How ancient oil lamps functioned on a practical level can be easy to overlook. Artificial light has been around for a long time and today requires little effort on our part to produce – thanks to electricity. However, when the ability to produce and control artificial light first began it must have felt like quite an accomplishment. Around the ancient Mediterranean, various tools were used for producing artificial light for when the sun had set. The most popular portable tool, surpassing torches, was the oil lamp. Lamp sherds have been found in many excavation sites and can be useful for dating purposes. Those that are decorated have been studied for their symbolic and decorative functions, especially within religious contexts. To showcase the humble oil lamp, I’ve brought in examples from our Fuller collection. The three lamps in our collection offer a glimpse of lamp variation found around the Mediterranean.
The requirements of an oil lamp are pretty minimal – a container for fuel, the fuel itself, a wick to burn and feed fuel to a flame, and a continuous air supply. The very first lamps may have been made with any kind of non-flammable material which could hold fuel – a rock with an impression in it, a shell, etc. Eventually following the advent of pottery for eating and storage, oil lamps were made fashioned out of clay and fired. They became a cheap and practical form of illumination and were used by every level of society. That being said, distribution among archaeological sites differs, including sites that contain little to no lamp remains at all. Out of the many fragments that have been found, it is clear that lamps came in many sizes and a range of shapes.
A couple years ago, two archaeologists decided to take part in some experimental archaeology. Ameera Elrasheedy and Daniel Schindler decided to investigate the functionality of lamps. They chose two common wheel-made types from a site that they were working on, Tel Kedesh. For the experiment they started by having a potter make an open lamp (a “saucer” lamp) and a closed lamp. A closed lamp is named as such because it has a specific hole for pouring in fuel, and lacks the saucer-like shape of an open lamp.

Phoenician double spouted open lamp (700-600 B.C.E), George Fuller collection.
The testers wished to know how easily the wick would light; what type of flame each wick would produce; what the burn time was (using one ounce of fuel); and what the amount of light emitted by each lamp using the best wick. They found that a 10 mm in diameter wick produced the largest flame and a spun wick burned longer than an unspun one, making it more efficient. After testing the 10mm spun wick out on both lamps, Elrasheedy and Schindler found the closed lamp to be the most useful. The closed nozzle allowed the flame to not travel down the wick, thereby using up less oil which could let the spun wick burn for 70 minutes, which is 5 minutes longer than in an open lamp.

Late Hellenistic or Herodian Lamp (c. 1st century CE), George Fuller collection.

Roman lamp, North Africa (3rd century C.E.), George Fuller collection.
For more information see:
Elrasheedy, A. & D. Schindler (2015). Illuminating the Past: Exploring the Function of Ancient Lamps. Near Eastern Archaeology 78. 36-42.
Gardner, G. E. (2014). City of Lights: The Lamps of Roman and Byzantine Jerusalem. Near Eastern Archaeology 77. 284-290.
Sussman, Varda (2007). Oil-Lamps in the Holy Land: Saucer lamps : From the Beginning to the Hellenistic Period: Collections of the Israel Antiquities Authority. Vol. 1598. Oxford: Archaeopress.
Zhuravlev, D. ed. (2002). Fire, Light and Light Equipment in the Graeco-Roman World. British Archaeological Reports International Series 1019. Oxford: The Basingstoke Press.