Tallow or Oil Lamp from Oxford: 10th century

In the Late Saxon town of Oxford, the long narrow dwelling plots lining the regularly planned street around Carfax were beginning to fill up with long, one-storey timber buildings in the 10th century. Trade was accelerating, and winter evenings could usefully be spent spinning and weaving cloth, tablet weaving, making tools and ornaments from recycled animal bone and decorating leather and metal objects. Numerous clay lamps for burning oil or tallow, found when excavating these houses, testify to work being done after dark.

The tallow or oil filled the cup-like saucer; a saturated cloth or fibre wick hung over the lip in the rim; and there was usually a tall, thick, clay pedestal below to raise the lamp above the ground level at which people either squatted or sat on stools to work.