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Photo: These lamps were mass-produced in Roman times and they carried brand names clearly stamped on their clay bottoms.

Italian archaeologists have unearthed a pottery center where oil lamps were mass-produced. Theses oil lamps probably were used to bring light to many homes and cities in ancient Rome. The pottery workshop was discovered Modena, a city in central-northern Italy, during construction work to build a residential complex near the ancient walls of the city.

Donato Labate, the archaeologist in charge of the excavation said: “We found a large ancient Roman dumping filled with pottery scraps. There were vases, bottles, bricks, but most of all, hundreds of oil lamps, each bearing their maker’s name.”

The photo above shows some of the mass-produced oil lamps which carried brand names clearly stamped on their clay bottoms.

Read the news story by clicking here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, Oil Lamps

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