Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
The bulbous body displays a short spout and shallow base with a pricket receptacle. The conch-shaped lid is joined to the body by a pin. The cruciform handle consists of a flared-arm cross handle, a finger ring, and a reinforcing bar connecting the cross and ring. The base of each arm of the cross is inscribed with a short line emphasizing the separation of the arms. A large number of similar lamps are preserved; they are dated from the fifth to seventh centuries and have been found in Romania, Syria, Istanbul, Greece, Germany, and Egypt (1).
Each of Harvard’s Byzantine lamps consists of a bulbous body, spout, lid, and handle. The central cavity held oil that provided the fuel for the wick in the spout. Most of these examples were pierced at their base by a tapering rectangular indentation rising through the central cavity to receive the pricket of a stand. Although some lamps could be hung from above, all lamps in this group lack suspension rings. Instead, they were placed on a table or a stand (such as 1975.41.141.A-C). The basic form of the reservoir, handle, and spout derives from ancient Greek and Roman types, with some examples dating probably as early as the third millennium BCE.
Lamps were widely used during the Byzantine period in both sacred and profane settings. In the Christian liturgical context, lamps functioned as votive offerings, processional objects, funerary accoutrements, and lighting devices for worship. Similarly, lighting was an important component of imperial ceremonial. The use of lamps in magical rituals is also attested during the early Byzantine period (2). Many homilies and theological essays of the Byzantine period ascribe symbolic significance to lamps, for example, as metaphors for the soul (3). In the household, lamps were primarily used for illumination of domestic space, but they could also play a role in private devotional practices (4). Excavations such as those in Cyprus show that together with a table and couch, lamps were the most common household furnishing until candles largely replaced lamps by the seventh century (5).
Byzantine lamps range from strictly utilitarian examples to elaborately adorned vessels accented with crosses, animals, and precious stones. The cross and shell embellishments found in these examples mix religious and classical motifs. Clay lamps were the least expensive and most widespread, while bronze and silver appeared in aristocratic households and ecclesiastical settings (6).
NOTES:
1. Compare D. E. Miner, ed., Early Christian and Byzantine Art, exh. cat., Baltimore Museum of Art; Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore, 1947) 64, no. 251, pl. 38; L. Wamser and G. Zahlhaas, Rom und Byzanz: Archäologische Kostbarkeiten aus Bayern, exh. cat., Prähistorischen Staatssammlung, Munich; Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich (Munich, 1998) 87-88, no. 80; J. Fleischer, O. Hjort, and M. B. Rasmussen, eds., Byzantium. Late Antique and Byzantine Art in Scandinavian Collections, exh. cat., Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen (Copenhagen, 1996) 84-85, nos. 52-53; and M. Xanthopoulou, Les lampes en bronze à l’époque paléochrétienne, Bibliothèque de l’Antiquité tardive 16 (Turnhout, 2010) 100-105, nos. LA 3.001-3.026, esp. LA 3.003, 3.006, 3.010, 3.022, and 3.025.
2. L. Bouras and M. G. Parani, Lighting in Early Byzantium (Washington, DC, 2008) 21-29; Xanthopoulou 2010 (supra 1) 65-70.
3. E. D. Maguire, H. P. Maguire, and M. J. Duncan-Flowers, Art and Holy Powers in the Early Christian House, exh. cat., Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Urbana, 1989) 58; and Xanthopoulou 2010 (supra 1) 70.
4. A. Kazhdan and L. Bouras, “Lighting in Everyday Life,” in The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, ed. A. P. Kazhdan, 3 vols. (New York, 1991) 2:1228; Bouras and Parani 2008 (supra 1) 20; and Xanthopoulou 2010 (supra 1) 63-65.
5. D. Soren, “An Earthquake on Cyprus: New Discoveries from Kourion,” Archaeology 38 (1985): 52-59, 52.
6. Maguire et al. 1989 (supra 3) 58; and A. Gonosová and C. Kondoleon, Art of Late Rome and Byzantium in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond, 1994) 175.
Anne Druckenbrod Gossen
