Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (15.2003(2004))

MARINA EL-ALAMEIN

EGYPT

peeling. Lamp E 3947 is of a fine light
reddish-brown fabric with no apparent
inclusions, covered with an adhering but
patchy in color dark brown to red and
gray semi-glossy slip; the other dilychnoi,
E33 + 36, is of the same fabric but has a slip
in the red-pinks, seemingly matt and worn
off, but not peeling. Overall, the lamps
measure some 12 cm in width, the length
of the single nozzle lamp being 22.3 cm
and the height with handle 9-2 cm (the
other two are fragmenrarily preserved).
The three presently recorded lamps add
to an assemblage from Marina that already
includes five complete lamps and at least
four fragments.12) The complete lamps
come from four separate hypogeum tombs
in the central part of the necropolis.
(Recently, fragments of lamps of this kind
have surfaced in domestic contexts from
the town area.) There is circumstantial
evidence to suggest that the three lamps
here presented may have come from one of
the big underground tombs.
Lamps of this kind, which originated
in 1st century Crete and number in the
hundreds from the island, are seldom
encountered anywhere else.13) Indeed, after
Benghazi, where some 34 examples have
been reported,l4) our assemblage of eight
plus is the most extensive one. The Graeco-
Roman Museum in Alexandria apparently
holds only one example.15)

In Crete, where the lamps were pro-
duced for more than two hundred years
(from the early 1st century AD, possibly
even pre-Augustan, into the early 3rd
century, they are found in funeral and
religious contexts,16) as well as in the ob-
vious everyday-life domestic assemblages.
As H.W. Catling has noted in his study
of the type, the lamps appear to be
strikingly similar, but are rarely ever the
same. There seems to have been a wealth of
forms and series of forms in use and
retouching was very common. In our case,
the lamp illustrated on the right in Fig. 3
is actually a combination of two separate,
incompletely preserved lamps that were
definitely part of the same series. Based on
parallels from Crete they can be placed in
the late 2nd/early 3rd century AD; the
single-nozzle lamp is more likely to be
from the first half of the 2nd century.
These three pieces thus appear to be the
latest in the Marina assemblage of this type
of lamp, the earliest piece of which may be
even from the mid-1st century. While
a detailed discussion of the group is being
prepared for publication elsewhere, it
should be pointed out that the presence of
these lamps in Marina in funerary contexts
covering a span of more than 150 years
indicates some form of strong personal ties
of the owners of these objects with Crete.
Considering the amount of Cretan

12) Cf. e.g. PAM IX, Reports 1997 (1998), Fig. 4, p. 69- An article on the Cretan ivy-leaf lamps from Marina will be
published separately by the present author.
13) For a synthesis of the available evidence, cf. H.W. and E.A. Catling, “The Lamps”, in Knossos. From Greek City to
Roman Colony, Excavations of the Unexplored Mansion II, ed. L.H. Sackett (British School of Archaeology at Athens: Thames
and Hudson 1992), 257-322, pis. 224-274.
14) D.M. Bailey, Excavations at Sidi Khrebish, Benghazi (Berenice), vol. Ill, Part 2: The Lamps (Tripoli 1985), 4-5, pi. I
(cat. nos. C 7 to C 18).
15) A big dilychnoi that used to be on display in the exhibition rooms (pers. comm, of Mrs. Camelia Georges, Director of
Registration at the Graeco-Roman Museum, to whom I am grateful for her kind assistance).
16) Tombs, notably Heraklion and Ayia Theka & Matalo; sanctuary of Demeter at Knossos, sanctuary in Eleutherna, at
Kommos and in the Agiasmati Cave sanctuary; finally, from the excavations of the Unexplored Mansion in Knossos (Hayes),
cf. Catling, op. cit., esp. 259-260 for a discussion of the distribution and bibliography.

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