Pear Shaped Terracotta Lamp with Bes Relief

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Description: 

Pear Shaped Terracotta Lamp with Bes Relief

terracotta: mold-made, fabric: fine with inclusions. Munsell: 10 YR 6/4 light yellowish brown
height 3.1 cm
length 7.3 cm
width 6.3 cm

Portland State University Middle East Studies Center
Bogue Lamp Collection, Lamp ID #282, 093 (119)

 

Professor Anne Nicogorski, Willamette University, cited with permission

This brown fictile lamp is of a shortened almond shape. The fill hole is pierced well to the rear of the lamp. The face of the god Bes is shown facing the rear of the lamp. Shape: Pear-shaped lamp with flat base; carinated body profile; off-center fill hole; small wick hole at pointed end. Decoration: Relief decoration on top consisting of frontal face between fill hole and wick hole, wearing small ridge polos; oriented with top of head near wick hole, chin near fill hole; loops on either side of head (ears?); grotesque face; pair of curved horizontal ridges at base, on either side of fill hole. Inscriptions: Potter's mark on bottom (alpha). Condition: Intact; very burnt; worn; minor surface chips.

Protocol: 
Portland State University Middle East Studies Center - Public Access
Community: 
Portland State University Middle East Studies Center
Category: 
Ceramics, Utilitarian Objects
Keywords: 
Lamp
Rights: 
Image reproduced with permission from Portland State University Middle East Studies Center. The institutions that house the specific Medieval Portland objects ultimately hold the rights to their image and reproduction; the images are provided here as a courtesy by those institutions and are for non-profit, educational use only.