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Description: | Lead lamp holder with a central oval recessed chamber leading into a pinched nozzle with two small knops rising at the top at the point where it meets the chamber. The handle is flat, rectangular in section and is bent over into a crude narrow loop. Around the side of the chamber are a series of moulded vertical columns.Lead lamps and lamp holders are rare and unusual finds, however other examples are known. One from Middlewich, Cheshire is recorded on the Portable Antiquities database as LVPL670 (www.finds.org.uk), and two similar examples were found in an unstratified context at Caerleon (Evans 2000, pp411-413, fig.104). Two objects described as lamp holders came from the fort at Pen Llystyn, Caernafonshire (now Gwynedd) (Hogg 1968, 183, L1 L2), and were of approximately late 1st/early 2nd century date. Two further unpublished examples from excavations at Usk are also of similar form (site code 106/081 (093)). Another 36 lamps and lamp holders were found as a grave good in the 1st-2nd century St. Pancras Roman cemetery, and it is thought that they may have been used as part of the cremation ritual, or buried for the dead person to use in the afterlife (Down, 1971). The function of these objects is still not entirely clear. There is evidence to show that they may have been actually used as lamps (Evans 2000, 413), however it seems more likely that they were used as wall fittings and as a lamp holders. Supporting evidence is seen in one of the examples from Usk, which has a nozzle that has clearly been chamfered down so that the nozzle of a ceramic lamp would fit comfortably. The example from Sudbrooke has two small knops either side at the top of the nozzle that would also seem to serve the purpose of holding a ceramic nozzle in place.
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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