Lamp with a Rag Wick

Lamp with a Rag Wick

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This lamp has the remains of the linen rags that were soaked in flammable oil and lit. It was found in a pit dug into the Sankhare Temple site at Thebes. The pit had been used and reused from the Second Intermediate Period onward, with the final and only intact burial being that of Itamun (26.3.1a,b), which dates to Dynasty 21. The lamp might date either to workers at his burial or to those who had moved and removed burials over the long preceding period.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.