A well-made orange terracotta oil lamp, decorated with a dotted register around the filling hole and a lily on the nozzle.
Circa: 1st-2nd century AD.
Very Fine condition, complete and intact; the underside with a layer of stoney accretion.
Length 8.8 cms (3.5 ins)
Ex Judge Steve Adler coll., Jerusalem
Exported with export approval licence of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
For similar, see items 325, 326, 331: Oil Lamps of the Holy Land from the Adler Collection: Noam Adler.
The use of such symbols testifies that these lamps were manufactured and used by the Jews. The "Darom", style gets its name from the lowland and desert region of Daroma in Judea. They were found predominantly in caves in the Judean desert and date from the specific short period between the Jewish war and the Bar Kochba revolt (Ca. 70 - 150 A.D). The clay is usually fine and the lamps have very thin sides, especially in the lamps found in the Judean area). Apparently displaced skilled stoneworkers, who retreated to this region after the first Jewish revolt, began making these lamps in stone moulds.