Pottery 'shell' form oil lamp from Egyptian tomb
- Made:
- 100-1 BCE in Egypt
This image is released under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Licence
Buy this image as a print
BuyLicense this image for commercial use at Science and Society Picture Library
LicenseThis image is released under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Licence
Buy this image as a print
BuyLicense this image for commercial use at Science and Society Picture Library
LicensePottery 'shell' form oil lamp, from Egyptian tomb
Science Museum Group
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
Pottery 'shell' form oil lamp, from Egyptian tomb, Romano-Egyptian, c.1st century BC. This lamp is basically a saucer with a pronounced lip which has been contorted to form a long slender wick channel spout to support the wick, thus resembling the natural form offered by a shell, from whence this lamp form derives.
Vegetable or mineral oil soaks into the small textile wick of this lamp, vaporises and ignites, feeding the small flame. Lamps light this were convenient, portable light sources - a crucial technological advance.
