Teen hiker stumbles on 1,600-year-old Roman oil lamp

Lamp made in Petra was likely used by Roman soldiers stationed in the region to guard copper shipments from nearby mines

Gavriel Fiske is a reporter at The Times of Israel

  • Teen Yonatan Frankel and the 1,600-year-old Roman oil lamp he discovered while hiking, in an undated photo. (Yoli Schwartz/IAA)
    Teen Yonatan Frankel and the 1,600-year-old Roman oil lamp he discovered while hiking, in an undated photo. (Yoli Schwartz/IAA)
  • A 1,600-year-old Roman oil lamp discovered while hiking in the Arava, in an undated photo. (Yoli Schwartz/IAA)
    A 1,600-year-old Roman oil lamp discovered while hiking in the Arava, in an undated photo. (Yoli Schwartz/IAA)
  • The Scorpions Ascent route (Dr. Davida Degen-Eisenberg/IAA)
    The Scorpions Ascent route (Dr. Davida Degen-Eisenberg/IAA)
  • Image of a Roman oil-lamp discovered in the 1930s in the Arava area. (Nelson Glueck, 1934-1935. 'Explorations in Eastern Palestine, II.' (AASOR 15). P. 116, fig. 42.)
    Image of a Roman oil-lamp discovered in the 1930s in the Arava area. (Nelson Glueck, 1934-1935. 'Explorations in Eastern Palestine, II.' (AASOR 15). P. 116, fig. 42.)

A high school student on a hike in southern Israel recently discovered a 1,600-year-old oil lamp, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Wednesday.

Yonatan Frankel, 16, from Hod Hasharon, made the find in early March, while his school group was breaking for lunch near an old Roman fort along the Scorpions Ascent, a hiking trail in the desert Arava region south of the Dead Sea.

Frankel was idly examining various stones littering the area when he realized that one in particular, after he brushed off the dirt coating, “was a man-made object and not just a stone,” he said.

He brought the find to the attention of his teacher, who alerted the IAA. Frankel received a good citizenship certificate for turning in the lamp, which was found partially broken.

The trail was once an ancient trade route connected to the copper mines in the region and was patrolled and secured by Roman soldiers, the IAA said in a press release, and noted that an identical oil lamp was found in the same location 90 years before.

The oil lamp was produced in the ancient Nabatean city of Petra, in Jordan, in the 4th-5th century CE, and similar lamps have been found in other sites in the area, IAA senior researcher Dr. Tali Erickson-Gini said.

“We know that between the Nabataean-Roman town of Mamshit and the copper mines of Feinan (biblical Punon) in the central Arava – not far from present-day Moshav ‘En Yahav — a trade route was in use in the 4th-6th century CE,” Erickson-Gini noted.

A line of forts were built along the route, garrisoned by Roman soldiers who patrolled the road on horseback, securing the important shipments of copper from the mines. “It is easy to imagine the lamp lighting up the darkness in the lonely, isolated fort manned by Roman soldiers,” Erickson-Gini explained.

Hikers, soldiers and other citizens regularly discover antiquities in both rural and urban locations around the country. Under Israeli law, any discoveries of man-made objects from before the year 1700 must be turned over to authorities.

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