230 BULLETIN 139, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



NEAR EAST 



The common lamp of the Near East, not considering those of 

 Roman and Greek introduction, was a pottery saucer more or less 

 modified by bending the rim to form a trough for the wick. This 

 is true generally for ancient lamps preceding the Mohammedan con- 

 quest, and was maintained as the type of the latter civilization. The 

 character of the peoples and their habits of life fixed the simple lamp 

 as the limit of their requirements. 



The float lamp has an extended use in the Near East. This use 

 has been promoted by the facility with which glasses for these lamps 

 could be procured. The ordinary float lamp does not require 

 a glass vessel, but hanging lamps, such as are used in mosques, 

 must be fitted with glass tubes. The globular pierced-metal 

 chandeliers,with glass tubes in which the light is installed projecting 

 beneath, are among the most beautiful of light fixtures. Those 

 of vase shape of painted glass are among the rarest specimens 

 of Mohammedan art. Great ii'on chandeliers of globular 

 shape, with a multitude of arms for holding glass cup lamps, 

 were hung in mosques. The wick was wound on a trifid wire holder 

 which was sot in the bottom of the lamp. In Arabia, Persia, 

 and Mesopotamia the lamps of the folk were of the simple type of 

 the noninventive period. One would see in a Persian house at 

 Oroomia, for instance, a saucer of oil in which burnt a piece of string, 

 set in a niche in the wall. Such a lamp made but the dimmest light. 



In Mesopotamia lamps have recently been excavated from the 

 ruins of E-hages and other old sites. These lamps are interesting 

 from the standpoint of art, but are classed as simple. 



TURKESTAN 



Lamps from the Turkestan potteries have been mentionea as of 

 the open-gutter type. They are filled tlirough a bottle neck over 

 the reservoir and have a long beak. Some of them are unglazed, and 

 others, modeled in the shape of animals, are glazed in green and 

 yellow. 



The lamp of Bhutum is described as a shoe-shaped pan, with a bit 

 of cotton lighted in the bottom and two or three lumps of tallow 

 laid over it. ''The clerk held the paper in one hand and the pen 

 in the other. One man flared the light as close to him as he could, 

 sloping it and shoving in the tallow with his finger as the light grew 

 dim.'"3 



Dr. W. L. Abbott procured at Skardu, in Baltistan, triangular 

 soapstone lamps which were in universal use. The wick is drawn 

 to the apex of the triangular excavation and supplied with oil ex- 

 pressed from apricot pips. Doctor Abbott also got pottery lamps 



M Journal of Thomas Manning to Lhasa, in Narrative of the Mission of George Bogle, etc., p. 220. 



