"This booklet illustrates various types of pottery lamps made mainly in the Mediterranean world from the Minoan period until Early Christian times. Such lamps can be very attractive small objects and well repay attention. They are of interest to the social and art historian because of the representations of daily life, religion and mythology, and lost masterpieces of sculpture appearing on some Roman lamps. Lamps are useful, too, to the archeologist in that they are ephemeral and are easily recognizable : even small fragments can be placed within their types. These types can, on the whole, e dated comparatively closely, and so, in lamps, the excavator has a valuable dating tool. The distribution of lamps foreign to the area in which they are found is some indication of the pattern of trade in the ancient world, while the various uses to which lamps were put illustrate aspects of social and religious life... "-- from introduction.