Pendant Shaped Terracotta Lamp with Frog and Checker Relief

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Description: 

Pendant Shaped Terracotta Lamp with Frog and Checker Relief

3rd century CE

terracotta: moldmade, fabric: dark grey to reddish brown, fine, unglazed
height 3.1 cm
length 9.3 cm
width 7.5 cm

Portland State University Middle East Studies Center
Bogue Lamp Collection, Lamp ID #22, PSU 143 (165)

 

Professor Anne Nicogorski, Willamette University, cited with permission

This pendant-shaped brown lamp has a short, pointed nozzle. The pierced fill-hole is in a deep recess, surrounded by the typical frog lamp design. The rear legs of the frog are visible and the flanks are not too highly stylized. The bottom bears a potter’s mark. Shape: Rounded, slightly heart-shaped body with flat base; short, triangular nozzle, circular smooth indentation around fill-hole. Decoration: Frog lamp. Relief decoration consisting of abstracted hind legs of frog across from nozzle; oblong patches of raised checkerboard pattern on either side of fill-hole; small stylized volutes at juncture of nozzle and body; row of raised dots along nozzle. Inscriptions: Potter's mark on bottom: "B". Condition: Complete; burning at nozzle.

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.