Oil Lamp

This lamp, very similar in form and use to a Roman lamp also in the collection, is known a "slipper lamp" because of its shape, but it carries a specifically Christian iconography. Scholars have interpreted the motif linking the two openings in various ways—as palm branches, a tree of life, or as a menorah in a period when Christianity readily appropriated Jewish symbols. Such lamps were sold to pilgrims in Jerusalem as eulogiai (a broad term referring to objects that carried a blessing) and were brought back as symbolic reminders of the pilgrimage. Many such lamps were inscribed with Christian phrases, including "The Light of Christ Shines for All."

In Christian iconography, light, knowledge, spiritual illumination, and reading are deeply interconnected. This lamp appears to have been used, literally fulfilling its symbolic function of providing light to the pilgrim. Normally, the inscriptions add to this message by fitting the lamps directly into a Christian context. On this lamp, however, the inscription is made up of pseudo-Greek characters arranged in a plausibly symmetric pattern. For an illiterate audience, however, the symbolic message of these "nonsense" inscriptions remained intact. The writing became part of the image, allowing the lamp to convey an overall meaning.