Rewriting The History Of Oil Lamps

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Etymologically, the word “lamp” is derived from the Greek word “lampas”, that means torch. Oil lamps are a quite early presence in the history of lamps.

After the invention of the central burner in the 18th century, which represented, at the time, an important improvement in lamp design (the central burner is provided with metal fuel source enclosure) , little glass chimneys were attached to lamps so that the flame was protected and the flow of air to the flame was controlled.

At the beginning of the 4th century, people were hanging oil lamps on their walls to illuminate interiors and make the space easier to navigate though at night. Here is a picture of a glass oil lamp dated 4th century; the oil lamp belongs to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. These types of lamps were used in the Roman Empire and Sidon (Lebanon).

At about the same time, people put some more emphasis on the design of their light sources in Syria and Byzantium, and this is how an oil lamp from that period looks like:

It’s made of metal and you can also notice the head of a horse as a part of its design. It is crystal clear that this lamp wasn’t manufactured just for the purpose of its function; even back then, people felt the need to surround themselves with beautiful objects and exercise their creative skills, bringing their imagination down to earth.

Later on, in the Byzantium of the 5th-6th centuries, people developed their skills for the realization of more refined items, enlarging the range of the materials they’d use for their pieces of art.

This is a brass-hanging lamp with a griffin-head handle; it currently belongs to the British Museum. The main part of the lamp has the shape of a boat and it’s provided with a filling hole for the oil in the centre and a wick hole at the end. Numerous similar lamps have been found throughout the Mediterranean.

The next image illustrates a glass oil lamp from the 8th (9th?) century.

But glass didn’t prove to be the best material for oil lamps back in the time, so people thought of replacing it with more lasting materials. The first terracotta oil lamps were created, and here’s a picture of what they looked like:

This specific lamp the Arab-Norman type of oil lamp, and it belongs to the Provincial Museum of Archeology of Salerno, Italy.

And from that…

…to this oil lamp, that looks more like a bronze statue. But it is an oil lamp indeed, realized by Barthélémy Prieur, around 1600.

From Renaissance to our days, oil lamps have been given various shapes and sizes, lots of different materials and styles, so that today designers have this long history available for their inspiration; the new and the ancient, the fresh and the forgotten have always created together a special touch of something outstanding and inovative. Today’s craftsmen are ready to create funny, stylish, fashionable, even contemporary oil lamps (now, thats really odd, isn’t it?). The bad part about them is that they’re not so safe. The best part is that they turn electric ;)

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