322 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



T'ig. 2 is taken from "The Mycensean Age," by Messrs. Tsountas & 

 Manatt, who, on pages 79 and 80 of their book, describe it as a stone 

 lamp. They say : — "We are now in a position [1895] to maintain that 

 the Mycenseans were not strangers to lamp-light, and that we have 

 actually found lamps in their chamber-tombs. Then follows a 

 description of a flat, ornamented stone lamp, with a note that other 

 like vessels have been found, all very shallow, and three of them 

 are mounted on a standard some 20 inches high. One of these last is 

 fig. 2 of our plate. 



The argument is then summed up : — " The general form, the 

 shallowness of the bowl, the number of mouths, the height of the 

 standard, and the peculiar handles, go to show they were neither 

 ordinary receptacles nor torch-holders. We take them for lamps, in 

 which oil or fat, more probably the latter, was burnt, thus affording a 

 steadier and safer light than the fitful fire or the flickering torch." 



The number of mouths must refer to the other lamps mentioned, 

 as there are no mouths shown in the illustration of the lamp mounted 

 on the standard. 



Again, in Plate XXI., compare fig. 1 with fig. 3. Eig. 3 represents 

 an altar candlestick of stone, figured in the Ulster Journal of Arch- 

 aeology," vol. vii., p. 72. It was discovered inside the ancient Cathecbal 

 of Armagh ; the date of this object is supposed to be the twelfth or 

 thirteenth century, from the style of ornament. 



Its height is inches, and diameter at top 3j inches. 



Surely, the same idea is present here ; and the maker of this stone 

 candlestick had the stone lamp, formerly used, in his mind. 



The next illustration on the plate, fig. 4, is 6^ inches high, 4 inches 

 in diameter at the top, and has a small cavity, not quite an inch deep, 

 at the top end. It has a small cover, which has been called a paten, 

 fig. 4b. This vessel comes from the Blasket Islands. Miss M. Stokes 

 mentions it in her " Early Christian Art in Ireland," p. 69, as 

 follows: — "One example [of a chalice], now preserved in the 

 Museum of the lloyal Irish Academy, is as rude and archaic as the 

 primitive cell in the monastery on the Blasket Islands, from which it 

 was taken." In this connexion, I would point out that the fact of 

 this vessel being taken from the Blasket Island monastery cell does 

 not help towards the chalice theory; for though every hermit was not 

 of necessity a priest, and therefore able to use a chalice, probably 

 most hermits would have a lamp. It must also be remembered that 

 on the rude open-air altars erected on the west coast for stations, it is 

 the custom to place any remarkable stone found in the locality, and 



