The emblem on this patch is supposed to depict a lamp. What kind of lamp is this? What is it called? I’ve tried to find it online, but similar looking things (kyphos, kantharos, kylix, etc) are all described as “wine drinking vessels”.
Herodian oil lamps.
In a recent dig, they found a ‘wagon wheel’ style hanging one. Unfortunately I didn’t bookmark it, but it was about a meter in diameter, and had something like 12 or 15 little wick places.
It’s a made-up design of lamp with no clear historic analogue AFAICT, just for that particular device. It’s shaped to echo the letter psi.
The only other double-handled lamp in heraldry I know of is for the SA Nursing Council:
https://www.sanc.co.za/coat-of-arms/
In those, even ones with multiple spouts, the flame still burns at the spout ends, not the centre, unlike what’s shown in that device.
As I understood, this was because there’s no clamp to hold the wick - so it just sort of lays in the pool of oil and draws it up into the end of the wick lying on the “spout(s)”. Thus the flame hole spouts need to be at least moderately horizontal. Your standard Aladdin lamp has a handle at one end, far enough from the spout at the other end that you don’t burn your hand picking up the lamp.
In the emblem it appears the “spouts” are in the middle and the lumpy handles on each side. As others point out, that is unlikely to work without a mechanism that holds the wick(s) but does not pinch off the wicking of oil to feed the flame.
With the appearance of cheap mass produced metal wick holders a while ago, it was easier to create an oil lamp with a vertical wick. In Roman and Greek times, metal bits were expensive and not as durable.
Modern lamps may have the central flame.
Like this …Antique Brass Oil Lamp from Lempereur & Bernard for sale at Pamono
The reason the fuel tank part can be larger is that its using a wick, so it can bring the oil up some distance.
The shapes around the side are for grip, to keep the hands away from the hot part of the lamp,
for filling it with oil maybe, for or just for looks. The hands had to be kept away from the airvents too, so that might be a reason.
The reason the sticking out bits are there may be due to 6 pointer stars on the base of old Hannukah lamps … https://thejewishmuseum.org/collection/17514-sabbath-festival-lamp
Thank you all for the replies and continued discussion. Were cauldrons ever used to contain a flame and illuminate an area or entrance the way a modern olympic flame is contained? If so, could this be a similar cauldron-style lamp (if such a thing existed)?
I’m just going to repeat that this particular design is explicitly blazoned as stylized and in imitation of psi, so it’s been forced to fit that shape and isn’t an actual historic lamp shape.
I appreciate the information. It’s not so much the specific psi shape. It’s just the fact that it looks to be a large pot. I’m interested in any example of a large pot or cauldron being used as a lamp and if there is a specific name for that. The definition of cauldron is something that is placed over a fire, not something that contains a fire. If I try to search for “fire pot” or “greek fire pot” or anything similar, all I get are links to the legendary “Greek fire” weapons. I’m looking for a large pot-shaped fire holding thing. The top of the pot style “lamp” on the patch in the OP is reminiscent of the Olympic Flame vessels. These seem to be called “cauldrons”, but a search for ancient cauldrons turns up nothing. I feel like these things existed, or at least exist today in faux classical or pseudo antique style outdoor lighting. But I can’t find them. When I find information on ancient Greek pottery shapes like here, I feel that some of these shapes (specifically the top right and the very center pieces) would be more apt to holding a flame rather than wine. But no. In fact, the very center vessel looks just like the Olympic Flame cauldrons and very much like the top of the pot in the picture.
A pot that holds a flame to light up stuff. Like an outdoor fire pit, but more of a pot shape than the wok-shaped modern outdoor fire pits. And I picture it on a pedestal, like a Greek Order column pedestal.
A pot on a pedestal that holds a large flame. I guess that’s what I’m interested in.
Ah! I guess I just had to talk it out. It seems that “fire urn” or “fire bowl” is what I should have been searching for. See these examples here and here. Two perfect examples, a pair on the ground and even one on a pedestal.
Were such things used in antiquity, or would it have been too wasteful of fuel to be practical? The website suggests the Etruscans used these. If they did exist, what were they called? Thanks!
That is a great find, by the way. Apart from being so skinny, it really does resemble the “lamp” in the patch. How is it you know so much about old lamps that you were able to go straight to such a cite?
I’m going to guess they were wasteful. Fuel in general was expensive, if it was oil that had to be pressed by hand or melted down one vat at a time from something or other (captured sea creatures, fat from livestock?)
Fires had two purposes - heat and illumination. The candle-sized flame of an oil lamp wick was enough to see your way. A log burning was for heat. I’m thinking that burning a bowl of expensive oil was too much of a waste when a piece of wood served far better, less likely to spill or leak, etc.
(I think we tend forget how rare and valuable both fuel and food were in the ancient world produced by hand, when today we have mechanical means to extract such goods wholesale. Even in the 1800’s, it was cost-effective to hunt whales to the ends of the earth - and near extinction - for the amount of oil their blubber contained.)
This is cultural conditioning. To the Greeks, that central kylix shape was precisely what they were looking for in a wine vessel, both because they drank lying down and because the shape showed off the decoration the way they preferred.
Not to my knowledge. I know of no depictions of such. The closest you’ll find are depictions of the sacred Vestal Flame, but that’s a small wood fire burning on top of a low pillar, not in an urn.
Where does it do that? I see where it says “reminiscent of the Roman urns of old but features bursts of fire out the top”
I don’t know that much, I know more about heraldry. Where often people just made stuff up. And this device was made in the 60s…