In April 2024, I started working as a PhD candidate at the Radboud University Nijmegen. My research focuses on the spatial and temporal experiences of mine- and quarry workers in Roman Dacia. Unfortunately, these people left rather few texts that could give us insights into their thoughts and lives, so this requires a bit of a creative approach. This blog serves as a tiny introduction to my new case study.
Over the past months, I started doing research for my second case study that is centred around the spatial and temporal experiences of mineworkers in Alburnus Maior (modern day Roșia Montană, Romania – a UNESCO World Heritage Site) through the perception of light. For this new case study, I conducted a fun oil lamp-experiment with reenactor Othello van Rheenen at Museumpark Orientalis in Nijmegen, as I wanted to know how the oil lamps could have been perceived in Roman times in a dark place such as a mine gallery.
You might wonder what Museumpark Orientalis has in common with the Roman mine galleries of Alburnus Maior. Well, at the museumpark there is a replica of a Mithraeum that is based on the remains found in Ostia. When we turned off the light and closed the doors it was pitch black in the temple space, and it was quite cold too. Even though the mining galleries are narrower and lower than the Mithraeum, it was as close as we could mimic the circumstances. Besides, other possible locations that could be completely darkened were way too “modern” – and we would have seen a plastic palm tree instead of replicas of Roman ceramics. Although there is no direct indication for Mithras being worshipped in Alburnus Maior, Mithras was known and worshipped in Roman Dacia. Several Mithraea have been identified in Romania and the deity is present on reliefs and votive altars too.
The experiment was divided into three parts. First, we sat in complete darkness for five minutes. I was trying to see – pun intended – whether or not my eyes would adjust to the darkness. I held my hand in front of me and waved it from left to right, but I could not perceive it while I knew it was there, right in front of me. After the five minutes had passed, Othello lit a lighter and this tiny source of light made a difference for the perception of the space. Of course, near the flame of the lighter we could see things that were close by and it helped seeing silhouettes and contrast of things that were farther away from us.
For the second part, we put the wick in the oil lamps and filled the two lamps with olive oil. Inside of the Mithraeum, in the darkness, we lit the first oil lamp. I was amazed by the amount of light that shone from such a tiny vessel. The space was lit up and we could see most of the Mithraeum. We put the lamp in a terracotta plant pot that would recreate the shape of the lamp niches that are still visible in the mine galleries. We moved the lamp and we moved ourselves through the space and took series of photos trying to capture the environment with the light source. After that, we lit the second lamp and repeated the series of photos. With the second lamp burning, you could see even better in the low corners of the Mithraeum. When we blew out the flames, the second part of the experiment was concluded.
During the final part of the experiment, we repeated all the photo series that we did in part two but now the oil lamps were filled with linseed oil. And goodness, that experience was different. First and foremost, the flame of the linseed oil was more restless. There was a lot of soot, smoke and smell coming of that flame, especially in comparison to the clean flame of the olive oil. The soot particles travelled through the space and settled in our lungs too, which made the experience less pleasant.
Doing this experiment was valuable for the understanding and experiencing of oil lamps, something that is more difficult to grasp when reading an academic paper on these lamps. When you are researching experiences of peoples who lived almost two thousand years ago, experimental archaeology is a great tool. This experiment will be one of the building blocks for the critical fabulations that will be part of the case study and I am very excited to see what results all the research will bring.
A special thanks to Othello van Rheenen and Museumpark Orientalis Nijmegen, especially Eva Klep and Marike Jansen.
Demi Storm (Radboud University Nijmegen)
Bibliography
Hartman, Saidiya. “Venus in Two Acts”. Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism 12, nr. 2 (2008): 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1215/-12-2-1.
Kamen, Deborah, en Sarah Levin-Richardson. “Epigraphy and Critical Fabulation: Imagining Narratives of Greco-Roman Sexual Slavery”. In Eleri H. Cousins (eds.), Dynamic Epigraphy, New Approaches to Inscriptions (2022): 201–222. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2npq9dc.14.
Lobl, Caitlin. “An Experimental Approach to the Study of the Roman Oil Lamp.” In Lee Graña Nicolaou, Tatiana Ivleva and Bill Griffiths (eds.), Bloomsbury Handbook of Experimental Approaches to Roman Archaeology (2024): 237–252.