Oil lamp, cast bronze, inlaid with silver

The lamp’s “scarred” surface shows that it had been richly inlaid more or less all over. Remnants are the few Arabic letters on the neck; an inscription inlaid in silver originally rimmed the foot. The silver inlay was combined in a very unusual way with a more sculptural decoration: a handle in the form of a pouncing lion of the kind found on Iranian metalwork. It springs from a wide palmette typical of Mosul. The large vines on the sides of the lamp, in contrast, belong to a type that goes all the way back to Umayyad ornamentation in the 8th century.

A similar eclecticism is also found in other metalwork from the Jazira area, where many cultural traditions met in the 13th century.