Ancient Iron Oil Lamp, Burkina Faso

West Africa lies well within the tropics. Days and nights are of equal length. Since the dawn of culture West Africans spent half their life in darkness alleviated at times by an open door, the moon, firelight and lamps. Iron is the ideal medium for an oil lamp. It has long been readily available in West Africa from local smelters and appreciated for its durability, malleability and resistance to heat and flame. This lamp (12in.) displays the head of horned animal. It seems to be missing a horn; however, upon closer inspection, the single horn seems to be coming out of the center of the animals head, which implies it was intentionally made this way. The bowl has a small chip in the rim but is otherwise undamaged. The askew, unicorn-like horn is this lamps defining feature and would make it an illuminating piece among any collection.

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