Home Design Articles

Oil lamps are one of the oldest methods of lighting around.  The history of oil lamps is fascinating and these lamps are an art form in themselves. Can you imagine a chandelier constructed with oil lamps?  Oil lamps can be categorized in many ways such as how they are made, the materials of construction, and the time period they were made.  They are also widely categorized by how they are used or their intended use, such as, religious ceremonies, basic home use, and decorative use.   If we continue to break them down by type, we would find that there are basically 6 different types of lamps of the Ancient Mediterranean.  These types are briefly discussed as follows:

Early Imperial Volute.  These were mostly produced in Italy around the early roman period. They were named volute, due to the volutes that were associated with the nozzles.  A volute is a spiral , iconic design commonly seen at the tops of columns. These lamps also had wide bottoms and no handles.  They were usually very ornate and had a wide variation of patterns on them for decoration.

Frog.  The Frog style of oil lamp was very associated with Egypt and was found almost exclusively in that region between 1st and 4th century AD.  They were usually made from clay and had a slight resemblance to a frog.

Slipper.  The slipper oil lamps were characteristically in the shape of a slipper and that is where it gets the name.  Alladins’ Lamp is close to what a Slipper lamp looks like.  These lamps were prevalent between the 3rd and 9th century.  They had a wide spectrum of designs from very ornate to very basic.  Typically they do have a handle.

High Imperial.  This is from the late Roman period.  These were very plain, small and had virtually no decorations.

Wheel Made.  As the name suggests , these were made on the potter’s wheel.  This greatly affected how much decoration could be done, when compared to a plaster mold. These were some of the simplest lamps made and are from before the 3rd century BC.

African Red Slip.  Made in Northern Africa, these lamps are founds from the 2nd century AD.  The name comes from the color as they are red clay and have a slip ( or slipper) design.  They also often had leaves impressed into the clay to make designs on the body.