The popularity of the Ricci C type of wheel-made lamps in southeastern Sicily: questions and hypotheses

Abstract

At Akrai in southeastern Sicily, the University of Warsaw excavations have unearthed a huge quantity of small, wheel-made, beige-slipped lamps belonging to the Roman Republican type Ricci C. The most important conclusions from the research concern the functionality of these lamps, both as devices used for lighting in everyday life and as unused elements of votive deposits, as well as their enduring presence in southeastern Sicily when they had all but disappeared elsewhere in the Roman world. The type is a derivative of an old form and peaked in popularity in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. The last examples of this type seem to have been produced in the reign of Augustus.