586 illumination: The Middle East effects in their work Statues of King Khafre, builder of the second great pyramid at Giza, were originally placed in an open court of his pyramid temple, where they were exposed to the sun Some of these royal effigies are rendered in anorthosite gneiss, a hard and rather unattractive stone It has been revealed, however, that when placed in strong sunlight, the stone generates a deep blue glow, suggesting that it was chosen specifically for this purpose, to give the statues a mysterious, celestial quality THE MIDDLE EAST BY KIRK H BEETZ Before the invention of the oil lamp, ancient peoples of the Near East used torches, candles, hearths, and ovens for artificial light In many parts of the Near East sunlight was harsh and something to be escaped Located in central Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), the city of Çatalhüyük (ca 7000 b.c.e.) had no streets Houses were joined together without space between them People climbed through trapdoors onto their roofs and then walked from rooftop to rooftop Although the roofs were flat, they were of different heights; thus, people used ladders to go from level to level As a result, the interiors of homes were very dark and probably much cooler than the outside Illumination probably came from hearths, with open trapdoors in roofs venting the smoke Some buildings, such as temples or shrines, had windows A small window high in a wall would allow sunlight to fall on an altar or on worshippers In some cases, in large chambers, torches seem to have been used for light In ancient Mesopotamia houses were refuges from the sun Brick houses with walls up to eight feet thick were usually built without windows The thick walls were intended to keep out the heat Usually the only opening a house had was a door, but some houses had a window Windows were fitted with grillwork, probably wooden Many well-to-do Mesopotamians had homes with courtyards; some such homes were in Babylon In that city such houses varied in size from A bronze lamp found at the palace of Persepolis, Persia (Courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago) 18 feet long and feet wide to 45 feet long and 17 feet wide Palm-wood planks overlaid by rushes would cover much of the courtyard, providing shade and shielding interior doors from direct sunlight Mesopotamians made extensive use of oil lamps to illuminate the interiors of their homes Torches were used to light fortifications, city streets, and temples at night Interiors of temples were often kept shadowy, with torches barely illuminating the statues of gods within This dim lighting added to the mystery of the temples Interiors of palaces were usually lit by torchlight Torches were typically made of bound reeds, though wood was used in parts of the Near East where trees were plentiful One end of the torch would be bound with cloth that had been soaked in animal fat For night travel torchlight would have been essential for seeing one’s way Candles were made of wicks of cotton or flax dipped in tallow Although candles were probably used in religious ceremonies, oil lamps were the preferred form of artificial light for everyday use The first oil lamps in the Near East were very simple affairs made of fired clay Finding oil suitable for lamps was difficult in Mesopotamia; sesame oil was usually used In other parts of the Near East, palm oil or olive oil was used, with olive oil preferred by most people in the western regions of the Near East In about 2200 b.c.e oil lamps were shallow ceramic bowls with four lips impressed on their sides Onto the lips were laid wicks of cotton or flax Most of the wick settled in the oil Some archaeologists suspect that four wicks were used, one for each lip At most, these lamps would have provided light for about an hour For many hardworking Mesopotamians, an hour was about all they needed between quitting work for the day and going to bed Oil lamps became more varied, with round or square shapes and only one lip The lip began small, but over time it gradually lengthened until it became a spout By 1200 b.c.e oil lamps had become larger and were able to hold more fuel than before, and the spout had become pointed The longer lip moved the flame farther away from the main body of the lamp, making the lamp somewhat easier to handle because the flame made the body of the lamp hot The bottoms of lamps were either flat or rounded The rounded bottoms may have served a couple of purposes First, rounded bottoms made the ceramic lamps easier to stack, with the rounded bottom fitting into the open bowl of the lamp underneath Second, rounded bottoms may have fit lamps into holders Lamps could be set atop platforms with legs, with the rounded bottom cradled in a circular band, perhaps of metal, at the apex of the platform The lamps could be fitted into frameworks that were from ceilings Lamps with either flat or round bottoms could be set into niches in walls Lamps made of copper or bronze could be nailed to walls or from hooks from walls The development of metal lamps in the Near East is harder to trace than that of ceramic lamps because ceramic lamps were always more numerous and were in constant use