Frog Style Terracotta Lamp with Checkerboard Relief

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Description: 

Frog Style Terracotta Lamp with Checkerboard Relief

2nd to 3rd century AD (?)                                        

terracotta: mold-made, Fabric: coarse buff clay. Munsell: 2.5 Y 7/3 pale yellow    
height: 3.3 cm
length: 9 cm
width: 7.7 cm

Portland State University Middle East Studies Center
Bogue Lamp Collection, Lamp ID #70, PSU 147 (169)

 

Professor Anne Nicogorski, Willamette University, cited with permission

This grey frog lamp is ovoid in body and its thick nozzle has a distinct separation. The hind legs are barely discernable and the remainder of the lamp is a checkerboard pattern. The bottom bears a potter's mark. Shape: Round bodied lamp with short extended nozzle, rounded at termination, ring base, central fill hole on top within concave discus. Decoration: Frog lamp. Tail opposite nozzle, triangular and cross-barred. Two ribs radiating from discus on either side, framing four fields of checkerboard design. Circular ridge surrounding fill hole with recessed circle at juncture of body and nozzle. Radiating from that circle are three bands of diagonal ladder pattern, one running along axis of nozzle. Inscriptions: Potter's mark on base. Condition: Intact. Surface worn, minor chips, crack on shoulder.

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.