Lighting and light in Antiquity - ZIP

This course is aimed to introduce its participants to the richness and importance of having a basic knowledge of all the topics linked to lighting and artificial light within archaeological and historical researches. As a matter of fact, individual lighting is absolutely not a constant in human history. First, it is a symbol of richness we can witness only in the most advanced civilizations, which enjoyed the privilege to be able to afford the costs of division of the primordial and multifunctional earth into three parts : the kitchen, the heating and the lighting. Hence, lamps and lighting devices became since their birth the only domestic object bearing a double functional and spiritual meaning. As clay lamps costed very few, another question has always raised, as today: who can afford lighting expenses linked to quality fuels and wicks and who had those primary resources.

History of mankind always oscillated between periods of prosperity and "dark ages". Periods of prosperity, in the Greek, Roman and Asian worlds, were always linked to the differentiation of the functions of the primordial earth (cooking, heating and lighting). Since the first massive wave of clay lamp productions during the Phoenician apex to the fall of Byzantium, lamps as well as tallow and wax candles have been part of the cultural background of the Mediterranean societies.

Lighting a lamp was also to be, somehow, the proud heir of Prometheus, hence we face the only cheap and utilitarian artefact which always played an important cultic rule, in the domestic as well as in the public ritual worlds. We will witness the different evolutions, within pagan diversities and within the main monotheisms, of the uses and faiths linked to the lamp as object as well as to its flame.

Yet the lamps themselves were extremely cheap – as a led bulb today – while all their real cost was linked to their use, implying the need of a good or average quality fuel. Hence, if lamp-producing zones can be found everywhere in the Ancient world, the fuels used depended both on exports from determinate areas or on local traditions of areas rich in fuels. In addition, the best oils and tallows were also costly aliments, creating the dilemma between lighting and eating, a dilemma recently solved by the incredible diversity of mixtures of fuels found in lamps which benefitted of a full chemical analysis.

Wicks also, to work well, cannot be done in any material. We will observe the materials available for the best wicks, their producing techniques and their exporting areas.

Finally, with the importance acquired by beeswax candles within the Church, we will observe how the very import, trade, making of those candles, for liturgy and for the rich, has always been very strictly regulated by law, giving birth, in early Medieval times, to the widest trade route network for wax supply, as the European continent was never able to be autarchic for wax, due to the lack of apiculture in many of its parts.

A significant part of the course will be dedicated to a chronological and morphological introduction to the birth, the surviving in several regions, and the extinction of the "standard types" of moulded lamps wide-spread during the Hellenistic and Roman, completed by some of the most important macro-regional types belonging to the Late Antique period. This part is a necessary complement to the course dedicated to the importance of a new way of studying iconographical scenes adorning lamps, i.e. their diffusion, adoption or rejection in different areas of the Roman world.

In this frame, we will see how, during the first three centuries of our era, the production of lamps gave birth to a real "industrialisation" in the modern meaning of the word. We will observe the birth of enor-mous fabrics, the use of "trademarks" and their meaning, the creation of regional branches / their delocali-zation following the economy of specific regions, and their counterfeits produced by regional competitors.

As an addenda, we will shortly observe the lighting devices used by the richest, and subsequently by the church: bronze lamps and glass lamps, as well as unique examples of silver and gold lamps.

At the end, we will examine the only state-financed lighting system: the coastal lighthouses, as well as the few rich oriental cities which afforded to have a main street public illumination.

Bailey, D.M. (1975). Greek, Hellenistic, and early Roman pottery lamps [=Catalogue of the Lamps in the British Museum 1]. London : British Museum Publications

Bailey, D.M. (1980). Roman lamps made in Italy [=Catalogue of the Lamps in the British Museum 2]. London : British Museum Publications

Bailey, D.M. (1988). Roman provincial lamps [=Catalogue of the Lamps in the British Museum 3]. London : British Museum Publications

Bailey, D.M. (1996). Lamps of metal and stone, and lampstands [=Catalogue of the Lamps in the British Museum 4]. London : British Museum Press

Bussière, J. (2000). Lampes antiques d’Algérie [=Monographies Instrumentum 16]. Montagnac : Éditions Monique Mergoil

Bussière, J. (2007). Lampes antiques d’Algérie II. Lampes tardives et lampes chrétiennes [=Monographies Instrumentum 35]. Montagnac : Mergoil

Chrzanovski, L. Kaiser P. (ed.) (2007), Dark ages? Licht im Mittelalter / L’éclairage au moyen-âge, Olten–Milano (available on the author's page on academia.edu)

Chrzanovski, L. (2013)[2015], De Prométhée à la Fée Electricité Pour une sociologie de l’éclairage à travers les âges, les croyances et les continents (Académie des Sciences de Roumanie, Centre d’Études Transylvaines), Cluj-Napoca (available on the author's page on academia.edu)

Chrzanovski, L. (2019), Lessons of Modernity from the Past: Some Amazing Parallels Drawn from Antique and Medieval Lychnological Economics, In: Motsianos, I., Garnett K.S., (eds), Glass, Wax and Metal: Lighting Technologies in Late Antique, Byzantine and Medieval Times, Oxford, 236-244

Chrzanovski, L. (2020), Firmalampen: an abundantly-produced Lamp-type almost never used? Socio-Economic Elements to define a new framework to study these peculiar Lighting Devices, Peuce S.N. 28, 121-165 (available at : https://revistapeuce.icemtl.ro/wp-content/uploads/10-Chrzanovski-Peuce-SN-18-2020-6-BT.pdf)

Chrzanovski, L., Ugarković (2020), M., A “globalized” antiquity: imports and local adaptations of mainstream lamp types. The examples of “Ephesos lamps” in the Mediterranean and Black Sea and of Roman “standard” types during the Early Imperial Period in Gaul. Acta of the 6th and 7th round tables of the ILA (Athens, 15th of November 2019 and Geneva, 17th of February 2020) (= Monographs of the Institute of Archaeology, vol. 16), Zagreb (soon available online)

Copley, M.S.. Bland, H. A Rose, P. Horton M., Evershed R.P (2005)., Gas chromatographic, mass spectrometric and stable carbonisotopic investigations of organic residues of plant oils andanimal fats employed as illuminants in archaeological lamps from Egypt, The Analyst 130, 860-871

Forbes R.J. (1958), Studies in Ancient Technology, vol. VI, Leiden 1958

Garnier N., Tokarski, C. Rolando C. (2011), Quels combustibles pour les lampes antiques nabatéennes de Petra?, in Frangié, D., Salles J.-F. (Ed.), Lampes antiques du Bilad es Sham : Jordanie, Syrie, Liban, Palestine (actes du colloque de Pétra-Amman, 6-13 novembre 2005), Paris, 103-123

Garnier N., Rolando C., Hotje J.M., Tokarski, C. (2009), Analysis of archaeological triacylglycerols by high resolution nano-ESI, FT-ICR MS and IRMPD MS/MS: Application to 5th century BC–4th century AD oil lamps from Olbia (Ukraine), International Journal of Mass Spectrometry 284, 47–56

Goethert K. (1997), Römische Lampen und Leuchter. Auswahlkatalog des Rheinischen Landesmuseum Trier (Schriftenreihe des Rheinischen Landesmuseum Trier, 14), Trier

Hanotte A. (2018), Lux - Catalogue des luminaires en terre cuite de Bavay, Autun

Harris, W.V. 1980, Roman Terracotta Lamps: the Organization of an Industry, Journal of Roman Studies, 70, 126-145 (available on JSTOR)

Loeschcke S. 1919, Lampen aus Vindonissa. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte von Vindonissa und des anti-ken Beleuchtunswesens, Zürich.

Mossakowska M. (1994), Les huiles utilisées pour l’éclairage en Egypte. D’après les papyrus grecs, The Journal of Juristic Papyrology 24.,109-131

(online at : www.academia.edu/42857160/_Les_huiles_utilisées_pour_l_éclairage_en_Égypte_d_après_les_papyrus_grecs_)

Motsianos, I., Bintsi E. (eds) 2011, ΜΙΑ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΑ ΑΠΟ ΦΩΣ ΣΤΟ ΦΩΣ / Light on Light: an illumi-nating story, Thessaloniki

Rottländer R.C.A. (1992), Der Brennstoff römischer Beleuchtungskörper. Zu einem Neufund einer Bildlampe aus dem Gräberfeld Kaiseraugst, Im Sager, in JberAugst 13 (1992), 225-229

(online at : https://www.e-periodica.ch/cntmng?pid=jak-001:1992:13::324)

Will be evaluated:

a. Participation in all meetings,

b. Completing the assignments,

c. The active participation,

d. Oral exam.