Literature

Glass lamps were first mass-produced early in the 4th century AD. Most were conical in shape and quite large: they could hold far more oil that the traditional pottery lamp of those times, and so burn far longer. They also shed as much as 60% more light, if the wick was well-tended. The lamp is of a form common in Byzantine Israel. Such lamps were inserted into bronze polycandela (chandeliers) which were a lighting fixtures consisting of a metal ring with apertures to hold cone-shaped lamps, suspended by three chains. They were often decorated with crosses for use in churches. For similar see D. Whitehouse, Roman Glass in the Corning Museum of Glass, volume I, Corning: New York, 1997, pp. 194-6, nos. 340, 342; p. 360.