Mask Lamp

Mask Lamp

Terracotta

Terracotta, no slip. Base missing, lamp top heavily restored. Only upper half of handle exits. Badly restored on cracks running from the handle down centre of face to open mouth, from right side of mouth diagonally across to lower left side of beard, and across hair and forehead. Grey slip covers lower half of mask, most of right side of mask and on left cheek. Slip and white adhesive show through cracks on top area of mask and underside of mask. Plain, lug form handle has two grooves running over chipped top. Lamp top represents a bearded comic's mask, oval in shape. Mask's facial features: hair, beard, eyes and mouth with protruding tongue, are simply rendered and in relief. Pointed beard and hair around face act as the lamp's rim, merging into handle at the top of mask head. Open mouth, elongated in form, acts as a filling hole while the roughly formed hole in lower part of the pointed beard is the wick hole.

Function:
Probably used for either funerary or votive purposes.

Roman

Gift of Mrs B Fletcher, Brisbane, 1983.

AD 1 - 100

18 mm x 59 mm

83.095