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Three Roman lamps found on the site of the cemetery of Djemal, south of Sousse in Tunisia in North Africa with a written account of their discovery in the 1890s. They were brought to the Manchester Museum last year by a member of the public, who has had them in his family for many years. One was stamped during manufacture with the image of the bust of a young man and the manufacturer's mark CIVNALIX (D.M.Bailey 1988, Q1681-2); another has oak leaves and is stamped MNOVIVSTI (Q1678); the third has 'ear handles' and a foot stamp. The extensive Manchester Museum lamps collection does not have a lamp with handles like this and according to Dr Paul Roberts of the British Museum this is a Roman Republican oddity. The Manchester Museum has acquired all three lamps by purchase.

What is almost as intersting as the lamps themselves is the associated paper record and detailed provenance. The lamps tell us about the extensive North African lamp industry during the Roman period but the paper record takes us back to a time when Europeans acquired antiquities like this to take home as souvenirs.
The Museum intends to use them in new displays about the ancient world scheduled to open in 2012