Saturday 14 September 2013

Another Dubious lamp Post on US Coiney Forum


On a coiney forum near you.
"H H" oil lamp , any Historical information will be very appreciated (January 20, 2013, 05:55:31 am) was discovered recently in a tomb in a North African country, any info regarding this oil lamp any Historical information will be very appreciated , thank you. 
This is a bit stupid isn't it? Any historic information about an archaeological artefact will come from the context, like the entire tomb it was hoiked out of. But then "HH" answers his own question and supplies the "historical information" he or she has determined as a collector of dugup artefacts for this find (again I've stripped out the 'dictionary-for-five-year-olds' definitions):
Some historical regarding this oil lamp ( this is = - + age og this oil lamp ) Numidia Cirtéenne (Numidia Cirtensis) was a Roman province originally built in the province of Numidia and whose capital was Cirta, today Constantine (Algeria). The existence of Numidia cirtéenne was brief since appeared with the new provincial division of Diocletian in 303 and died in 313 when it was united with the province of Numidia military. As its name suggests, Numidia cirtéenne corresponded to the northern part of the former province of Numidia, that is to say essentially the territory of the former Confederacy cirtéenne. Cirta remained provincial capital after the merger of the provinces of Numidia cirtéenne and military.
Bla bla bla. We are talking here about what is now NE Algeria. Sadly the artefact collector's idea of history is about as good as a wet paper bag. The lamp was spotted by David Knell who remarks:
The form of this lamp (wheelmade, short nozzle, evidence of attached handle, traces of black slip?) suggests it is a great deal earlier than Roman Cirta and is more likely to be an import from Greek colonies (or a local copy of them) in the area during the 4th - 3rd Centuries BC. Other details of the tomb (site construction, associated objects, etc.) would doubtless have revealed far more information but I suspect this was an unofficial "excavation" and anything not of monetary value was destroyed?
So a tomb was destroyed, stuff was looted so some dumb collector can make up false stories about the thing he bought? Replacing archaeological information by collector's fable?

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