Lamp Handle with Dolphins
Dublin Core
Title
Lamp Handle with Dolphins
Subject
a. Early Byzantine c. 4th-5th century
b. 21.9 x 10.7 x 2.9 cm, copper alloy
c. Metropolitan Museum of Art 63.185.1
b. 21.9 x 10.7 x 2.9 cm, copper alloy
c. Metropolitan Museum of Art 63.185.1
Description
A pair of dolphins use their tails to support the handle’s rectangular plaque. Their heads would have been attached to a now-lost base.
Round flat hanging lamps, or polycandela, were lit by oil-filled glass vessels hung from the round holes in their designs. Paul the Silentiary in 563 described the effect of huge hanging lamps that lit the great church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople: “Thus is everything clothed in beauty…no words are sufficient to describe the illumination in the evening: you might say that some nocturnal sun filled the majestic church with light.”
Round flat hanging lamps, or polycandela, were lit by oil-filled glass vessels hung from the round holes in their designs. Paul the Silentiary in 563 described the effect of huge hanging lamps that lit the great church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople: “Thus is everything clothed in beauty…no words are sufficient to describe the illumination in the evening: you might say that some nocturnal sun filled the majestic church with light.”
Files
Collection
Citation
“Lamp Handle with Dolphins,” HAA Image Hosting, accessed May 19, 2026, https://haaimagehosting.omeka.fas.harvard.edu/items/show/1480.
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