37. In his caption to fig. 42 in Citadel of Beth-Zur Sellers mentions having found a molded lamp with its spout inside a folded (cornucopia) lamp. 36. See G. E. Wright, BA, II (1939),

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essentially of a bowl which has had its rim bent to form wick-holes and a central filling-hole (Figure 17). Two-spout saucer lamps at Carthage offer an interesting comparison.38Excavators Bliss and Macalister date the lamp to "Seleucidan"times, but close dating is presently impossible. The lamp may have served as an everyday piece or have had some special ritualistic function; it is not even certain whether it was used by Jews or by pagans.

Fig. 17. Wheelmade three-spout lamp, perhaps 2nd century B.C., from Tell Sandahannah. The photograph shows the lamp without its lid; the drawing shows the lid in place. Photograph courtesy of the Palestine Archaeological Museum, Jerusalem, Jordan. Drawing from F. J. Bliss and R. A. S. Macalister, Excavations in Palestine, pl. LXIII, no. 14.

Interestingly enough, wheelmade lamps derived from the Greek tradition of closed lamps also continued to be made during the 2nd century, though specimens are not numerous. The graceful lamp shown in Figure 18 is of buff-orange ware and was originally covered with a rich red slip and

Fig. 18. Wheelmade lamp, probably 2nd century B.C., exact Palestinian provenance unknown. The lamp is in a private collection.

fired soft. The lamp seems to stand between specimens of the kind which we saw in Figure 4 and wheelmade specimens of the 1st century B.C. at Qumran which we shall soon discuss, but its date cannot be determined closely. In this lamp, with its attractive balance of nozzle and handle, we see the local tradition of Palestine in its most creative form, all the more creditable since the potter was working in a style which many Palestinians must have regardedas outmoded. 38. For typical specimens, see M. Moore, Carthage of the Phoenicians, plate facing p. 32.

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Perhaps the most unusual of all lamps of this period is one depicted in rough outline on the wall of Tomb 1 at the Hellenistic city of Marisa (Fig. 19). The tomb itself was cut from the rock and decorated toward the end of the 3rd century B.C., but this graffito was certainly not a part of the original decoration; the sketch must have been made sometime during the 2nd or 1st century B.C., as the tomb continued to be used. One can see in the sketch a Hellenistic altar upon which, or perhaps above which, rests a man's bust. In the center of the altar's flat top sits a hemispherical bowl, from the bottom of which rises a candle-like object which terminates in a large flame. Although excavators Peters and Thiersch describe the flame or

Fig. 19. Graffito of 2nd or 1st century B.C. on the wall of Tomb 1 at Tell Sandahannah. From Peters and Thiersch, Painted Tombs, pl. III (exact size of original not known).

smoke as rising from the left side of the bowl,39the photographclearly shows that the flame is centered in the middle of the bowl. The artist has conveyed the impression that the bowl is transparent,and therefore that it is of glass. Glass of this kind was just beginning to come into use in Palestine in Hellenistic times, but except for this rude picture we should not have known that it was being used for cult vessels at so early a date.40The lighted object in the center of the bowl may be a candle, but since candles were apparently not used in Palestine during Hellenistic times we may conclude that 39. Peters and Thiersch, Painted Tombs, p. 19. 40. See, however, Robins, Story of the Lamp, pp. 44, 75ff., who believes that the Egyptians used center-wick lamps of glass in pre-Hellenistic times; see also Neuburger, Technical Arts, pp. 235-236.

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the artist had in mind a wick which had been wrapped around a centerpost of glass in the bowl and set aflame.41 The concepts and rites presupposed by this drawing are surely pagan, inasmuch as the users of the tomb were not Jewish.42 The representation is that of a household or funerary altar upon which one made offerings to the gods or to venerated ancestors. By Hellenistic times lamps had come to be accepted offerings, along with such things as olive, myrtle, honey, incense, myrrh, spice, pictures and sacrificial animals.43 The pagan writer Pausanias describes one rite performed at a shrine at Pharae in Greece, where there stood a herma (a pedestal surmounted by a bust of the god), a stone hearth, an altar, and lamps; the worshipper came at evening and lighted the lamps, burned incense on the hearth, laid a copper coin on the altar and addressed the deity with his petition.44The visitor to the Marisa tomb who took the trouble to cut this design into the wall clearly hoped that his drawing might have the same effect as the actual offering of a lamp

"Bb C7

Fig. 20. Wheelmade "cornucopia" lamps of ca. early or middle 1st century B.C. Left: specimen in a private collection, exact Palestine provenance unknown. Right: specimen from Jerusalem. From Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities of Palestine, XIV (1944), p. 145, fig. 14, no. 5.

in the tomb, that of ensuring that the dead might continue to live on in the other world, and perhaps even that the dead might be able to give benefits to those still on earth who veneratedhim. What lamps, if any, Jews were using at this time in their household religious practices we do not know with certainty. We know of the great lampstand in the temple in Jerusalemand the gold lamp hanging in Onias' Jewish temple at Heliopolis in Egypt, but both of these objects are remote from household lamps. 41. Such lamps are attested for Byzantine times; see Macalister, Gezer I, p. 363 and fig. 189. E. W. Lane, The Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (Everyman's Library edition, p. 156) gives an interesting description of similar lamps of recent date; see also T. Canaan in Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society, VI (1926), p. 23. 42. See Albright's comments and references in BASOR, 85, p. 18. 43. Note the text cited in F. C. Grant, Hellenistic Religions, p. 27. 44. Pausanius Description of Greece 7.22.2-3.

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All in all, the 2nd century B.C. was rich in lamp forms; indeed, it had many more than we have had space to discuss. The precise chronology and geographical distribution of Palestinian lamps during this century is still obscure, but eventually will surely yield to analysis and afford a major tool for the dating of other ancient remains. Lamps at the End of the Hellenistic

Age

During the early and middle part of the first century B.C. the major lamp traditions of the preceding century continued without interruption. The cornucopia lamp remained in use in central and southern Palestine, and apparently grew in popularity in the vicinity of Jerusalem. It had changed only by becoming lighter and thinner than ever, taking on increased angularity (Fig. 20). Molded lamps continued to predominate, and few new elements were introduced. By this time the familiar gray ware of the 2nd century had largely given way to buff ware covered with red slip. The characteristicfeature of these later molded lamps was a general coarsening

~7~1i~i Fig. 21. "Sunburst" lamp of ca. first half of 1st century B.C., from Samaria. From SamariaSebaste III, fig. 87, no. 3, used by permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

of quality. Typical of this lessening of quality is the specimen shown in Figure 21. The slender, graceful nozzle of most 2nd century lamps has become thick and overly large in proportionto the rest of the lamp, and has a heavy-rimmed, gaping wick-hole. The lug is a mere bump, and the radial lines of the sunburst decorationhave been reduced to a few plain, indifferent strokes. This deterioration was not unique to Palestine, for similar lamps were being manufactured in Egypt and Syria and elsewhere in the Hellenistic world. Although not all molded lamps were of this quality, the tendency is unmistakable. The novelty of Hellenism, which had in many ways been rather superficial, was wearing thin. A more local form of debased sunburst lamp, in use in central Palestine around the middle of the first century B.C. and even later, is that in Figure 22. Of buff ware with a dark red slip, the lamp is grossly molded. One notes the irregularityof the shape and the way in which the lugs are indicated not so much by the shape of the lamp as by incised lines. The heavy trough around the rim of the filling-hole is also notable.

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oilA 61. Fig. 22, "Sunburst" lamp of ca. third quarter of 1st century B.C., from the vicinity of Jerusalem. From American

Journal

of Archaeo!ogy,

LI (1947),

pl. LXXXV.A.

In the midst of this deteriorationin the molded lamp tradition, closed wheelmade lamps momentarily took on a new vigor at the famous site now known as Qumran. Some examples of these lamps are shown in Figure 23, but a full presentation of the forms found at Qumran would require many

?KZ s,.

" -, s'"" .

Fig. 23. Wheelmade lamps of ca. second and third quarters of 1st century B.C., from Qumran. Top left: specimen from Cave 1. Photograph courtesy of the Palestine Archaeological Museum; drawing from D. Barth61lemy and J. T. Milik, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert I, fig. 3, no. 5. Top right. and bottom: specimens from the Qumran settlement. From Revue Biblique, LXIII (1956), p. 553, fig. 1, nos. 1 and 4.

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illustrations. Although differing widely in form, these lamps have a similarity of ware-gray to buff clay, usually wet-smoothedor having a slip similar to the body-color-and a similarity of style and technique of manufacture. There can be no doubt that these lamps are the products of the potter'sshop at Qumran. Some of the specimens are awkwardly proportioned,as if experimental, but others are as graceful as any ever produced in Palestine. More than a few of the lamps are sharply angular, as though they had metallic prototypes (cf. the bronze lamp in Fig. 15), though no lamps of metal have been found at Qumran. Apparent traces of the influence of the "Ephesus" lamp can be seen, and in technique of manufacture the lamps may even have some connection with wheelmade closed lamps of the 2nd century and the cornucopia lamp. There can be no doubt that the Qumran potter was a brilliant artisan and innovator. His work was cut short in about 4031 B.C., when the orderly life of the Qumran settlement was suddenly disrupted; at the most, then, he cannot have been active more than a few decades at the very end of the Hellenistic period. When the Qumran community was resettled a generation or so later, not a trace of the influence of these lamps can be found; the Roman period was then under way and the potter at Qumran turned to the manufacture of an entirely different kind of lamp which was being widely used in Palestine. So this interesting experiment in lamp design begins and ends abruptly, largely outside the mainstreamof Palestinian lamp tradition. As the Hellenistic period ended, the lamp tradition of Palestine was all but dead. When the Roman period opened, the cornucopia lamp, the sunburst lamp and the closed wheelmade lamp had all disappeared, and new forms were beginning to take their place. Nevertheless, the Hellenistic lamp traditions were so persistent that in the centuries to come they would reappearin unexpected ways, transmutedand revitalized.