A tool is definitely an important part of a culture.
On the other hand, if i make a tool and someone anywhere is still caring for it hundreds of years later, that would please me. I mean, if i knew retroactively.
We have a very strong heritage of our own in colonising other cultures and dismissing things that were very important or even sacred to them as ‘trinkets’, interesting art and handicrafts and souvenirs, or objects of scientific curiosity only, such as you granny’s skull, which we can take back to the British Museum so we can measure it. Cultural heritage includes both those things that had contemporary cultural value and things that NOW are seen as important because of what they represent about cultural and ethnic identity, survival and memory.
Lushka1953 speaks well about how the present people of his village look to these 2000 year old objects as being part of their own story. They don’t need more lamps in their homes, let alone clay ones, but in what is perhaps one of the more volatile bits of the Mediterranean, where people are regularly dispossessed of land and moved on, objects like these help cement the idea of ownership, connection to country and continuity.
A further thought on taking these lamps home - definitely establish a paper- or email-trail before you go and take copies of it with you, with a clear statement from the museum that they want to accept them or at least examine them as donations or gifts. You do not want to be in a bag check going in or out of any country with undocumented antiquities, or implication of making money from them. Posting is probably a cleaner process.
Definitely. Not everything is just a trinket. But some things are.
Asking the people where it came from if they want it is definitely the right thing to do, especially if there’s a cultural preservation society or the like. But it’s possible that their answer will be that they don’t care about it.
Problem with basic olive oil lamps, unless they have some spectacular difference, they were made by the millions [probably an exaggeration, but they were ubiquitous and disposeably cheap clay] I mean, I used to follow an antiquities auction site back in the early 2000s and any given month they had a hundred or so more or less identical lamps up - ranging from really lovely condition to some that looked like they got drop kicked across a room.
Rarity and value may well be connected some of the time, either strongly or loosely. An item could be rare, but still have no bidders who are going to get into a fierce bidding war to win the item.
Exactly, while I might chose to bid upon a boring plain one of a million identical oil lamps, I would be doing t for a specific reason [fabricating and making exact copies for historical reenactment use] I doubt I would be interested in bidding upon that funky pornographic lamp that was popular for cute pix [tee hee, look at what those frisky Romans did] because I wouldn’t have a need for it and it is not something I would be interesting in collecting. [I have an insane knowledge about certain bits of art glass, but through exposure, my mom was an antiques pusher while I was growing up and I helped her with her crap]
Update (as promised):
The lawyer doubts that there will be legal issues. If there are, he can help with them. He has recommended that I contact the mayor of the village, who will probably contact the country’s deputy minister, an archaeologist, and also from our village. I may end up at the consulate in DC.
This continues to be an adventure! I will update accordingly.
I remember they used to sell them (along with other artifacts) in magazine ads.
They still sell them on eBay. Very common item.
That is the gallery =)
Never bought anything, but loved the items. [it was a fairly broke period in my life]
Plan B 
You can always send it anonymously to the embassy of the country together with a written note that explains the whole thing.
That’s basically dropping the problem on their desk and they will most likely have to push it Upstream in the administrative line of command.
I wouldn’t do that. That might very well end up with the artifact losing its connection to the village it came from, or possibly even being discarded. I just don’t think that’s something embassies deal with, and if it came from a non-citizen i don’t know if they’d feel like they owed it to anyone to do anything with the lamp.
@Lushka1953 . Just popping into say this is very good of you.
Time for an update:
I have been in contact with the mayor of the village. They have established a museum in town which reflects the “old ways” of the village, and would love to add these to their collection. In turn, she has been in contact with the country’s deputy minister who is herself an archaeologist and whose grandparents are also from this village. I have been assured that there will be no legal ramifications for me.
I have contacted the NC Museum of Art which has a large collection of antiquities, asking for their advice on safe packaging and shipping. I hope that the deputy minister can assist with this also.
I will provide you all with an update as this moves along.
That sounds great!
I just saw this thread - very cool.
Looking forward to seeing more updates.
Happy to hear that things are progressing satisfactorily
Great job
This is really cool.