3. What is written on the oil lamps?
Answers
Answer:
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Sources of fuel for oil lamps include a wide variety of plants such as nuts (walnuts, almonds, and kukui) and seeds (sesame, olive, castor, or flax). Also widely used were animal fats (butter, ghee, fish oil, shark liver, whale blubber, or seal). Camphine, a blend of turpentine and ethanol, was the first "burning fluid" fuel for lamps after whale oil supplies were depleted. It was replaced by kerosene after the US Congress enacted excise taxes on alcohol to pay for the American Civil War.
Most modern lamps (such as fueled lanterns) have been replaced by gas-based or petroleum-based fuels to operate when emergency non-electric light is required. Therefore, oil lamps of today are primarily used for the particular ambience they produce.
Contents
1 Components
2 Types
3 In religious contexts
3.1 Judaism
3.2 Christianity
3.3 Hinduism
3.4 Chinese
4 History
4.1 Chalcolithic Age (4500–3300 BC)
4.2 Bronze Age (3200–1200 BC)
4.3 Iron Age (1200–560 BC)
4.4 Arctic
4.5 Persian
4.6 Greek
4.7 Chinese
4.8 Early Roman
4.9 Late Roman
4.10 Early Christian and late antique
4.11 Byzantine
4.12 Early Islamic
4.13 Industrial age
5 Regional variations
5.1 Israel and Palestinian territories
5.2 India
6 Tax
7 See also
8 References
9 Further reading
10 External links
Components
Double-nozzled terracotta oil lamp found in Samaria
The following are the main external parts of a terra-cotta lamp:
Shoulder
Pouring hole
The hole through which fuel is put inside the fuel chamber. The width generally ranges from 0.5–5 cm (0.20–1.97 in) in general. There may be one hole or multiple holes.
Wick hole and the nozzle
May be either an opening in the body of the lamp or an elongated nozzle. In some specific types of lamps, there is a groove on the top of the nozzle that runs along to the pouring hole to re-collect the oozing oil from the wick.
Handle
Lamps can come with a handle. The handle can come in different shapes. The most common is a ring-shaped for the forefinger surmounted by a palmette, on which the thumb is pressed to stabilize the lamp. Other handles can be crescent-shaped, triangular, or oval-shaped. The handleless lamps usually have an elongated nozzle, and sometimes have a lug rising diagonally from the periphery. The lug may act as a small handle where the thumb rests. Some lugs are pierced. It was speculated that pierced lugs were used to place a pen or straw, called the Latin: acus or festuca, with which the wick was trimmed. Others think that the pierced lugs were used to hang the lamp on a metal hook when not in use.[citation needed]
Discus
Fuel chamber
The fuel reservoir. The mean volume in a typical terra-cotta lamp is 20 cc (20 mL).[citation needed]
Types
Lamps can be categorized based on different criteria, including material (clay, silver, bronze, gold, stone, slip), shape, structure, design, and imagery (e.g. symbolic, religious, mythological, erotic, battles, hunting).
Typologically, lamps of the Ancient Mediterranean can be divided into seven major categories:
Wheel-made
This category includes Greek and Egyptian lamps that date before the 3rd century BC. They are characterized by simplicity, with little or no decoration, a wide pour-hole, a lack of handles, and a pierced or unpierced lug. Pierced