Lamps are among the most widely used and imaginatively conceived works in antiquity. They were made predominantly in terracotta, but many examples in bronze survive because of their durability. Artists drew inspiration from all aspects of ancient culture, from the mythological realm, illustrated by a lamp with a griffin-head handle in the Dumbarton Oaks collection (BZ.1962.15), to the natural world, reflected in this rooster lamp. Identified by its distinctive coxcomb and wattles, the head is tipped forward at an angle that is typical of this barnyard bird. The feathers on the body are chased (i.e. incised after the lamp was cast).

A hinged lid on the rooster’s back was used to fill the lamp with oil and the nozzle at the end of the tail feathers is where the wick burned. Although the lamp can stand on its own round foot, it has an interior sheath to fit onto a pricket and to be supported on a lampstand.

The rooster, or cock, is proverbially the harbinger of the new day. This connection with dawn and daylight may have been the inspiration for crafting the lamp. One mention occurs in the New Testament when Christ tells Peter that he will deny him three times before the cock crows (Matthew 26:34). It is more likely the former connection than the Biblical reference inspired the rooster of this lamp.

- S. Zwirn

Handbook of the Byzantine Collection (Washington, D.C., 1967), 33, no. 117, pl. 117.

Purchased from Fouad Alouf (dealer), Beirut, by Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C., 1964.

Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Byzantine Collection, Washington, D.C.