Lamps from Tharros in the British Museum

Abstract

The necropolis of the city of Tharros in Sardinia has been extremely prolific in tomb furniture, and many lamps have been found there. Over forty lamps from this site are in the collections of the British Museum. All were acquired at the same time, and most of them were said to be from tomb groups. The groups containing lamps are Tombs 1–10, 12, 16, 18–19, 22, 26, 30–31, 33, 60–63, 65–71 (the tomb numbers for the whole collection run from 1–33, 50–57, 60–63, and 65–71; there are thus several gaps in the sequence).The great majority of the British Museum lamps from Tharros are of Athenian manufacture and with the recent publication of Howland's book on lamps from the Agora these can be dated very accurately. But unfortunately such is the indeterminate nature of the tomb groups themselves that these lamps cannot be used to date the objects said to have been found with them. As will be seen in the brief descriptions given below in the Catalogue, many of the objects found in a given tomb are in almost impossibe chronological juxtaposition to one another, and few tomb groups, if any, can be regarded as homogeneous (except perhaps the Roman tombs 50–57 with glass cinerary urns and brittleware pottery, which, being lampless, do not concern us here). But looking at the objects from the tomb groups with lamps as a whole, one might put forward the following remarks.