There is a mark to the base of the Oil lamp, a letter 'J' ( for sure) and perhaps another mark 'T P' or maybe 'E T P' then is fades away.
There was no letter 'J' as such in ancient Latin though a swash 'I' sometimes looked similar. Since
lamps were mass-produced by a relatively small number of workshops, the names of makers tend to recur over and over again and the name on your
lamp, even if incomplete or partially indiscernible, is likely to be identified if compared to a clearer example of the name on another
lamp. I could suggest that you post a close-up pic of the mark on your
lamp but since all my reference works are inaccessible at present I may not be able to
help much until I have access again.
I also notice that this oil lamp is in extraordinary condition compared to some of the example I have seen. Why would this be??
What
lamps are you comparing it to? Are they from the same region and the same period? It would be pointless to compare it with anything else. The condition of your
lamp is not particularly "extraordinary" but is fairly typical for an
intact lamp of its
specific type.
Please note the enormous variety of
lamps on my website:
http://www.romulus2.com/lamps/index.shtmlI wonder if you are confusing "condition" with "
quality"?
Italian lamps of this period tend to be of higher
quality than many
provincial lamps of the same period or later. They tend to be more carefully crafted of finer materials and with much higher definition.
It is by no means an invariable rule but very often 1st-century
lamps made in
Italy do tend to be of higher
quality than those made in many of the provinces ...
An
Italian lamp of the 1st century AD:
http://www.romulus2.com/lamps/database/lamp.php?134A
provincial lamp of the 1st - 2nd century AD:
http://www.romulus2.com/lamps/database/lamp.php?42... it is in such amazing condition considering all it has seen through the ages.
No, not really. It may seem harshly unromantic but it's worth bearing in mind that it probably hasn't "seen" anything at all during most of time it has spent through the ages. It's been buried underground.
Antiquities are not like antiques. Antiques get handed down from one generation to another and during that time they have been handled by untold numbers of people. It is the exposure to air, light, dust and pollutants, and the surface wear and grease caused by human handling that leaves an object looking 'old' in the conventional sense.
Antiquities, like this
lamp, on the other hand have been safely, almost clinically, buried under the ground for most of their existence and during that time they have not been handled by anyone at all.
While artefacts of organic material, such as
wood or cloth, survive only under certain conditions, and other materials, such as some metals, can corrode;
pottery is amazingly resilient.
Pottery can get smashed to smithereens of course but
intact smaller items, particularly those found in tombs, are not uncommon. And since the artefact has not been touched or handled for hundreds or thousands of years, it can sometimes look startlingly fresh, clean and pristine when excavated.
