Lamp

This oil lamp's pictorial surface is adorned with a relief of a lion. There is a pouring hole beneath the lion, which enables the oil to be poured into the body of the lamp, the wick hole is situated on the lion's snout. Lamps were used as portable sources of light in everyday life and often the disc is decorated with a relief. Lamps thus provide an overview of various pictorial themes, which could possibly also say something about a given society's "taste". The matrix method (encasing the item in a matrix when firing) with which this lamp was made, comes from Egypt. Using this technique, lamps could be produced in large quantities. There was a separate mould for the upper and lower sides, into which the clay was pressed, then the parts were assembled and fired in the kiln.