Green, 'Cosa: The Lamps', Bryn Mawr Classical Review 9510
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmcr/bmcr-9510-green-cosa
@@@@95.10.10, Fitch/Goldman, Cosa: The Lamps
Cleo Rickman Fitch and Norma Wynick Goldman, Cosa: The
Lamps. Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, XXXIX. Ann
Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1994. xviii + 265 pp.,
142 figs., 9 pll. $64.00. ISBN 0-472-10518-3.
Reviewed by J.R. Green -- University of Sydney
Richard.Green@antiquity.su.edu.au
Cosa has played a fundamental role in the American archaeology
of Roman Italy and the list of participants in its excavation and
study over the years includes some of that subject's most
distinguished names. Its publication has proceeded on what might
appear a cyclical basis, beginning with Frank Brown's study of
the history and topography of the site in 1951. We now seem to
be in the earlier part of a new cycle, and one therefore gives a
warm welcome to this study of the lamps.
This is also the first of the MAAR series (and the first of
the Cosa publications) to be published by the University of
Michigan Press, and the result is a handsome product.
The work begins with an introduction (pp. 3-8) on the history
of lamps in the ancient world in general and at Cosa in
particular. The unreferenced statement (p. 5) that lamps were
reintroduced to Greece in the seventh century will eventually
need to be modified: for example, one has been found in the
settlement at Zagora, Andros, in an eighth-century context--even
if it still lacks proper publication.
Pages 9-17 provide a very useful chronology of the site,
outlining the major phases of the town's existence. The authors
then fit the lamp-types into this scheme. This section has the
great asset of providing a good basic summary for those who do
not already know the site. It also includes a handy double-page
chart giving the usage of the various lamp-types through time.
There is a brief survey of the dated contexts in which lamps were
found, though for the most part there is no immediate
cross-reference to the actual lamps involved but instead to the
original publications of the deposits. Indeed there is little
involvement of stratigraphic evidence in the evaluation of the
lamps either here or in the catalogue. There is a brief summary
(pp. 14-15) of the lamps found in a deposit apparently sealed by
the collapse of the Basilica, ca. ad 40-45. This is a
potentially important context, situated as it is a full
generation before the destruction of the Vesuvian cities. One
notices, however, that on p. 196 (under the discussion of the
chronology of Factory Lamps), it is admitted that the context is
not as secure as one might have hoped, whether through later
intrusion or (that bane of so many excavations) mis-recording.
For the most part, contexts regarded as significant are mentioned
in an introductory section to each lamp-type.
The Catalogue takes up the remainder of the volume. The
recording of the objects, their dimensions and state of
preservation is seemingly meticulous. Inevitably perhaps, given
the apparent lack of contextual evidence for most of the lamps, a
great deal of the classificatory work rests on the catalogues of
other major collections. Thus this may be considered a secondary
rather than a primary source--as if it were a publication of
another museum collection rather than an excavation report.
A more serious worry in an excavation report is the relatively
small number of drawings and photographs. So far as one can tell
without the original objects to hand, the drawings seem good and
finely done--although, especially in the earlier part of the
book, they tend to normalise the fragments or to be composites,
pulling together a number of fragments into an ideal' form. The
validity of such a procedure is open to question. There is some
emphasis on rim types, drawings of which are often collected at
the beginning of a chapter. Many of the drawings are presented
at full size, yet one would rather have had two or three times as
many at 1:2 or 1:3.
Only 79 of the 1094 items catalogued are reproduced in
photographs. That is we have to rely to an inordinate degree on
the authors' verbal descriptions and classifications. (Drawings,
too, inevitably involve interpretation.) For example, among the
wheel-made lamps and in particular what is called the
Truncated-Cone Type Lamp, we are told that a "large number" were
identified (whatever that means); of them 45 are catalogued and
given verbal descriptions, and the whole lot are represented by a
single drawing, Fig. 7, which is of cat. no. 32. They are given
a date-range of mid-third century to later first century. Of
what are called Doughnut Type Lamps, we are told that "more than
100" were identified, and of these 86 are catalogued and one
illustrated, Fig. 8 (no. 83). Decorated lamps do rather better:
of the 51 Warzenlampen' (called rather awkwardly Raised-Dots
Lamps), there are eight drawings.
The sense of a museum catalogue also affects the discussion.
Most of the lamps at Cosa seem to have been imported to the site,
with the exception of a number belonging to the so-called
Esquiline Type which were probably made in the workshop that
produced the Sestius amphorae. From the first century of the
city's life, it would have been worth comparing the earlier
wheel-made lamps with those of South Italy, to which they have a
generic similarity. Interconnections at this period are
especially fascinating and deserve more comprehensive study.
Taranto fell to the Romans in 272 bc, the year following Cosa's
foundation. Already, in what we suppose on normal chronology to
be the later part of the fourth century, there are demonstrable
influences from Apulian vase-painting on Etruscan red-figure. In
the early part of the third, a Tarentine painter of Gnathia
vases, the Volcani Painter, settled in Rome, setting up a shop
which not only produced the famous pocola with their inscriptions
to Roman divinities, but a style of pottery which had major
influence in the southern regions of Etruria, not least
Cerveteri. Somewhat later, in the later second and earlier first
centuries bc, there are hints of interconnections with
Delphiniform lamps. While present at Cosa, they seem to have had
their base in Sicily, and the type is also found in Delos. These
sorts of connections are typical of that period and are seen most
obviously, perhaps, with the so-called Magenta series of plastic
vases, but one thinks too of the important work on the
distribution of black-glaze pottery carried out by J.-P. Morel.
It is difficult not to feel that this was an opportunity missed.
The definition of the chronology of Birds'-Heads Lamps (better
known as Vogelkopflampen) on p. 79 is important: they appear to
predate the destruction of 70 bc, though they continued in use
throughout first century ad and possibly on into second. There
is useful information too (p. 137) on the period of popularity of
lamps with so-called heat-shields. There is a full discussion of
Factory Lamps (194 ff) though in fact fewer are catalogued
(thirty-six) than one might have expected, and seemingly none
from the FORTIS factory (although this last is given a
considerable amount of space in the discussion). There is,
however, a FORTIS pinecone lamp (no. 1046).
One senses that this publication represents a labour of love,
and as such it brings advantages and disadvantages, moving as it
does from the specialist to the curiously generalist. The
initial introduction on the history of lamps in the ancient world
(not all of it well referenced) is very broadly based. The
introduction to techniques of manufacture is also in this vein
and it adds little or nothing to other such introductions to be
found elsewhere. Equally, there is a rather banal Glossary at
pp. 252-5, yet an Index seems not to have been thought necessary.
Inasmuch as this is a book about material from a single site, it
is a pity that there was no opportunity to pursue a physical
analysis of the clays since it could have proved useful on
questions of copies and imitations. At the same time one would
readily agree that physical analysis provides no magic answers,
and it would in fact have added a major and perhaps
time-consuming dimension to the publication.
It is curious to make reference to unpublished limestone
moulds from Caesarea Maritima in the context of lamps from Cosa.
Why not refer to published examples? There are eccentricities in
the terms applied to some of the lamp-types, especially among the
wheel-made versions, as if excavation nicknames had been
translated into the publication. These can slowly be coped with.
What is slightly less easy is the use of terms such as one finds
on p. 79: Gravisca Type 2, or Sartorio Type 1. They are not
explained, even in the Introduction, and not easily found through
the Bibliography. For the former the reader needs to be
experienced enough to look under H (R. Hannoun, "Lampes de
Graviscae", MEFRA 82, 1970, 237-262), and for the latter
under P (G. Pisani Sartorio, " Vogelkopflampen' e lucerne da
spedizione'", RendPontAcc 42, 1969-70, 81-93). As a
detail, is no. 986 (shown only in a drawing) really a barbarian,
as stated, or is he in fact a papposilenos?
There are no Conclusions, and, although it may be argued that
others can make them from the evidence provided, it is
regrettable. No one else in our time is likely to acquire a
similar knowledge of this body of material, and, given the manner
of publication, we are so very reliant on the authors' verbal
descriptions and classifications. Among many reasons the
material is important is the fact that it comes from a settlement
site, not from tombs like most of the material in museum
collections. The excavation therefore provided an important
opportunity to develop discussion of the use of lamps in domestic
and public contexts at the various periods during the life of an
Italian site from foundation (273 bc) to its final extinction in
the early fifth century ad. (See now E. Fentress, "Cosa in the
Empire: The Unmaking of a Roman Town," JRA 7, 1994,
208-222.) One would also have liked to see more on issues of
trade in a colony and its patterns through time, or on the
selection of decorative motifs in a settlement context. As to
this last, themes of popular entertainment seem relatively
common, with motifs drawn from the circus and the arena. But on
the sample presented in this report, there is hardly anything
from the theatre. It is legitimate to ask why. The answer can
hardly be because there is no evidence of a theatre-building at
Cosa--there is no circus or amphitheatre either. Could it be
that lamps decorated with masks were thought primarily
appropriate for the grave? And if so, what does that tell us
about the function of images of masks in Roman Italy?