Grease Lamp
Mobile lighting
Lascaux type, Dordogne
Beginning of the Magdalenian
Around 21 000 years
Exceptional lamps, sometimes found in painted caves such as Lascaux and La Mouthe, were often decorated with abstract motifs or animal representations
R. White, L’art Préhistorique dans le monde. Editions de la Martinière, Paris.1993
Commentary :
During the Upper Palaeolithic, grease lamps are made from stones that are sufficiently compact, to hold melted fat, and hard enough to resist high temperatures. Some are equipped with a handle, to allow them to be held, and transported.
For lighting, moving about, and working in the dark, grease lamps are more economic and less cumbersome than simple plant torches.
The ease with which they can be refilled with combustive material, insures a stable light source for many hours.
This new method of lighting, which emerged at the same time as parietal art, marks the definitive conquest of darkness, and the underground world.
