Pendant Shaped Terracotta Lamp with Frog and Animal Head Relief

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Description: 

Pendant Shaped Terracotta Lamp with Frog and Animal Head Relief

terracotta: moldmade
height 3.5 cm
length 9.9 cm
width 7.7 cm

Portland State University Middle East Studies Center
Bogue Lamp Collection, Lamp ID #207, PSU 144 (166)

 

Professor Anne Nicogorski, Willamette University, cited with permission

This red, fictile lamp is pendant-shaped and has a short, thick, pointed nozzle. It is a frog lamp and as such bears the relief of a frog's rear legs. The flanks are stylized to a point where they resemble a checkered field. Shape: Heart shaped lamp with flat base outlined by a shallow groove; rounded body profile; long extended nozzle, triangular and slightly rounded at the tip; central fill hole in small concave discus. Decoration:  Frog lamp. Relief decoration on top consisting of frog's rear legs and rectangular tail opposite nozzle; two patches of rows of raised squares on either side, representing body of frog; short band of ladder pattern on nozzle axis with small rounded frontal animal head with small ears at juncture of nozzle and body; volutes on either side of nozzle. Inscriptions: None. Condition: Intact; crack on underside of nozzle; small trace of burning on underside of nozzle; otherwise overall good.

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.