AN EARLY JEWISH TERRACOTTA OIL LAMP LIKELY FOR THE FESTIVAL OF HANNUKAH

BYZANTINE PERIOD, CIRCA 5TH-6TH CENTURY A.D.

Details

AN EARLY JEWISH TERRACOTTA OIL LAMP LIKELY FOR THE FESTIVAL OF HANNUKAH
BYZANTINE PERIOD, CIRCA 5TH-6TH CENTURY A.D.
Bell shaped with eight wick holes along the flat nozzle, a large fill hole at the center, molded along the upper surface with linear decoration, including vertical lines, chevrons and hatching, the area around the fill hole decorated near the nozzle with three rosettes, one with diagonal lines, one spoked, and one with spiralling rays, a lulav on a tripod base on either side of the fill hole, a nine-branched Hannukah menorah on a tripod base near the handle, with an inverted Greek inscription below the arms reading, "IAW \KQ\k BOH," an abbreviated invocation that can be translated as, "Yahweh, God save us"
5¼ in. (13.3 cm.) long

Provenance

Geneva Collection of Ancient Jewish Art, collected 1960s-1980s.
Israeli Private Collection, acquired in the 1990s.

Lot Essay

The appearance of such an invocation is virtually unprecedented on an overtly Jewish object. There is a Greek inscription on a Samaritan oil lamp of the same period, in similar script, that reads, "EIC \KQ\kEOC," or "one god" (see Sussman, "EIC \KQ\kEOC, 'One God'" in Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society, vol. 12). Other related inscriptions are known on contemporary amulets and talismans. See, for example, no. 176ff. in Jewish, Early Christian and Byzantine Antiquities, L. Alexander Wolf and Frank Sternberg, Auction XXIII, 20 November 1989, for bronze pendants with Solomon spearing Lilith and other motifs with related Greek inscriptions.

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