The early Byzantine lamp from Pong Tuk

Abstract

Three different dates spanning more than half a millennium have been suggested for this bronze lamp. The two early datings clearly have to be reconsidered. Here new evidence is brought to clarify the dating of the lamp to the Early Byzantine period. It belongs to a class of bronze lamps common in the Eastern Mediterranean area in this period. In addition, it is compared to some very similar lamps forming a closely related group; the lamps of this group might have been manufactured in Byzantine Egypt. The archaeological importance of the Pong Tuk lamp lies in the fact that an Eastern Mediterranean artefact of the fifth or probably sixth century CE has been found in Thailand. It has to be seen in the context of long-distance trade in that period via the Red Sea to India and beyond which is described in great detail in a written Western source of the sixth century CE.