Code: 1852
Description: A red-slipped pottery oil lamp with simple lug handle decorated with a palm frond, and the shoulder decorated with palm fronds and curvilinear lines in low relief. A palm frond modelled between the filler and wick holes. Some encrustation, worn slip and overall surface wear and traces of soot deposits around the wick hole, from the Levant, probably Syria or Palestine.
Size: 90 mm/2.9 ins. in length
Culture: Late Roman/Byzantine
Date: c. 400-600 A.D.
Provenance: Ex Colorado private collection, and previously in the Major Blinkinsop Collection, acquired while working for the UN in the Middle East during the 1960s.
Background: Major Blinkinsop built up a very large collection of ancient lamps while serving in the Middle East. The entire collection was crated up and shipped to the USA at the onset of the 1967 Israeli-Arab War. These crates were reputedly only opened by his descendants in 2012.
Photographed in both natural and artificial light.
