Discovery of an Oriental Glass Lamp on the Ostolopovo Settlement of the XI–XII Centuries

Abstract

The article is dedicated to a glass lamp, from which a loop handle was preserved, found on the the Ostolopovo Bolgar settlement, located in the lower part of one of the tributaries of the Kama river. Since 1955 the settlement has been intensively eroded by the Kuibyshev Reservoir. During the heyday of this settlement, in the second half of the XI – beginning of the XII century, several rather large homesteads existed on the settlement. A fragment of a lamp was found among the surface finds of the eroded part of one of them. Traditionally, such items are attributed to the so-called mosque lamps, an early group dating from the IX–XI centuries. The application of similar objects, reliably dated archaeologically, made it possible to clarify the dating of this type, as well as to raise the question of the legitimacy of using the name of "mosque lamp" for this group in connection with their use in lighting not only Muslim public buildings, such as mosques and madrasas, but also Christian churches. The presence of such a find on the Ostolopovo settlement can most likely be explained by the trading character of the site, as the settlement was one of the points on the way from the central regions of the Volga Bolgaria, primarily the capital city of Bilyar, to the trading factories on the Kama and its tributaries.

Keywords

• archaeology
• volga bolgaria
• ostolopovо settlement
• oriental glass lamp