10 BULLETIN" 141, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



There is now encountered a great and unnoticed change in the 

 materials used in lighting. Splints of resinous v/ood supplement 

 torches and the holders of these splints form a subject of particular 

 interest. Splint torches or candles, as they have been indiscrimi- 

 nately termed, indicate that social progress demanded the prolifera- 

 tion of lights for special places and uses, and that the camp fire, house 

 fire, and torch had grown inadequate for social needs. In effect, 

 special lighting is being taken into the house. The date when this 

 gradual development became noticeable is not certain. Traces of 

 the usage are found in the later bronze age, and bronze torch holders 

 with two clasping arms were found in the tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen.. 

 In the collection of the late Henry J. Heinz, of Pittsburgh, is a 

 trifid bronze stand allocated to Egypt, which appears to be a torch 

 or splint holder. (PI. 5&, fig. 1, No. 992, Heinz collection.) The 

 Museum possesses a specimen of Etruscan origin found in Italy and 

 dating from the middle of the first millennium B. C. It consists of 

 a tripod and shaft, on the apex of which is a four branch portion^ 

 each arm terminating a cleft leaf in which splints were put for 

 burning. It has been suggested that the central spine held the shal- 

 low dish used in the wine throwing game of Cottobus, but there is nO' 

 trace of a junction. (PI. Qa, fig. 1, Cat. No. 147695, Italy; Dr. 

 Thomas Wilson; 28 inches (71 cm.) high.) 



It is surmised that the large series of splint holders about to be 

 described represent survivals from the iron age. As would be antici- 

 pated from the metallurgy of northern Europe, most of the speci- 

 mens are from that region. They are in the simplest form, strips of 

 iron bent into flat loops and provided with spike ends for attaching 

 to the wall or other support. In the clefts were placed splints of pine. 

 (PI. 5a, figs. 6, 7, Cat. No. 167866-867, Finland; Hon J. M. Craw- 

 ford; 8.3 inches (21 cm.) wide.) These simple forms of iron bent into 

 clefts have their prototypes in the iron age. There has been found 

 in a site of the Hallstadt period, early iron age, in Court St. Etienne, 

 Belgium,'' a much bent bar of strap iron which is identified by its 

 discoverer as a sort of grate. This specimen may be related to the 

 splint holders described. With this in mind, the status of the family 

 of rude iron splint holders appears clear, and their variety to be- 

 the result of simple folk invention. A rod of iron with a double 

 cleft at one end and a spike at the other shows a device for fixing 

 to an overhead beam, forming a primitive splint chandelier. (PI. 

 5a, fig. 3, Cat. No. 167865, Finland; Hon. John M. Crawford; 15- 

 inches (38 cm.) long.) Another is for socketing on the end of a 

 staff. It has two divergent horizontal clefts and a basket made by 

 four upright spikes, probably to hold a billet of split wood or 



• Records of the Past, vol. 11, 1912, p. 123. 



