Weren't oil lanterns used in Palestine?

Up until the advent of electricity, people also made do with lower levels of light that we're accustomed to, and confined most of their activities to the daylight hours.

However, we're modern people and we like light. We've gotten some Diwali lamps (Diwali is the Indian festival of lights and happens in November or December) and wicks that look and work great. They're just inexpensive saucers of terra cotta with one or more "spouts" pinched into the edge. The wicks are a lump of cotton with a wick twisted up out of it. You fill the lamp with olive oil (the Indians use mustard oil), allow the oil to saturate the wick and light. I like them because the keep the light down on the table so you can see what you're working on, and they don't tip over or drip like candles.

Jeff purchased a 15th C. oil lamp which we're having our potter duplicate. We'll be selling them through our sutlery before the spring reenactment season.

at the Cluny in Paris, I saw a wonderful iron hanging lamp that used this same principle. its a square dish with squished metal "wick holders" in each corner, suspended by a pretty iron chain.

someday I'll get those photos scanned in....

Any period lamp I've seen is an open dish as AM and I have described. They either hang from chains or have a base so they can stand, like the one we're copying.

And to address something I read somewhere else, olive oil burns pretty well. It makes a little bit of soot, but not bad, like tallow (yech). I've only burned it with the diwali wicks though, not a braided wick, so I don't know if that makes a difference.

Since the top rim is circular, there's no obvious place, to me at least, to rest a wick. Do I just drape a wick over the side? Do I float the wick on top of the oil and hope the thing doesn't catch fire? Is there some piece I'm missing?

Mitake.

We got one of these lamps from Northerner too. Since, as you point out, it has no obvious place to rest a wick, we also were at a loss how to use it. We knew leaning the wick up aginst the glass was a bad thing and would break the glass, so we had to figure something else out.

After some trial and error, Jeff made a little wickholder gizmo out of a twist of wire that holds the wick up a bit off the surface of the oil. We are using standard braided cotton candle wicking, allowing the wick to fully absorb the oil before lighting the wick. This arrangement seems to work pretty well.

BTW, Jeff also made a nifty chain hanger like the ones in the MOL books, and we use the lamp in our tent. Very cool and "upscale" for the Captain and his wife!