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The

BIBLICAL

ARCHAEOLOGIST

IWV,

IF

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

Vol. XXVII

February,1964

No. 1

:W

,...

K~I7 "' -i t??r?' Fig. 1. Canannite predecessors of the Iron Age saucer lamp. Above: Middle Bronze Age lamp of ca. 1700 B.C., from el-Jib. Photo courtesy of James B. Pritchard, The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania. Right: Late Bronze Age lamp of ca. 14th century B.C., from Hazor. From Hazor II, pl. CLXXVII, no. 4, courtesy of Y. Yadin, the James de Rothschild Expedition. (Each illustration in this article has been reduced to one-third of the size of the object; in a few cases size has been estimated. For technical reasons, line-drawings from previous publications have been redrawn, making possible a moderately unified format.

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. XXVII,

2

The Biblical Archaeologist is published quarterly (February, May, September, December) by the American Schools of Oriental Research. Its purpose is to meet the need for a readable, non-technical, yet thoroughly reliable account of archaeological discoveries as they relate to the 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, Chicago 14, Illinois. Editorial Board: W. F. Albright, Johns Hopkins University; G. Ernest Wright, Harvard University; Frank M. Cross, Jr., Harvard University. Subscriptions: Service Agency, 31 East 10th $2.00 per year, payable to Stechert-Hafner 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 600 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

IN THE

UNITED

STATES OF AMERICA, PETERBOROUGH,

BY TRANSCRIPT N. H.

PRINTING

COMPANY

The Household Lamps of Palestine in Old Testament Times (First of a three-part series) ROBERT HouSTONSrITH College of Wooster

Although less impressive than monumental remains, lamps are among the most important artifacts of the ancient world. During their long history they underwent frequent changes of form, with the result that today they afford archaeologists a valuable chronological yardstick for the dating of other remains. They also constitute a rich mine for students of cultural diffusion, ceramic techniques, art, religious practices and, in some cases, symbolism. And to scholar and layman alike lamps impart, to an extent hardly matched by any other common ancient objects, an impression of the reality of life in times long past. Lamps are mentioned many times in the Bible, sometimes in contexts of considerablesignificance. The student of the Bible finds his attention drawn particularly to the ancient lamps of Palestine, since most of the biblical allusions to lamps arise from a Palestinian context. A century ago, when biblical archaeologywas just coming into existence as a discipline, not even an outline of the history of these lamps could have been given, for objects had not yet begun to be excavated in such a way that they could be arranged sequentially and correlated with historical data. Today, having at our disposal a large amount of carefully excavated material, we can recover in considerable detail the history of Palestinian lamps throughout the biblical period. There are, to be sure, gaps in our knowledge, for some of the necessary evidence concerning rare specimens-particularly those of fine quality--is

1964, 1)

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

3

lacking. We regret, for example, not having full information about metal lamps, for, as the ancients themselves knew, metallic forms sometimes influenced ceramic ones (see Wisdom of Solomon 15:9). If we had a full repertory of metallic lamp forms we could undoubtedly explain puzzling features of certain terracottalamps. By working carefully, however, with the existing archaeological evidence we can fill in the picture reasonably well. The First Israelite

Lamps

From the time of the Hebrew settlement through the beginning of the divided monarchy, the per~??' iod commonly called Iron I, which spanned approximately the years 1200-900 B. C. - the dates are still the subject of lively debate the only lamp in widespread use in Palestine was a simple wheelmade L'; one of the kind shown in Figure 2. Archaeologists, seeking a convenient descriptive term, have variously called this a "shell lamp," "cocked hat lamp," and "saucer lamp." The ancient Hebrew, not needing to trouble himself with Fig. 2. Iron I lamp of ca. 10th century B.C., from Tell en-Nasbeh. Photo courtesy of descriptive terms, called it by the the Palestine Institute of the Pacific generic name ner (plural ner6th), a Schlool of Religion. word meaning simply "lamp." This term ner comes from the root nyr (nwr), which probablyoriginally meant "to flame." Many extra-biblical texts more ancient than the Old Testament use cognate terms in a way which reveals the background of the Hebrew word. In the Ugaritic texts we find what appears to be a masculine noun n-y-r used in connection with the moon-god Yarikh (Nik. and Kath. 1.16, 2.3) and with the stars (Keret 2.1.37), and a feminine noun n-r-t used in a fixed (and probably very old) formula referring to the sun-goddess Shapash (Baal 2.8.21, Aqhat 1.4.49, etc.). Celestial associationsare similarly attested in Accadian-Assyrian literature, where niiru is frequently used of gods such as Shamash (= Ugaritic Shapash), Marduk and Ninib, and nannaru (from the same root) is used specially of the moon-goddess Sin, with the meaning "luminary, light-bearer." Aramaic texts from later times use cognate terms in a similar way, as does ancient Arabic tradition (e.g., the use of nfir in the Koran to refer to the moon, Sura 71.16). Celestial bodies

4


were probably being called by the term ner or its various Semitic cognates long before lamps came into common household use; thus we do not find household terminology moving into cosmology but rather cosmology influencing household usage. Canaanite affinities were not limited to matters of terminology. The Hebrews did not invent the saucer lamp, but borrowed it largely unchanged from the Canaanites of the end of the Late Bronze Age, whose ancestors in Syria and Palestine had gradually been developing it since early in the 2nd millennium B.C. Contrary to widespread assumption, the lamp did not arise as an imitation of a shell. Bivalve shells may indeed have been used as lamps in some instances along the Mediterranean coast, as they apparently were upon occasion at Carthage in North Africa,1 and conch shells were made into lamps (and copied in stone and metal as well) in Mesopotamia as far back as the 3rd millennium B.C.;2 but these practices do not stand in the mainstream of lamp history. The saucer lamp actually developed from the ordinary household bowl, which itself had been used as a lamp during the Early Bronze Age. An interesting attempt to adapt the bowl-form to the specific function of a lamp had been made during the centuries of disruption following the Early Bronze Age, when potters devised a flat-bottomed bowl with an undulating rim forming four equidistant spouts. When the chariotwarriorsand city-builders of the early 2nd millennium B.C. came upon the scene they did not perpetuate this design, but fashioned a simpler lamp by putting a single little spout on one side of a bowl. The development of the saucer lamp through the Middle and Late Bronze Ages consisted mainly of the evolution of the spout into an increasingly large and well-defined feature of the lamp (see Fig. 1). By virtue of this Canaanite ancestry, Hebrew lamps had cousins in Cyprus, north Africa, Egypt, Malta, Sardinia and elsewhere, even in parts of continental Europe-in short, wherever the Canaanite culture went over the centuries. During the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, specimens of Canaanite lamps had appearedonly occasionallyoutside Syria-Palestine, but in the Iron Age they came into use to varying extents in these regions as a result of the energetic trade and colonization pursued by those latter-day Canaanites known as the Phoenicians. Even in areas where the Phoenicians were not actively colonizing, saucer lamps sometimes may have influenced local forms. The earliest household lamps of Greece, for example, appearing around 700 B.C., were saucer lamps not greatly unlike those of the Canaanites, even though they had some distinctly local features.3 1. M. Moore, Carthage of the Phoenicians, p. 32. 2. L. Woolley, Ur Excavations: The Royal Cemetery, p1s. 101a, 102a, 163, 182; cf. the bivalves and metal imitations used as cosmetic bowls, pl. 137c. 3. R. H. Howland, The Athenian Agora IV: Greek Lamps and Their Survivals, nos. 1-20.

1964, 1)


5

Let us take a closer look at the Iron I saucer lamp of the Hebrews. Potters manufactured lamps as a part of their much larger repertoryof ceramic vessels. The craftsmanfirst shaped a simple clay bowl and then folded its rim so as to form both a flange around the oil reservoirand a spout for the wick. This spout was probably called a museqeth. This noun, from the verb ysq, meaning "to pour, cast, flow," appears in connection with lamps only in Zech. 4:2, where until fairly recently it was mistranslated"pipe."4Although its attestation in the Old Testament is both late and scanty, it probably was used throughout the Iron Age to refer to a spout of almost any kind. The lamp-spout, was perhaps not originally devised as a wick-trough at all, but as a means by which the oil in the lamp could be poured back into a smallmouthed storage bottle without spilling; but it must at once have proved useful in holding the wick in position, for even the earliest Canaanite specimens of saucer lamp usually show by their carbon deposits that the wick was laid in the spout. The shape of the bowl and the folds of the wick-trough were determined largely by common practice, potters ordinarily being careful imitators but reluctant innovators. The shape varied slightly from place to place and doubtless from potter to potter, as it necessarily does in a hand-crafted item, but throughout Palestine lamps of this period were fairly uniform in design. The most notable variation appears in the flange, which is usually fairly pronounced but sometimes, in a manner reminiscent of certain Late Bronze Age forms, is slight or even non-existent. Specimens were usually from five to six inches in length, though potters sometimes turned larger ones. As in any period, the kind of clay which was used varied with the locality, but throughout the Iron I period it tended everywhere in Palestine to be coarse with a sprinkling of limestone grits to give it strength. To judge from the speed with which Palestinian potters work today, an ancient potter was able to fashion a lamp in a few minutes, although the drying of the clay required many days and the firing and cooling of it several days more. An Iron I lamp was usually fired moderately hard to some drab shade of brown. While generally pleasing in proportions, it seems to have been regarded by both its manufacturer and its user as a strictly utilitarian object, for it was almost never painted or otherwise decorated. In view of the simplicity of its production, a finished lamp probablysold for very little. Wicks were ordinarily made of flax, the usual term for which was pisheth; but in the two passagesin the Old Testament where "wick"is specifically intended, a less common term for flax, pishtah, from the same root, is used. The ancient Hebrews perhaps had no more specific term for "wick" 4. On the proper derivation and meaning of the term, see W. F. Albright, The Excavation of Tell Beit Mirsim II, p. 4.

6


than this, though in later times the Aramaic word petilah, which literally means "twistedcord,"became a common designation for "wick."A wick could presumablybe plaited from raw flax with little difficulty, but one could also be improvised from worn-out linen cloth or a number of other substances.5 Specially woven wicks may, of course, have been available for ceremonial purposes. As the carbon deposits on many lamps indicate, the wick was usually allowed to project slightly beyond the edge of the spout. The amount of this projection, along with the size and porosity of the wick, largely determined the size of the flame. The ordinarysaucer lamp was intended to hold only one wick, as its single spout indicates. When a householder wanted an especially bright light he could sprinkle some salt into the oil, apparently with the idea that it would clarify the flame. The Greek historian Herodotus noted in the 5th century B.C. that Egyptians fed their lamps on a mixture of oil and salt (History 2.62), and in the early centuries of the Christian era rabbis also knew the practice.6 We cannot be sure when the idea of salt as an additive first became known in Palestine, but it is not unreasonable to suppose that it dates back to the Iron Age. The function of the salt is not entirely clear. There is no doubt that burning sodium gives a bright yellow flame, but since salt is not soluble in oil it could not be drawn up into the flame. G. and C. Charles-Picard, who have performedsome experiments with ancient lamps, say that a lamp's flame is brightened by the addition of a few grains of coarse salt directly to to the wick,7 but in my own experiments with ancient lamps I have been unable to get any satisfactoryresults by this method. A much more effective way of obtaining a brighter light from a singlespouted lamp was the improvisation of a compound lamp by laying additional wicks on the flange at the back of the lamp's oil reservoir.This practice was surely known in Iron I, though our earliest evidence consists of two Iron II specimens, one from 'Ain Shems and another from Tell en-Nasbeh,8 which show soot-blackening from six wicks laid at intervals along the flange, in addition to carbon on the spout. The householders may have been improvising seven-spout cult lamps of the type which we shall soon discuss. Improvisations were not, of course, limited to adaptions of regular saucer lamps; sometimes an ordinary bowl was pressed into service as a lampprobably most often in connection with burials, where there was sometimes a need for lamps on short order. 5. Cf. the list given many centuries later in the Mishnah, Shabbat, 2.1, 3 (all Talmudic citations are from the Babylonian Talmud). Numerous weeds and barks were usable. 6 Shabbat, 67b and the editorial notes in the Soncino translation of the tractate; also S. Kraus, 69. I, Archaeologie, p. Talnmudische 7 G. and C. Charles-Picard, Daily Life in Ancient Carthage, p. 144. 8. E. Grant, Ain Shemis Excavations II, pl. XLV, no. 33; C. C. McCown, Tell en-Nasbeh 1, pl. 39, no. 16.

1964, 1)


7

Many substances could be and were used as fuel for lamps,9 but the commonest of them was olive oil, extracted from the fruit by means of a series of beatings and pressings."0The first extraction, obtained by beating the olives by hand, produced a light, relatively fat-free oil which was edible. The second and third extractions, obtained by crushing the olives in a press, produced oil of increasingly fatty content which was decreasingly edible. Consequently it was this oil of lower quality which was most often used in lamps, though only the best grade of oil was prescribedfor certain cult lamps (see Exod. 27:20, Lev. 24:2). Importedoils - sesame oil from Mesopotamia, castor oil from Egypt, or even more exotic substances-may occasionally have been used as lamp fuel," but it is unlikely that the ordinary householder could have afforded anything but local produce. It is impossible to determine by means of chemical analysis the kinds of oil used, since decompositionhas almost always removed any residue of oil a specimen may have contained. A lamp of moderate size held enough oil for it to burn throughout the night if one desired, and since householders did not have the luxury of matches they had to keep a banked fire or a pilot light burning continuously. If analogies from other cultures are valid, we may assume that a woman was regarded as a poor housekeeper if she allowed her pilot flame to go out and had to borrow fire from a neighbor. It may be such a concept which underlies the statement in the famous ode to a good wife in Proverbs 31:18, "Her lamp does not go out at night." Seeing that a pilot light stayed lit was not a task for a sluggard, for although a lamp would burn for several hours after being kindled, its wick would eventually burn down and require adjustment; the dutiful housewife would therefore probably have needed to arise two or three times during the course of the night to attend the lamp. This everburning flame did not, so far as one can discover, have any particular religious significance;12yet what connotations popular piety gave to it we cannot say. The equipment for the maintenance of a lamp included several items besides the wick and the oil. Obviously a householder needed a storage container for the oil supply, but we cannot identify any particularform or size of vessel used for this purpose. He also needed a sharp-pointed instrument with which to adjust the position of the wick from time to time as the lamp burned. Numerous metal and bone objects which might have served such a 9. On the substances used in later centuries, see the Mishnah, Shabbat, 2.1-3 and Kraus, Talmudische Archaeologie, I, pp. 226f. Among the items which had probably been used for a very long time are animal fat and the sap of resinous trees. 10. See the Mishnah, Menahoth, 8.4f., which probably describes practices which were already centuries old; see further in Kraus, Talmudische Archaeologie, II, pp. 217ff. and J. M. Calderon, "Olive Oil," Encyclopedia Britannica (1960 ed.), XVI, p. 775. 11. K. Galling, Zeitschrift des Deutschen Paliistina-Vereins (ZDPV), XLVI (1923), pp. 32ff. 12. Ibid., where Galling discusses the matter at some length.

8


function have been found in Palestine, but apparently none in clear association with lamps; in any case, such objects are far less numerous than lamps themselves, a situation which suggests that the householder frequently used nothing more than a sliver of wood as a wick-adjuster. Tweezers sometimes may have been used to extinguish a lamp's flame; apparently utensils of this sort, on a larger scale (i.e., tongs), are mentioned in connection with the tabernacle and temple lamps of the Yahweh cult under the name of melqdhayim or malqdhayim (see Exod. 25:38, 37:23; Num. 4:9; I Kings 7:49 [= II Chron. 4:21]; cf. Isa. 6:6), from the root lqh meaning "to take." Tweezers (and rarely tongs) have been found among excavated Palestinian artifacts, but never in close connection with lamps. Probably not to be included among the items of lamp maintenance is the knife-blade, since lamp wicks did not have to be kept trimmed in order to operate satisfactorily. Lamps were probably kept most of the time in concave niches in the walls of the house. House walls have rarely survived well enough for such niches to be preserved, but some Iron Age tombs contain them, as do some water tunnels.13 When the householder put a lamp on a table he probably placed beneath it a bowl, primarily for the purpose of guaranteeing stability to the round-bottomed vessel. Rabbinic literature of many centuries later speaks of this custom, but Iron Age evidence is largely lacking. One can compare,for what it is worth, the arrangementof lamps and bowls in foundation deposits such as we discuss below. In Punic burials at Carthage saucers seem regularly to have accompanied lamps, but it is not clear whether these were always placed under the lamps. There is no close correlation of lamps and bowls in Palestinian interments, but the disorder in which most Iron Age tombs are found makes conclusions difficult. Iron I lamps are often The poorly balanced, tending to tip backwardwhen placed on a flat surface. to lamps cannot have been used in such a position; the lamp-maker seems have supposed that the lamp would be placed in some kind of concave resting place where balance was not required. On a table, a bowl would most easily meet this need. A bowl beneath the lamp would also have caught any oil which might slowly seep through the lamp, though a well-made specimen did not absorb and exude oil very rapidly. Some scholars have suggested that a lamp was soaked in water prior to each use, or even kept in a saucer filled with water, so that the water would fill the pores of the clay and prevent oil seepage. It is somewhat more likely that users poured a little water into a lamp before they poured in the oil; this would fill the pores of the clay and give the oil a surface upon which to float. W. M. F. Petrie draws attention to a passage 13. See, for example, W. F. Bade, Some Tombs of Tell en-Nasbeh, pp. 11, 16 (lamp-niches in a tomb), and J. B. Pritchard, Gibeon, p. 61 (lamp-niches in a tunnei).

1964, 1)


9

in an Egyptian demotic text which speaks of one's putting gum-water or other substances into new lamps, presumably to fill the pores in some sort of permanent fashion.14 The Talmud mentions saucers filled with water set beneath lamps (Shabbat, 47b), but the passage may presuppose the special circumstances created by the use of naphtha as fuel in Mesopotamia in post-biblical times. It also speaks of one's putting a lump of clay under a lamp in order to make it burn more slowly (Shabbat, 67b); but an ordinary saucer lamp with a moderate flame could not have become greatly heated, and in any case the clay could not have had much effect on the performance of the lamp. While speaking of the use of water in the operation of lamps, we may note an interesting lamp (Fig. 3) which has a built-in compartment below the oil reservoir. Using the neatly-made funnel which the potter has provided, the householder presumably filled the compartment with water and thereby preFig. 3. Lamp with lower compartment, late Iron I or Iron II period, from 'Ain vented oil from seeping from the Shems. (The cross-section is schematic rather than to exact scale.) Photo lamp's base. This ingenious kind of courtesy of Palestine Archaeological Museum, Jerusalem, Jordan. lamp did not come into regular use, of the in because perhaps part complexity of its construction. have been placed on lampstands, but the use sometimes Lamps may of such stands is not well-attested in the Iron Age. Bronze stands have been found, but never in direct associationwith lamps. The Iron I lampstandmay, as some scholarshave assumed, have resembled a Late Bronze II tripod stand of bronze found at Megiddo along with a ceramic offering bowl.15Ceramic lampstands are also not common in the Iron Age, those few which have been found probably had a cultic function. The specimen shown in Figure 4, with its pointed base which was designed specifically to fit the hollow stand, was found in an Iron Age tomb, where it had presumably been used in rites for the dead. Some saucer lamps with similar basal projects have 14. Petrie, Roman Ehnasya, p. 13. 15. For the stand and bowl, see H. G. May, Material Remains of the Megiddo Cult, pl. XVII, nos. M2702 and P3052.


10

t~'I

I'

I, '

YI I1

/# vr

LI

Fig.

4. Lamp with Antiquities, Department

ceramic stand, Iron I period, from el-Jib. From Animual of the Departlent fig. 20, no. 53, courtesy of Awni K. Dajani, Director of III (1956), of Antiquities.

of the

been found at Byblos in Syria. Similar in form, but larger and more elegant, are certain tall ceramic stands which have been found primarilyin Canaanite contexts in Palestine.16 These lampstands were probably used chiefly in sanctuaries, as they were in the Bucheum (shrine of the bull god) in the 16. See, for example,

Albright,

Tell

Beit Mirsim

I, p1s. XLIV,

no.

14 and L, no. 2.

1964, 1)


11

Delta of Egypt, where many of them have been discovered in Iron Age deposits; there can be no doubt that these are lampstands, for some of them have ceramic lamps built into the tops.17But practices of the sanctuary may have carried over into the home, for, as we shall see, in the Iron II period miniature pedestal-lampsappear within Palestinian houses. Designed as they were for household use, saucer lamps were probably seldom used for nighttime travel, for although their size made them portable their open oil reservoirspermitted the oil to spill easily, and their small, unprotected flames must have been fairly ineffective in open spaces. Perhaps to be regarded as evidence to the contrary is Ps. 119:105, "Thy word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path"; but the psalmist may have two images in mind, that of the lamp which lights one's way about the house and that of the torch which lights one's way out-of-doors. Even the Talmud, coming from a time when lamps had enclosed reservoirs,mentions the ease with which a lamp could be upset when used for nighttime travel (Pesahim, 101a, citing a saying of Rabbah b. Nachmani, who flourished ca. A.D. 300). Lantern-shaped terracottahousing, into which a lamp could be inserted and carried with its nozzle projecting from an opening, was probably known but was not widely used; no Iron Age specimens have yet appeared in Palestine, though an Iron II specimen has been found in a tomb in Transjordan.18 Resembling lanterns are certain terracotta"model shrines" which were used in the Canaanite cultus; at least one specimen of post-Iron Age date from Cyprus actually has a built-in lamp.'9 Not all objects falling within this general categorywere, of course, intended to hold lamps. The only really effective light for extended travel at night, expecially over rugged and unfamiliar ground, would have been that provided by the torch (Hebrew lappid), presumably devised of wood and known to us only from literarysources such as the account of the midnight attack of the Israelites upon the Midianites in Judges 7:15-23. Probably many people did not bother with artificial illumination at all when traveling by night. Thus far we have discussed the saucer lamp only as it was used in matters of routine household activity; but the lamp also had a role in certain religious rites performed on special occasions. Most notable of all rites, so far as archaeological evidence is concerned, was that of burial. The early Hebrews did not regard death as bringing about the utter annihilation of the self, but as resulting in a state in which the self lay enervated in the earth, a wraith of what it once had been. Aware of the restorativepower of food and drink to living men, they assumed that the dead also benefited from nourishment. Consequently, like the Canaanites before them and in common 17. R. Mond, et al., The Bucheum III, pl. CXL and elsewhere. 18. G. L. Harding, Four Tomb Groups from Jordan, fig. 23, no. 50 and pl. VI. 50. 19. J. L. Myres, Handbook of the Cesnola Collection, p. 278.

12


with many other peoples of the ancient world, they deposited offerings of food and drink in tombs, hoping thereby to revivify the dead. Lamps seem to have been an important concomitant of these offerings. Differing in no way from household specimens, and indeed probablybrought from the home, they constitute one-fourth to one-half of the vessels in many Iron I period tombs, far more than necessary to meet the actual lighting needs of the tombs. It may be that each person who brought a dish or two of food for the dead also brought a lamp and lit it at the tomb. II Sam. 21:7 offers a clue to the possible significance of this act. Here David, now an old man, is told by his soldiers, "Youshall no more go out with us to battle, lest you quench the lamp of Israel." The metaphor indicates that the breath of life within a person (or, in this case, within Israel as embodied in David) was thought of as a kind of inner flame. To light a lamp at a tomb, was, then, to perform an act of sympathetic magic whereby the smouldering flame of life in the deceased would be rekindled. Together the lighting of a lamp and the offering of food caused the deceased to revive from his half-sleep in the gloom of the underworld. In contrast to the food offering, which arose from the idea that the dead actually partook of the nourishment, the lamp-lighting was essentially a symbolical act. The Canaanites were already using lamps in this manner when the Hebrews conquered Palestine; but they had not always regarded lamps as symbolic, for in the earliest Canaanite burials lamps are few in proportion to food and drink offerings and probably were intended as lighting equipment for the dead. The recognition of the validity of symbolic acts alongside physical ones was an important development in burial practices, paving the way for the abandonment of food and drink offerings entirely-a development which was still many centuries away. Symbolic or not, such offerings were probably assumed to be only temporarily efficacious, perhaps sometimes made in the interests of necromancy of the sort by which the medium at Endor revived the shade of the dead Samuel (I Sam. 28) - though the biblical story does not describe the actual ritual. Hence lamps were probably proffered not only at the time of burial but at intervals thereafter,either being brought into the tomb or being left at the tomb's entrance. Lamps and dishes of food have been found at the entrances of Canaanite tombs at Ras Shamrah20 and in the soil and debris covering single Canaanite graves at Tell el 'Ajjfil and Tell Abui Hawam in Palestine.21Though not specifically proved for the Iron Age, such practices very likely continued after Palestine came under Hebrew control. Since it would have been difficult for persons going to a tomb outside a town to carry their lamps filled and burning, mourners may have brought 205; also Ugaritica 292, and XIX (1938), 20. C. Schaeffer, Syria, X (1929), 96. 21. M. Murray, Ancient Gaza V, p. 34; E. Anati, 'Atiqot, II (1959),

III, p. 180.

1964, 1)

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST '

13

oil in small flasks and lighted their lampsat the tomb,using a pilot lamp broughtfrom the house of the deceased.Perhapsthe vesselsused to carry cruetsaboutthreeor four incheshigh, with the oil were the round-bottomed burnishedblack or sometimesred slips (thin, smooth clay applied and polishedafter turningbut before firing), which have been found in many There is no need to suppose,however,that these Iron I and Iron II tombs.22 vesselswere used only for this purpose;they were probablyused variously as containersfor perfume,ointmentand mascara. Anotherreligiousrite involvingsaucerlamps was the dedicationof a building.In the Canaanitecities of the Late BronzeAge it was fairlycustomaryfor the foundationsof a building to include a ceremoniallamp deposit.This rite,which was presumablya householdone in originand nature, lingeredon in Palestineafter the coming of the Hebrews,particularlyin the cities of the plains and foothills in the west. The basic deposit, of which there were many variations, consisted of an arrangement of a lamp and bowls in the manner shown in Figure 5. A bowl, sometimes containing sand, fine dirt or even ashes, was placed under an ordinary lamp. A similar bowl, inverted so as to form a cover, was placed upon the lamp. Sometimes the bowls fitted so closely together Fig. 5. Lamp-and-bowl foundation deposit, ca. that the lamp was entirely enclosed, end of the Late Bronze Age or beginning of the Iron I period, from Gezer. but often (as in Fig. 5) the spout From R. A. S. Macalister, Gezer II, fig. 516. was partly exposed. Lamps in these deposits usually have only slight traces of burning, and sometimes none at all, suggesting that the ceremony required a new lamp which was lit only for a short while, or in some cases not lit at all. Some sort of offering must have been intended, perhaps one to ward off evil spirits or to encourage beneficent spirits to dwell in tlhe house, or both. The ceremony may have been, as Petrie has suggested with typical inventiveness, a substitute for the more primitive practice of child sacrifice, the sealing up of the lamp being equivalent to the slaying of the child,23 but we cannot be sure.

FE..

22. See, for example, McCown, Tell en-Na4beh I, pl. 38, nos. 3-5, 8-9. 23. Petrie, Gerar, p. 6. Additional information about lamp-and-bowl deposits and their significance will be found in R. A. S. Macalister, Gezer II, pp. 434-37; R. A. S. Macalister, Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement, 1903, pp. 10f.; F. J. Bliss and R. A. S. Macalister, Excavations in Palestine, pp. 15 If.

14


Some household rites required lamps of special forms, of which two in particular are known to us. One of these is the multi-spouted saucer lamp of the kind shown in Figure 6, specimens of which have been found at many Iron I and Iron II sites in Palestine.24Lamps of this kind, which are made of ordinary clay, usually have seven spouts and bases which range from rounded bottoms to tubular pedestals two to nine inches in height. They seem to have originated in the region of coastal Syria, for Schaeffer has found specimens at Ras Shamrah which date from as early as the period 1900-1750 B.C.25 These Ras Shamrah lamps seem always to have tall pedestal bases. Palestinian specimens are not yet known earlier than the very end of the Late Bronze Age. The variations of form probably reflect slightly differing traditions of various shrines, and in some cases perhaps differing dates too, but presumably all lamps of this kind stem from the same cult.

c;

Crr f'

1;

?r~ ~X ?.; .. T ?~

wo

~Cfi~

'r

.4?~?

~C~~

."r

1;

\.

.

.

Fig. 6. Seven-spout Iron Age lamps. Left: specimen of ca. 1200 B.C., from Tell From BASOR, 160 (Dec. 1960), D6thi. Above: specimen with a low ring fig. 3. foot, from Megiddo. From C. Watzinger, Tell el-Mutesellim II, fig. 74.

We cannot identify this cult with certainty. In one notable instance at Ras Shamrah, lamps of this kind were found in the context of a sanctuarywhich the excavator identified as dedicated to a male and female pair of "Hurrian" deities;26the identification of the god or gods worshipped at the sanctuary cannot, however, be taken as certain. In view of the later Hebrew emphasis upon the seven-flame lamp in the temple of Jerusalem, it is possible that these seven-spout lamps were used in the cult of the male deity, originally Baal and subsequently, through the transfer of old shrines or general cultural diffusion, Yahweh. We do not know to what specific uses these lamps were put, but the fact that they have been found in tombs, house ruins and elsewhere indicates that their use wNasnot limited to sanctuaries. The other kind of special lamp is that which Palestinian archaeologists descriptively call the "cup-and-saucer"or sometimes the "double bowl" (Fig. 24. On the use-span of this lamp, see the recent comments of P. Benoit, et al., Discoveries in the Judaean Desert II, p. 26. 25. Schaeffer, Ugaritica I, fig. 114. 26. Schaeffer, Ugaritica I, pp. 126ff.

1964, 1)


15

7), specimens of which have been found in sanctuaries, tombs and domestic contexts in Palestine from the 13th to the 6th century B.C.27 It consists of a saucer to which the potter has added an inner container, the size and shape of which vary considerably from specimen to specimen. Cup-and-saucers of the twelfth century and later often have, on their saucer portions, spouts which are much like those of saucer lamps except that they are less pronounced. Rarely there is a hint of spout on the rim of the cup portion too, r cry --?? I

t'

" ,?

.

"' I•

•

Fig. 7. "Cup-and-saucer" lamps. Above: line drawing of a specimen from Megiddo. From Lamon and Shipton, Megiddo I, pl. XXXVIII, no. 6. Upper right: specimen with handle, from Jericho. From E. Sellin, Jericho, pl. 37, no. A63. At left: high-footed specimen of ca. 1000 B.C., from Megiddo. Photo courtesy of the Oriental Institute, the University of Chicago.

but one too slight to have served any useful function.28 Many specimens also have one, or sometimes three, small holes punched in the inner container so as to establish communication between the cup and the saucer. Handles occur on some specimens from Jericho, and at least one specimen from Megiddo (Figure 7) has a tall pedestal base. The workmanship varies from quite good to careless. A few specimens show signs of burning on the rim of the inner cup,29 but most, like many lamps in foundation deposits, show no trace of burning at all. 27. See especially R. S. Lamon and G. M. Shipton, Megiddo 1, pp. 171f. and J. W. Crowfoot, et al., Samaria-Sebaste III, p. 182. 28. A specimen from Beth Shan, now in the University Museum in Philadelphia, shows this feature clearly. 29. See Grant and Wright, Ain Shems IV, pl. XL, no. 29 and Crowfoot, Samaria-Sebaste III, fig. 3.9. Petrie reports a specimen in which the lip of the saucer was blackened (Gerar, p. 22); he believed that the wick was laid in the saucer portion of the vessel to burn.

16


This vessel, like the seven-spout lamp, seems to have been taken over Hebrews from the Canaanite religion, for there appear to be cup-andthe by saucer fragments among the Ras Shamrah objects of the period 1540-1365, approximately a century earlier than known Palestinian specimens.30 Only a Canaanite origin can account for"the further fact that similar vessels are known from the sites of Phoenician colonies in the Mediterranean region. The design was perpetuated longer in some remoter areas than in Palestine; a Cypriote specimen dates from the period ca. 700-475 B.C.31and vessels of a similarly late date also appear in North Africa.32 Of the various explanations offered for the use of this vessel - jarstand, lamp, incense burner, libation dish, and so forth - the one which is most plausible on the basis of present evidence is that of lamp; but it is a very distinctive kind of lamp. Its flame apparently arose not from the spout on the saucer but from the central cup, as was the case with somewhat similar objects used in cultic contexts in ancient Egypt. The Egyptian vessels had been used since the time of the Old Kingdom, a fact which probably gave rise to the tradition, known to Clement of Alexandria in the second century A.D., that it was the Egyptians who taught men to use lamps (Stromateis 1.16). This Egyptian vessel probably came over to coastal Syria during the New Kingdom, when Egyptian cults flourished there. We may further suppose, for reasons which we shall not attempt to detail here, that the fuel of the cup-and-saucer was probably solid rather than liquid, perhaps pitch (that is, bitumen fluxed with olive oil) or some mixture of bitumen and incense. The bitumen may have been packed around a short reed inserted into the cup, so that only the uppermost part burned, somewhat as a candle would. Water or some special liquid was apparently - and, in those specimens which poured into the saucer around the cup of the bottom the cup too - if not as a coolant into a have connecting hole, in which the vessel was used. The rite of the the demands of because then off the liquid at the conclusion of of means as a little spout served draining in the ritual. desired the vessel'suse or at some point Exactlv what function such lamps served we do not know. It will be noted, however, that if the vessel was used as we have suggested, the distinction between lamp and censer would have tended to become blurred, since incense could have been mingled with the lamp-fuel or placed on top of it. The Canaanite and Hebrew cults did sometimes employ, we may note, censers which resembled saucer lamps, differing chiefly in that the spout was less sharply defined and a handle was added at the back; objects of this 30. Schaeffer, Ugaritica II, fig. 111, nos. 2, 6. 31. E. Gjerstad, Swedish Cyprus Expedition IV2, figs. 27, no. 22 and 37, no. 26. 32. P. Cintas, Cdramique punique, pl. LI.

1964 1)


17

sort have been found at Byblos in Syria and at several sites in Cyprus, and probably also existed in Palestine.33We do not even know with certainty the cult in which cup-and-saucers were used, if indeed they were limited to one particular cult: but since somewhat similar lamps were used in later times in the worship of the goddess Kore, a latter-day Astarte, we can suggest that these lamps may have been used in the cult of the Palestinian female fertilty deity. Whatever the cult, these vessels are sufficiently numerous to show that ordinary householders made use of them. Perhaps they were employed in apotropaic rites performed to ensure the fertility of vineyards, especially if the fuel was some form of bitumen; for bitumen was sometimes used as a fumigant in Levantine agriculture, being burned under trees or bushes to kill caterpillarsor other harmful insects.34Bitumen was also burned in Mesopotamia in Assyrian times (and later) for the purpose of fumigating temples.3"Also noteworthy is the fact that the Egyptians had from an early time practiced a kind of magic in which one made a rude light by placing a reed in the midst of a mud brick, smearing the reed with bitumen or pitch, and lighting it; such a device was thought to repulse one's enemies.36Although evidence is scattered and fragmentary the interpretationof the cupand-saucer can tentatively be sought along these lines. What other special lamps, if any, were used in the Iron I period, we do not know. Somewhat reminiscent of the cup-and-saucer lamp is an apparently unique little 10th-century B.C. object found at Megiddo, consisting of a flaring saucer with a pointed base and a tiny cup in the center.37The excavators suggest with hesitation that it may be a candlestick, an explanation which may not be too far wrong in view of our suggestions about the cupand-saucer, even though true candles do not seem to have been used in Palestine until centuries later. With this vessel we may compare two objects from Gerar which are similar but are less likely to be lamps.38Whatever they were, such pieces obviously were not in widespreaduse. Lamps Of The Divided

Monarchy

During the Iron II period, which began around the turn of the 9th century and continued until the early 6th century B.C., the saucer lamp,did not remain static. The first few generations after the death of Solomon were, so far as the household-lamp tradition was concerned, ones of restlessness, 33. Regarding similar vessels, see the comments of Galling, ZDPV, XLVI (1923), 41-45. 34. See R. J. Forbes, Studies in Ancient Technology I, p. 98; J. L. Kelso, BASOR, 95 (October, 1944), p. 17. Incense also had an apotropiac use; see M. Haran, Vetus Testamentum, X (1960), 113-129. 35. See Forbes, Studies, p. 98. 36. See E. A. W. Budge, The Book of the Dead (ed. 1913), p. 663; see also Budge, The Liturgy of Funerary Offerings, p. 165. Because these magical devices could be used only once, little care was lavished on them. Cup-and-saucers were probably used only once, too; hence the occasional crude workmanship and lack of signs of use. 37. Lamon and Shipton, Megiddo I, pl. XXXVIII, no. 2. 38. J. E. Duncan, Corpus of Palestinian Pottery, nos. 91.Z.1, 91.Z.2.

18


(Vol. XXVII,

some specimens following Iron I conventions and others probing in new directions;but by the end of the 9th century new lamp styles had emerged. For the first time lamps differed distinctly according to geographical regions. In the northern kingdom the Iron I shape was largely continued, but specimens tended to be shallower and to have thinner walls. The finest northern lamps, on the whole, were made at Samaria, the capital of Israel. Potters used a fine buff or pink-buff clay which they often covered with a rich coat of red slip. Although the firing was generally softer than that of the preceding period, with a corresponding decrease of durability, these lamps must have been quite attractive when they were new. This use of red slip was not an isolated phenomenon. Some Iron II lamps at Megiddo, much farther to the north in Palestine, also were decorated in red-not with an overall slip but with selective decoration in red on the flange or the upper portion of the outside of a lamp.39 These practices have broad parallels among late Iron Age saucer lamps at Carthage, where specimens were frequently decorated with red stripes.40 Together the Palestinian and Carthaginian traditions point to ~C7 Phoenicia as the major source of the lamp of 9th or 8th cenFig. 8. Double-spout from Samaria. ReisFrom G. tury B.C., red-slip style, and more remotely to ner, Samaria, fig. 187, no. 2a. old Canaanite tradition, which had a

fondnessfor red slip. It is not surprisingto find Phoenicianinfluenceon the lampsof Israel,for the northernkingdomhad many contactswith that region duringthis period.These ties are furtherreflectedin severaltwo-wick saucerlampsfound at Samaria(Fig. 8). Bicornlampshad been popularfor a long time in Phoenicia,whence they were subsequentlytransmittedto Phoeniciancoloniesin Cyprusand North Africa- particularlythe latter, where from the 7th centuryto Hellenistictimesthey were standarddesign. In northernPalestinebicorn lamps were never so popular,but they continuedto be madeinto the Persianperiod. It is reasonableto supposethat Phoenicianart influencedlampsof fine qualityeven morethan it did ordinaryones, possiblyin Judahas well as in Israel;but of this almostnothinghas survived.We may mentiona late 8th 39. See, for example, Lamon and Shipton, Megiddo 40. See Moore, Carthage, plate facing p. 72.

I, pl. XXXVII,

nos.

15-16.

1964, 1)


19

century B.C. stone object from Samaria which the excavators tentatively identify as a lamp holder, though they cite no parallels for the form." It is decorated in a typically Phoenician manner, with incised and relief designs of winged animals, stylized lotus buds and palmettes. The context in which this vessel was used - sanctuary,palace or home - is not known, and one cannot even be sure that it had anything to do with lamps. In Judah, potters made a sharpermodification of the Iron I lamp, largein the interests of increased stability. Sometime in the 9th century they ly began to add small disc bases to their lamps, producing specimens, such as that in Figure 9, reminiscent of certain Late Bronze Age lamps. Lamps of this kind are usually lighter and somewhat smaller than those of the Iron I period. The bases are often rather carelessly formed, as though the users knew that the lower portion would be hidden by the lamp niche or by the bowl placed under the lamp. Specimens are generally drab buff to drab red or brown, fired medium to soft. They are not elegant, but they do have an unobtrusive trimness of line. Especially popular in the 8th century B.C.,

: ';:?.b-2 '?

. .

.

Fig. 9. Left: Iron II lamp, from Tell Beit Mirsim. From Albright, Tell Beit Mirsim III, pl. LXIX B, no. 5. Above: profile of a typical specimen of this kind of lamp. From Tell Beit Mirsim III, pl. XV, no. 6.

these lamps continued in use in southern Judah down to the time of the exile; similar lamps were used throughout the Iron II period in Transjordan and in old Philistine cities of the coast, not to mention remoter regions such as Cyprus. The disc bases, though improving the stability of lamps, were too slight to be entirely successful; we are not surprised, then, to find some potters increasing the size of the base. In Jerusalem and an area of the surrounding hill country for a radius of some fifteen miles, potters evolved by the end of the 8th century a distinctive heavy-footed lamp of the sort shown in Figure 10. Usually of drab pink ware, lamps of this kind were fired at a low temperature,in part because of the risk of cracking the clay of the thick bases if higher temperatures were used.42 Most specimens are only about 41. Crowfoot, Samnaria-SebasteIII, pp. 377f. and pl. XXIV. 42. See Albright, Tell Beit Mirsim III, pp. 133 and 99, who notes that even specimens with slight disc bases had to be fired at fairly low temperatures for that reason.


20

four and one-half inches long, though some range up to five or five and one-half inches.One notes that the potterused his clay not only for an enlargedbase but for a sizableflange and a sharplyangularwick-trough- in short,for everythingbut the oil reservoiritself, with the resultthat the capacity of the lampsis relativelysmall. Such lampsare apt to strikeone as but thereis no denyingthat they had much greater awkwardlyproportioned, stabilitythanearlierlampshad.This type neverbecamepopularin the north, though isolatedspecimensfound their way to sites like Shechemand Samaria,and for that matterto otherregionsborderingthe hill-countryof Judah. It was perhaps a lamp of this kind which the late 7th century prophetZephaniah,who appearsto have been acquaintedwith Judahand visualizedin his oraclein which God says, Jerusalem,43 "AtthattimeI will searchJerusalemwith lamps, and I will punishthe men who are thickeningupon their lees... " (Zeph. 1:12).

U Fig. 10. Above: Iron II lamp, ca. 7th century B.C., exact Palestinian provenance unknown. The lamp is in a private collection. Right: line drawing of a typical specimen of this kind of lamp. From J. W. Crowfoot, et al., SamariaSebaste III, pl. XXVII.4 (modified), courtesy of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

Jeremiah, too, may have imagined a high-footed lamp, in his prophecy from about the same time, in which God says, "Moreover, I will banish from [Judah and nearby countries] the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroomand the voice of the bride, the grinding of the millstones and the light of the lamp" (Jer. 25:10). With this passage we move into the realm of the symbolic. A lamp is not merely that which gives light; it is the quintessence of cheer and security which, on a larger scale, the sun radiates upon the world. In this vein is the Deuteronomist's likening of the kings of Judah to lamps. "For 43. Cf. Zeph. 1:10.

1964, 1)


21

David's sake," he says, "the Lord his God gave [king Abijam] a luminary in Jerusalem, setting up his son after him, and establishing Jerusalem" (I Kings 15:4; similarly in I Kings 11:36, II Kings 8:19 [=II Chron. 21:7]; cf. Ps. 132:17). The regular word for "lamp,"ner, is not used in this passage, but rather the related term nir, which is used in the Old Testament only in these three passages in Kings. That the term was probably reserved for some figurative sense of "lamp,"as scholars long ago noted, is likely, and is to be preferred to G. R. Driver's assertion that it is a diminutive meaning "ember, dying fire."44More specifically, it is probably an archaic word derived from the old Canaanite term nyr which we earlier saw used in the Ugaritic literature in connection with the celestial bodies. The passages in Kings would certainly allow this possibility, as would the royal theology of the Jerusalem cult. If the king could be regarded as a lamp or luminary, then God certainly could be also, as celestial gods were in the Canaanite tradition. An unknown poet, singing in David's name, expresses both of these ideas in II Sam. 22:29. Yea, thou art my lamp, O Lord, and my God lightens my darkness. Ps. 18:28, which gives a slightly different version of this coup(Compare A idea is expressed in Prov. 20:27, which is of uncertain date: similar let.) The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all his inmost parts. The underlying concept is that God is a lamp which sheds its rays into the heart of the individual, giving him a divine flame which in turn causes him to radiate light. Behind such thinking is a folk psychology which understands the life-spirit to be something burning within a person. This spirit can be seen, like a flame, flickering through those windows of the body which are the eyes. Prov. 21:4 - also of uncertain date - presupposes such an idea when it says, Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are sin. The "lamp of the wicked" seems to be synonymous here with "haughty eyes." The wicked man's spirit is felt to be evil, in contrast to that of the good man. The fate of the wicked man is the extinction of his flame: The light of the righteous rejoices, but the lamp of the wicked will be put out (Prov. 13.9). The assumption seems to be that the lamp of the wicked will fail because it lacks the true life-giving illumination of God. The same idea can also be found in Prov. 20:20 and 24:20, Job 18:5-6 and 21:17. 44. G. R. Driver, Journal of Theological Studies, n. s. XII (1961),

p. 65.


22

In view of this kind of thinking about lamps, we are not surprised to find the word "lamp"in proper names. Back in pre-Davidic times the name of Saul's uncle (or grandfather, according to the Chronicler) was Ner (see I Sam. 14: 50). The name may intend to convey only the hope of the man's parents that he would be one with a strong life-spirit; yet when we note that the term ner was applied to the lamp in the pre-Davidic sanctuary at Shiloh (I Sam. 3:3) we wonder if perhaps the name wishes to suggest God himself as the light which will guide the man's way. The name of Ner's son, Abner (Abiner) tends to support this latter possibility, for though it may mean simply "My father is Ner," it also may be a theophoric name meaning "My father is The Lamp,"i.e., My father is God - just as, we may note, the name of Abner's grandfather,Abiel, means "My father is El," i.e., My father is God. In the Iron II period, and on into Persian times, the use of ner continues in Hebrew and Aramaic compound names such as Nerab, Neriah (Neriyah), Neriahu, Nera, Neri, Bethelnuri, Shemeshnuri and Adoni Nur, some of which are known to us only from extra-biblicalsources. A closely-related idea is that of wise or divine precepts as a lamp. Like the wisdom literature itself, this motif may be quite old. Almost timeless is the exhortation in Prov. 6:20, 23: My son, keep your father'scommandment, and forsake not your mother's teaching For the commandmentis a lamp and the teaching is a light, and the reproofsof discipline are the way of life.... A similar but more specifically Hebraic sentiment appears in Ps. 119:105: Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. This psalm is often assigned to the post-exilic period, and probably rightly enough; but it need not be thought that this particularsentiment could only have arisen after the exile. So far as the equipment used in connection with lamps is concerned, this period has little new to offer. We should, however, give some attention to lampstands. Metal lampstands must have been rare, just as they were in the Iron I period; thus far not a single undoubted specimen from this period has been found. If bronze lampstands were used at all, they probably had become somewhat more elegant than those of earlier centuries. The typical Cypriote bronze (or occasionally iron) lampstand of this period and subsequent centuries consisted of a long rod with three animal feet as a base and some sort of small tray at the top.45 This kind of stand was fairly widespread in the Near East, as a 9th century relief of Shalmaneser III of Assyria 45.

Gjerstad,

Swedish

Cyprus

Expedition

217. IV2, fig. 27, nos. 2a, 2b, and p.

1964, 1)


23

shows.46 W. F. Albright has suggested that a mold found in fragmentary condition at Samaria may have been used to cast lampstands,47but there is no reason to suppose that the resulting stand would have been suitable only for lamps. The question of lampstands appears prominently in the interpretation of a story in II Kings about the prophet Elisha, which presumably took its form during the 9th century B.C. or not long thereafter.We read, One day Elisha went on to Shunem, where a wealthy woman lived, who urged him to eat some food. So whenever he passed that way, he would turn in there to eat food. And she said to her husband, "Behold now, I perceive that this is a holy man of God, who is continually passing our way. Let us make a small roof chamber with walls, and put so that whenever there for him a bed, a table, a chair, and a menorah, he comes to us, he can go there" (II Kings 4:8-10). The usual translation of menorah, which is from the same root as ner, is "lampstand."If that is the correct meaning of the term here, Elisha's lampstand was presumably of bronze, wood or terra cotta. It seems unlikely that a bronze lampstand could meant, for although the home is that of a .be wealthy man the furnishings of the prophet's room are austere. It is also unlikely that a tall ceramic stand, of the kind which we have discussed in connection with the Iron I period, could be intended, since such stands were not standard household equipment. It is more likely that the reference is to a lampstand made of wood, as the rest of the furniture presumably was; wooden lampstands were, we may mention in passing, the commonest kind used in ancient Greece and Italy, in spite of the fact that bronze lampstands have been best preserved and have become most widely known.4"If a wooden lampstand was indeed used, it was perhaps a trimmed segment of a sapling to which a wooden base may have been added. But let us consider another possibility. We note that although the story carefully specifies a menarah among the objects put into Elisha's room it says nothing of a lamp, a ner, for the stand. This suggests that the word mencrah refers to a composite lamp and stand, that is, a pedestal lamp. Now it may be that the allusion is to a seven-spout lamp with a pedestal, of the kind which we have earlier seen. Just as likely a possibility, however, is a particular kind of miniature pedestal lamp which has been found in Palestine (Fig. 11). The terracottapedestal which is attached to the little saucer lamp appears to be in the form of a stylized tree, the lamp being cradled 46. J. B. Pritchard, The Ancient Near East in Pictures, fig. 625. 47. W. F. Albright, BASOR 85 (February, 1942), pp. 23f. 48. See G. M. Richter, Greek, Etruscan and Roman Bronzes, p. 375, who cites passages from classical writers which allude to wooden lampstands.

24


in three stubby branches. The unit seems to be a small, household version of the larger pedestals and lamps which were apparently used in sanctuaries. The specimens shown here were found in household contexts, but are clearly cultic in function, probably being equipment for household shrines. Both were found in association with Astarte- and dove-figurines with similar pedestal bases, indicating that the cult was Canaanite and included the worship of the female fertility goddess. The Tell en-Nasbeh specimen (Fig. 11), we may note, had originally been painted, first with a coat of white and then with a red wash.

Fig. 11. Household cult lamps. Left: specimen of ca. 8th-7th century B.C., from Tell Beit Mirsim. Tell Beit Mirsim III, pl. XXXII, no. 2. Center and right: specimen of ca. 7th century B.C. or later, from Tell en-Nasbeh. Photo and drawing courtesy of the Palestine Institute of the Pacific School of Religion. Drawing from C. Wampler, Tell en-Nasbeh II, pl. LXXI, no. 1645.

It is at least possible, then, that when the householder provided Elisha with a menirah he was supplying him with a ceramic pedestal-lamp of household size to enable him to engage in certain rites of worship in his chamber. Since such pedestal-lamps are associatedwith the Canaanite cultus in the instances cited above, it may be that this particular Elisha story had its origin in a tradition about a Canaanite prophet and was later attached to Elisha. Yet it is also possible that the use of the pedestal-lamp had been taken over by the Yahweh cult; strong evidence for this possibility is the fact that the priestly account of the mosaic tabernacle describes a menarah of essentially this same kind (though much more elaborate), a combination lamp-and-pedestal with the pedestal in the form of a tree. Such tree-shaped pedestals, though executed both in terracotta and in gold, seem to stem from wooden lampstands. One striking and unique kind of lamp, very different from anything we have yet seen, remains to be noted. Toward the end of this period, about 630 B.C., a handful of settlers, perhaps Greek merchants or Egyptian mercenaries-no one really knows-established themselves on the coast of

1964, 1)


25

Palestine between Ashdod and Joppa. Building for themselves a defensive tower, these newcomers remained for about twenty years. In the remains of the settlement archaeologists have found, along with Palestinian pottery, many fragments of Greek vessels, including buff- or pink-ware lamps of the kind shown in Figure 12.49 Basically saucer-like, but clearly moving in the direction of an enclosed oil reservoir,these are the earliest Greek lamps yet found in Palestine. Indeed, they stand fairly near the beginning of the Greek lamp tradition.50They cannot be said so much to have evolved from Greek saucer lamps as to have been a fresh concept which Greek potters themselves had begun to superimpose upon the older tradition. As a result of their distinctiveness, these imported Greek lamps could not easily be

~If177~ Fig. 12. Imported Greek lamp of ca. 630-610 B.C., from Mesad Hashavyahu. Photo from Israel Exploration Journal, XII (1962), p. 109, no. 1, used by permission of J. Naveh and the Israel Exploration Journal.

integrated into the Palestinian saucer-lamp tradition, and exerted no appreciable influence upon it; but their very presence in Palestine foreshadowed things to come. Lamps Of The Persian

Period

With the Babylonian conquest, the footed lamp of Judah disappeared and throughout Palestine a broad, shallow lamp of a new kind came into use (Fig. 13). This lamp, which in its most characteristicexpression is of buff clay and ranges from six to seven inches in length, seems to owe something to both of the major types of lamp of the preceding period. The wide flange and deeply incurving sides of the spout perpetuate in an accentuated 49. J. Naveh, Israel Exploration Journal, XII (1962), 89-113. 50. The best survey of the early history of Greek lamps is that of Howland, Greek Lamps, pp. 7ff.

26


way features of the footed lamp, while the flattened bottom continues the earlier tendency in the north. Potters doubtless felt that they were making a technical improvement in the lamp by flattening the base and lowering

c.L'j 5 ;~ ~~

Fig. 13. Left: Persian period lamp, perhaps 6th century B.C., from Atlit. From Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities of Palestine, II (1932), pl. XXXI, no. 820. Right: line drawing of a typical specimen of this kind of lamp. From ibid., IV (1934), p. 4, fig. 5.

the center of gravity, and these modifications did indeed give the lamp a new degree of stability; but the broad, shallow oil reservoir introduced a fresh problem, that of how to handle the lamp without having the oil cascade over the side. Aesthetic considerations may have played a part in the popularity of this design, for the lamp's baroque (if somewhat sluggish) lines, usually executed in a skillful manner, make it perhaps the most elegant of all Iron Age saucer lamps - a phenomenon which belies any assumption that the Palestinians of this period had an entirely degenerate rural culture. Specimens of this lamp are not common, however, any more than is other pottery of the period, suggesting a depleted population in the country during the 6th and 5th centuries B.C. A few cast bronze lamps in this style have been found, such as the specimen of about the 5th century B.C. shown in Figure 14, which came to light in a sanctuary, called by the excavators a "solar shrine," at Lachish. Bronze saucer lamps have also appeared in coastal Syria and in Cyprus, mostly dating from the 7th through the 5th centuries B.C. One Palestinian specimen now in the Palestine Archaeological Museum in Jerusalem has two spouts, a feature which we have noted as particularly Phoenician. A distinctive feature of many metal lamps is their carination, an angularity

1964, 1)


27

derived from the distinctive shaping process which the metal required. It is reasonable to suppose that expensive, well-made lamps of this kind were used mainly in cultic contexts, but this does not preclude household use. Occasionally iron saucer lamps have been found in Syria and Cyprus; craftsmen never felt the ease with iron which they felt with bronze, however, and specimens are often crudely handwrought. Clear evidence of iron lamps in Palestine during this period, and for that matter throughout the Iron Age, is lacking. The earliest alleged Palestinian iron lamp is an iron dish with an odd ring handle, found at Beth Shan in a context dated to the beginning of the Iron Age,51but even when one makes allowance for the crude shapes which iron lamps sometimes had, it is difficult to be convinced that this object is a lamp. Macalister reports that he found in his "Fourth Semitic Period" at Gezer an iron lamp "of the ordinary shape of lamps of that period,"52but he does not illustrate the specimen.

Fig. 14. Persian period lamp of bronze, ca. 5th century B.C., from Lachish. From O. Tufnell, Lachish III, p1s. XLII, no. 2 and LXIII, no. 1, used by permission of the trustees of the late Sir Henry Wellcome.

As potters were crafting their saucer lamps, a very different tradition was beginning to appear in response to the old problem of stability. Although they had experimented with flattened bases and lowered centers of gravity, Iron Age craftsmen had never reached the point of covering the oil reservoir in order to reduce the possibility of spilling. In Greece, however, where there had also been a saucer-lamp tradition in the archaic period, potters had by the 7th century B.C. discovered the advantage of an incurving rim on the oil reservoir, as we saw in Figure 11. Within a century after their first experiments with this new design they had developed an enclosed oil reservoir.To these closed lamps Greek potters applied their rapidly increasing knowledge of ceramic technique, using a rich, finely-levigated buff or brown 51. A. Rowe, The Four Canaanite Temples of Beth-Shan, p. 35 and pl. XXXII, no. 25. 52. Macalister, Gezer II, p. 271.


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clay which they covered with a lustrous black glaze to produce works of real beauty. These lamps had a smaller oil capacity than most Iron Age saucer lamps, but even with their reduced size they could supply an evening's light without difficulty.53Aside from stray occurrences such as those which we saw at the end of the Iron II period, Greek lamps did not begin \' to appear in significant numbers in -,'I Palestine until the latter part of the Persian period, that is, after 450 B.C.54 These imported lamps, of which the specimen shown in Figure 15 is only one example, reflected Fig. 15. Imported Greek lamp of ca. first half whatever styles were popular in of 4th century B.C., from Megiddo. From Megiddo I, pl. XXXVII, no. 3. Greece and western Asia Minor at the time. So different were Greek lamps from Palestinian saucer lamps that down to the beginning of the Hellenistic Age Palestinian potters were baffled by them and made little attempt to copy them. It was almost inevitable, however, that the Greek lamps would have an impact on the local saucer-lamp tradition. Perhaps some trace of influence can be detected in a small open lamp from a cistern-deposit at Tell en-Nasbeh (Fig. 16). The associated pottery in the last phase of the deposit spans ca. 450-200 B.C.; on typological

0

// .

--

'Cl 7'iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

9

Fig. 16. Persian period lamp of ca. 450-350 B.C., from Tell en-Nasbeh. Photo and drawing courtesy of the Palestine Institute of the Pacific School of Religion. Drawing from Tell en-Nasbeh II, pl. LXXI, no. 1632.

grounds, however, it is unlikely that the lamp comes from the latter part of this span, and thus it should probably be dated to about 430-330 B.C. Of buff ware with white limestone grits, wet-smoothed and fired hard, it marks a considerable break with the earlier saucer-lamp tradition. The size has been greatly reduced, making the lamp not much larger than Greek closed 53. Howland, Greek Lamps, p. 37, reaches an estimate of four hours as the burning time of a Greek lamp of average size. 54. This is in essential agreement with the date of about 475 B.C. which Gjerstad gives in Swedish Cyprus Expedition for the beginning of imported Greek lamps in Cyprus.

1964, 1)


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lamps; the flange around the oil reservoir, a standard feature of Iron Age lamps, has been abandoned entirely; and the folds forming the wick-trough begin much farther back on the bowl, as though trying to enclose part of it. If these features do indeed reflect the influence of Greek lamps, it is a credit to the integrity of the Palestinian potter that the modifications did not do violence to the essential qualities of the saucer lamp, but resulted rather in a lamp of sound proportions which is not unlike certain Late Bronze Age specimens. How widespread this modified form of saucer lamp was in Palestine it is impossible to say.

!r-

Fig. 17. Fragment of a compound lamp, possibly from the Persian period, from Tell es-Safi. From Bliss and Macalister, Excavations in Palestine, pl. LXVI, no. 11.

So far as household cult lamps are concerned, many of the old forms seem to have fallen away or undergone change during this period. The seven-spout lamp which had persisted so long in the Canaanite and Hebrew culture disappearedas did the cup-and-saucer lamp - though the latter may have been undergoing quiet modification, since somewhat similar forms were to appear in the subsequent period. But new lamp-forms also came into use, if indeed they had not been known earlier. Of particular interest is the fragment of a lamp from Tell es-Safi shown in Figure 17, which consists of a circle of separate miniature lamps arranged on a ceramic ring. If, as is possible, the object originally consisted of a full circle of lamps, there must have been nine lamps set on the ring. Similar, in that it also appears to be part of a compound lamp, is the fragment shown in Figure 18, found at Tell Sandahannah, not far from Tell es-Safi. Apparently, a number of

30


small saucerlamps were set aroundthe rim of a bowl. These two vessels can be datedonly with much hesitation,for miniatureobjectsdo not always conformto familiarceramicpatterns,and the excavatorspublishno pottery found with these pieces. The fragmentshown in Figure 17 could, on the basisof the formof the lamp,be datedas earlyas the -liddle BronzeAge, but so earlya date is unlikely.Duncan datesboth of these fragmentsto the Iron II period,55while Bliss and Macalisterdate them to Seleucid times.56 A Persian-perioddate is perhapsas likely as any, though Duncan'sdate remainsattractive.

1,

Fig. 18. Fragment of a compound lamp, possibly from the Persian period, from Tell Sandahannah. From Bliss and Macalister, Excavations in Palestine. pl. LXVI, no. 8.

These compound lamps served special functions about which Xwe can only wonder. It is probable that they had religious uses, though not necessarily ones limited to sanctuaries. Figure 17 bears a similarity to ceramic objects commonly called kernoi or "kernosrings," found at various easternMediterranean sites (most recently Ashdod). Presumably used in libation rites, the kernos typically consisted of a circular tube to which were attached various miniature jars and figurines which connected with the hollow interior of the ring. Sometimes the kernos was used in conjunction with a lamp.57 It is possible that the kernos and compound lamps such as these from Sandahannah and es-Safi had common ancestry in Levantine religion of the 2nd millennium B.C., but our knowledge of their histories is quite limited. By this period hanging lamps may have come into use in Palestine, but evidence for them is uncertain. In Job 29:2-3, where God's watchfulness over a person is likened to a lamp, Job cries, Oh, that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me; when his lamp shone upon my head, and by his light I walked through darkness.... 55. Duncan, Corpus, no. 91.R.2. 56. Bliss and Macalister, Excavations, p. 130. 57. See the informative study on the kernos in Greece by S. Xanthoudides in the Annual of the British School at Athens, XII, pp. 9-23.

1964, 1)


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A similar thought is expressedin Job 18:5-6: Yea, the light of the wicked is put out, and the flame of his fire does not shine. The light is dark in his tent, and his lamp above him is put out. These passages seem to allude to a hanging lamp within a nomad's tent; but if tent-dwellers used lamps of this kind there is no archaeologicalevidence for the practice. Nor do we have any indication that suspension-lamps were used in houses. Eccl. 12:6, which is presumably early Hellenistic in date, urges one to remember one's Creator "before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken." Galling has taken this to be a reference to a golden lamp and a silver suspension chain,5"but if this is so, as is by no means certain, the lamp which the writer has in mind must be a sanctuarytype, for it is much too elegant for household use. There is some evidence that distinctive bowl-shaped lamps may have been in use in at least some pagan and Jewish sanctuaries before the end of the Persian period, but this design apparently did not extend to the Palestinian home. So far as the history of Palestinian household lamps is concerned, the close of the Persian period toward the end of the 4th century B.C. marks the end of the Old Testament period, for those parts of the Old Testament which show the impress of Hellenistic times - particularly Daniel, Esther and Ecclesiastes- have nothing to say about household lamps. Looking back over the Persian period we see that although there were some modifications to lamp design, by and large the local lamp tradition of Palestine offered little that was creative. But during the Hellenistic period which was to follow, fresh cultural stimulation was to come to the Levant as the western and eastern worlds met and cross-fertilized one another as never before. The whispers of Greek culture which had first blown westward into Palestine before the Exile had already become a keen breeze which was soon to grow into a driving wind, carrying in new lamp forms and twisting old ones into fresh shapes.

58. Galling, ZDPV, XLVI (1923),

4.

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STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP. MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION (Act of October 23, 1962; Section 4369, Title 39, United States Code) 1. Date of Filing October 1, 1963 2. Title of Publication The Biblical Archaeologist 3. Frequency of issue February, May September, December Quarterly 4. Location of Known Office of Publication Drawer 93A Yale Station, New Haven, Connecticut 06520 5. Location of the Headquarters or General Business Offices of the publishers (not printers) Drawer 93A Yale Station, New Haven, Connecticut 06520 6. Names and Addresses of Publisher, Editor, and Managing Editor Publisher: The American Schools of Oriental Research, Drawer 93A Yale Station, New Haven, Connecticut 06520 Editor: Edward F. Campbell, Jr., 800 W. Belden Avenue, Chicago, Ill. 60614 Managing Editor: none 7. Owner (If owned by a corporation, its names and address must be stated and also immediately thereunder the names and addresses of stockholders owning or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of stock. If not owned by a corporation, the names and addresses of the individual owners must be given. If owned by a partnership or other unincorporated firm, its name and address, as well as that of each individual must be given.) American Schools of Oriental Research, Drawer 93A Yale Station, New Haven, Connecticut 06520 8. Known Bondholders, Mortgagees and other security holders owning or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages or other securities (If there are none so state): None. 9. Paragraphs 7 and 8 include, in cases where the stockholder or security holder appears upon the books of the company as trustee or in any other fiduciary relation, the name of the person or corporation for whom such trustee is acting; also the statements in the two paragraphs show the affiant's full knowledge and belief as to the circumstances and conditions under which stockholders and security holders who do not appear upon the books of the company as trustees, hold stocks and securities in a capacity other than that of a bona fida owner. Names and addresses of individuals who are stockholders of a corporation which itself is a stockholder or holder of bonds, mortgages or other securities of the publishing corporation have been included in paragraphs 7 and 8 when the interests of such individuals are equivalent to 1 percent or more of the total amount of the stock or securities of the publishing corporation.

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