Roman Oil Lamps Workbook

What was in a Roman lamp?

Analysis of material left inside late Roman lamps found predominantly olive oil, together with traces of animal fat. This is chemical evidence from particular lamps, not a rule that every lamp everywhere used the same fuel.

Kimpe, Jacobs, and Waelkens, “Analysis of oil used in late Roman oil lamps”

One object can have several lives

A study of a Roman bronze lamp combined comparison of its shape and type, analysis of the metal, chemical analysis of oily material left inside it, carbon measurements that can help identify plant or animal sources, and radiocarbon dating (using a very sensitive method for measuring carbon). The lamp’s manufacture, use, later reuse, and burial did not necessarily occur at the same time or place.

Oras et al., “Archaeological science and object biography”

Smoke and decoration

Vitruvius advises against delicate decoration in rooms used for winter dining because it is damaged by fire smoke and “constant soot from the lamps.” This is valuable evidence for an ancient concern, but it is an architect’s recommendation rather than a measurement of every Roman room.

Vitruvius, On Architecture 7.4.4

Lamp smoke, particles, and health

Modern studies of simple kerosene wick lamps measure substantial amounts of fine particulate matter—very small airborne particles—and black carbon, a soot-like material. These results show what poorly ventilated lamp smoke can do, but they do not directly measure Roman olive-oil lamps. Use them as an analogy and state the limitation.

Apple et al., “Characterization of particulate matter … from kerosene and diesel lamps”

How many lamps, and where?

Recent work on rooms inside Roman buildings combines the places where lamp fragments were found, room plans, doors and windows, and what artificial light may have looked and felt like. Finds can suggest where light was needed, but a fragment count does not automatically tell us how many lamps were burning at the same time.

Hielscher et al., “Exploring past visual experiences”

From olive grove to city lamp

Oil required more than an olive tree: people harvested the fruit, crushed and pressed it, and separated the oil from the watery liquid. Emlyn Dodd’s recent study of Italy describes production ranging from simple rural installations to farms and large villas. Small-scale production was possible, but access to trees, labour, and equipment mattered. Living in a village did not automatically mean producing all your own oil.

Cities could draw on surrounding farms and distant producing regions. Rome imported large quantities from Baetica, in what is now southern Spain. Oil travelled in amphorae, large pottery transport jars. At Monte Testaccio, near Rome’s river port and warehouses, discarded containers accumulated into a hill. Stamps and painted labels preserve information about producers, exporters, contents, checks, and dates. These fragments let researchers trace supply on a scale that a single lamp cannot reveal.

Think of the work between grove and household: harvesting, processing, making containers, shipping, unloading, storing, and selling. Oil also served food preparation, body care, and other purposes; lower-quality oil could be used for lighting. Imported quantities therefore cannot simply be counted as lamp fuel. Owning a lamp still meant finding a continuing supply of fuel, and abundant imports do not tell us what every poor household could afford.

Consider: how might access to oil differ between a farming household and a poor city resident? How could price or a disrupted supply affect the number of lamps lit and the hours of light available? What evidence about prices, earnings, shops, or household spending would help you investigate?

Emlyn Dodd, “The Archaeology of Olive Oil Production in Roman and Pre-Roman Italy,” American Journal of Archaeology 130.1 (2026); Jarrett A. Lobell, “Trash Talk,” Archaeology (2009). Published by the Archaeological Institute of America, Lobell’s illustrated magazine account introduces Monte Testaccio through a visit to the excavations and interviews with researchers. It is an accessible introduction in English, rather than a peer-reviewed excavation report.

Investigating the smells of Roman life

Olfactory archaeology means studying smells in the past. Researchers combine chemical traces, objects and their findspots, written accounts, and experiments. Identifying an ingredient does not recover the exact smell of a whole room, or tell us whether its occupants liked it. Introduction to this research from the Max Planck Institute, discussing Huber and colleagues’ 2022 study.

Does a lamp smell the same throughout its use?

Writing in the first century BCE, Lucretius describes the sharp, unpleasant smell of a lamp just extinguished. His poem connects this smell with an ancient explanation of illness; that explanation is not a modern medical finding. The passage records a sensory experience familiar enough to use as an example, but supplies neither the fuel’s identity nor a measurement of the air.

Consider: would evidence about putting out a lamp also describe a lamp burning steadily?

Lucretius, On the Nature of Things 6.791–794, translated by William Ellery Leonard.

Fragrance at a household shrine

A 2026 study examined burnt material in two incense burners from Pompeii and a nearby villa, buried in the eruption of 79 CE. In the burner from a household shrine at Boscoreale, chemical traces indicated a fragrant tree resin, probably elemi. The researchers also identified signs that the resin had been heated. Uncertain histories of storage and handling require caution about some other traces.

This supports the presence of fragrant burning in domestic worship. It does not establish that scented oil fuelled a lamp, how often incense was burnt, or how strongly it scented surrounding rooms.

Consider: how might the location of the shrine and nearby openings affect who experienced its smell?

Eber and colleagues, “Ashes from Pompeii: incense burners, residue analyses and domestic cult practices” (2026).

Scented oil: what does the container tell us?

A sealed crystal container from a first-century CE Roman tomb at Carmona, Spain, preserved material analysed in 2023. Researchers identified vegetable oil and compounds suggesting patchouli, an aromatic plant. The exact vegetable oil could not be securely identified. This is evidence for an oil-based perfume placed in a burial; the vessel was not a lamp.

Consider: what additional evidence would connect such a perfume with lighting in a home? Does one costly container tell us what most households could obtain?

Cosano and colleagues, “Archaeometric Identification of a Perfume from Roman Times” (2023).

Perfumed oil used for lighting

The Book of Pontiffs, compiled in the sixth century CE, describes nard oil—a fragrant plant-based preparation—burning in lighting fixtures at Rome’s Lateran church. It attributes these gifts to the fourth-century emperor Constantine. Here a text explicitly connects scented oil with lighting, but the account was compiled later than the gifts it describes, and its historical reliability needs examination.

Consider: what can this account establish about scented lighting? What further evidence would you need to extend the claim to an ordinary home in first-century Pompeii?

Book of Pontiffs, Life of Sylvester, translated by Louise Ropes Loomis, printed p. 49 (PDF); Béatrice Caseau, “Incense and Fragrances: from House to Church,” pp. 87–89 (PDF).

Aeneas: an older story, a later Roman epic

Aeneas is a Trojan hero. In the familiar escape scene, he carries his father Anchises and leads his son Ascanius away from Troy. Virgil did not invent the story of his father’s rescue: a Greek painted vase in the British Museum, dated about 490–480 BCE, already depicts Aeneas carrying Anchises, centuries before Virgil wrote.

This shows that the episode was known earlier; it does not mean that every detail of the later Roman story was already present. We will return to Aeneas and Virgil’s Aeneid fully in our later class on the Age of Augustus.

Consider: what can an image establish about the age of a story, and what can it establish about whether the events happened?

The same scene on ancient lamps

Two museum collections catalogue Roman lamps showing Aeneas carrying Anchises and leading Ascanius. These are ancient examples of the scene, rather than modern souvenirs:

• Australian National University Classics Museum, 2012.09: approximately second–third century CE; purchased in Syria. A place of purchase is not necessarily a documented excavation site.
• British Museum, 1978,0603.1: approximately 25–75 CE. Its record supplies a description, date, acquisition history, and scholarly catalogue reference.

Compare: which details recur, and which differ from Lamp 1? A similar image alone cannot date an object or prove that it is ancient. These two lamps also postdate Virgil: they show the story’s later circulation, not its earliest appearance.

Check the claim: The Archaeologist’s article about a lamp reported from Tenea asks what it “proves” about the city’s connection with Troy. This is a popular web article, not a peer-reviewed excavation report. Treat it as a lead: seek the excavators’ publication, the lamp’s date and find context, and peer-reviewed scholarship—research assessed by other specialists before publication. Check the evidence and argument as well as the publication’s credentials. A Trojan image cannot by itself prove Trojan ancestry.

The ANU bibliography provides a route into scholarship: Josephine Shaya, “The Public Life of Monuments,” American Journal of Archaeology 117 (2013), 83–110. This concerns Augustan monuments and their reception, not the Tenea excavation. Museum catalogues, excavation reports, and journal articles serve different purposes. Popular web summaries can help locate research, but cannot replace checking it.

Taking Rome home: the Grand Tour

The Grand Tour was an extended educational journey through Europe, especially Italy, popular among wealthy travellers in the eighteenth century. Many arrived with an education in Greek and Latin literature and collected souvenirs. The Metropolitan Museum’s account of the Grand Tour explains this connection between education, travel, and collecting.

Travellers bought both antiquities and recognizable modern copies. The Ashmolean’s Britain and Italy gallery includes bronze and plaster reproductions and portable, book-shaped collections of impressions from engraved gems. Copies could be valued as copies. Other objects deceived buyers: a lamp bought in Rome in 1872, now in Toledo, was believed to be early Christian but is now identified as a nineteenth-century forgery made for this market.

Literature also shaped destinations. The site known as Virgil’s tomb near Naples attracted visitors and appears in Joseph Wright’s 1779 painting. A souvenir could connect travel with stories already encountered in books.

Consider: why might a reader of Virgil’s Aeneid want a recognizable myth on a souvenir? What might displaying it communicate about its owner? Would its appeal depend on being ancient?

These examples establish a market for copies and imitations. Connecting Lamp 1 specifically to a Grand Tourist remains a hypothesis requiring evidence of its manufacture and ownership. A reproduction is not necessarily a forgery: deception depends on how it was presented or sold.