General Information

The Gerasa “Ray pattern” mold-made lamp is a locally manufactured version of a common type produced widely across the southern Levant in the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE. The Gerasa lamps share with others of this type an elongated nozzle, low, compact body with a simple ray pattern around the filling hole, and no handle. The Gerasa lamps have two different nozzle styles: a rounded nozzle with two horizontal grooves just above the wick opening; and a spatulated nozzle with an upside-down Y-shaped groove down the middle and framing the wick opening.

Finds from stratified deposits at Jerash indicate that production began in the later 2nd century BCE and continued through the 1st c. BCE, which conforms with the chronology of this type found at other sites in the wider region. Yet at Gerasa/Jerash, it seems that potters on occasion made this type of lamp for at least a century after production ceased elsewhere. Finds of complete lamps from deposits of the 1st and early 2nd centuries CE indicate that potters re-used molds, and sometimes apparently created new molds from earlier lamps, a practice suggested by the smaller size and/or very worn rim pattern (Ostrasz and Kehrberg-Ostrasz 2020, pp. 359-60).

Jerash/Gerasa (Jordan/Northern Highlands)