Description: OIL LAMP Byzantine, 6th - 7th century AD Terracotta. H 3.8 cm. Ø 8,6 cm. Provenance: Collection Dr. C.N., North Rhine-Westphalia 1990s Oil lamps reveal more about life in antiquity than their practical function as illumination devices may suggest. Like pottery and coins, their typological development has been documented to the degree that excavated finds give archaeologists a reliable tool for dating. Manufacturers frequently marked their products with signatures and stamps, allowing the trade from factory to customer to be mapped over considerable distances. Although usually classed as a mundane instrumentum domesticum, portable sources of light were essential fixtures in commercial districts and architectural interiors. When suspended from brackets and candelabra, a lamp’s flame produced an animated chiaroscuro effect on sculptures, wall paintings, textiles, and furnishings. Such intimate ambiances led some ancient authors to personify lamps as confidants of their owners’ private moments. Their placement in sanctuaries and graves emphasizes the role of divine radiance in ceremonies involving fire and light.