FIRE AS AN AGENT IN HUMAN CULTURE 243 



turning over the sides. A Cyprian lamp of this character is also 

 pinched up to form the wick channel . Lamps of tliis type are much 

 older than Roman lamps, and the latter appear to have developed 

 from them. No intermediate stages clearl}^ Roman, however, have 

 been observed to make the connection. 



In Carthage there have been unearthed clay lamps representing 

 several historical periods, as Phenician, Roman, Vandal, Christian, 

 Byzantine, and Arabic. A collection of ancient lamps is in the Car- 

 thage Museum.*" 



Count Byron Khun de Prorok, exploring in Carthage for the 

 French Government, has found many specimens dating from the 

 peoples mentioned above. He concludes that some of the specimens 

 date from 800 B. C. These forms are saucers of clay bent up to form 

 a single wick spout or two wick spouts, and having a long cylindrical 

 handle, as observed in the Cesnola collection in the Metropolitan 

 Museum in New York. Lamps collected by De Prorok have the 

 borders of the saucer bent over on two sides and at the end, luted 

 and two spout holes formed. The spout holes are sometimes formed 

 into two short tubes, the unmodified border of the saucer being used 

 to grasp the lamp in lighting it.*^ 



PILE DWELLINGS 



Keller figures (pi. 31) a pottery lamp from the pile dwellings of 

 the Ueberlingen See which seems to be locally developed. It is napi- 

 form, with small, short spout and a large opening at the apex into 

 the reservoir. It is decorated with horizontal groovings inclosing a 

 band of triangular figures forming a star ray pattern.*^ 



In an ancient wreck discovered at Brozen, a village near Danzig, 

 was found "a bronze compass (gimbel or swinging) lamp 43^ inches 

 diameter, 23^ inches high, in form of a flattened bulb, with cyhndrical 

 projection downward ; a furrow on either side would point toward a 

 handle in which it was sprung. The lamp shows on top an aperture 

 oi 1]4 inches, closed by a lid; three burners within a triangle were 

 placed upon the arc." ^' The description is not clear, and it is 

 undecided whether the object is a taper holder or a iitrnp. It is an 

 earl}^ ship light in which the problem of stability was solved by 

 girabels and a base weight. No date is given for the find, but the 

 evi(.!ence that the ship was buried in sand 1,000 feet from the present 

 shore hne indicates considerable antiquity. The specimen is perhaps 

 the earliest boat light discovered. 



"H. Nicolas. TJn collection de Lampes Antiques, Rev. Tunisienne, Nos. 64, 65, July, September 

 1907. 



«i Descriptions of lamps exhibited by Count de Prorok at the U. S. National Museum in 1924. 

 ** Ferdinand Keller. Swiss Lake Dwellings, London, 1878. 



" George H. Boehmer. Prehistoric Naval Architecture of the North of Europe, Kept. U. S. Nat. 

 Mus., 1891, p. 632. From article by Von M. Bischoff in Leipziger Illustriter Zeitung, Jan. 18, 1873. 



102837—26 17 



