Lamp

ID:

BGH95[522]<426>

Production date:

Roman; AD 50-60

Location:

In Store

Oil-burning ceramic lamp in the form of a right foot wearing a thonged sandal. The sole copies the regular hobnail pattern of an actual shoe. A wick would have been inserted in the hole in the big toe. The soot around it shows that the lamp had been used before it was thrown away.  < ...Read more

Oil-burning ceramic lamp in the form of a right foot wearing a thonged sandal. The sole copies the regular hobnail pattern of an actual shoe. A wick would have been inserted in the hole in the big toe. The soot around it shows that the lamp had been used before it was thrown away.

The lamp was discovered during excavations in 1995 at London Bridge Underground Station ticket hall in Southwark. It was found in rubbish dumped between buildings destroyed by fire during the Boudican revolt in AD60.

This novelty lamp, a rare find from Roman Britain, shows a style of shoe fashionable in the more northern provinces of the Roman Empire. It was probably made in the Netherlands and shows the variety of imported goods coming into Roman London very soon after the start of the town in about AD50. < Hide

Measurements

L 106 mm; W 40 mm; H 48 mm (overall)

Materials

ceramic

Last Updated

2024-03-18