Oil Lamp

Oil lamps were used not only for household lighting, but also for funerary and votive purposes. Lamps were used for domestic purposes in homes and for public purposes in temples and most public buildings.

By studying the lamp's designs, symbols, structure and decorations, and the material of which it is made, we can identify the age and perhaps the locality of the lamp. The lamp can also give us insights into the culture of its users and their social status.

Occasionally the design of the lamps also reveal the female reproductive system. Indian bronze lamps with a protruding central portion are supposed to project the male genitalia on a female womb with light representing 'origin of life' in most cases.

Oil lamps were made from a wide variety of media like gold, bronze, silver, stone and terra-cotta. The most commonly used material was fired clay; many terra-cotta and bronze lamps have been unearthed. In most cases, the production and distribution of lamps was local, but in some instances they were produced by factories and exported to different areas.

The usual size of a terra-cotta oil lamp is 7-10 cm in length and 3 cm in depth, with the walls being around 0.5 cm thick. Lamps with more than one nozzle are usually larger in size.

[edit] Components
Double-nozzled oil lamp found in Samaria.

The following are the main external parts of a terra-cotta lamp.

* Shoulder
* Pouring hole

The hole through which fuel is put inside the fuel chamber. The width ranges from 0.5-5 cm in general. There may be single or multiple holes.

* Wick hole, and the nozzle.

It may be just an opening in the body of the lamp, or an elongated nozzle. In some specific types of lamps there is a groove on the superior aspect of the nozzle that runs to the pouring hole to collect back the oozing oil from the wick.