When you look at the very extensive, very intricate, and very well-made lighting products in our antiques range, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that possibly the most authentic antique light is DIY, free and available to all at the low-low price of nothing - the simple campfire. The creation of fire is recognized as one of humankind’s first and most important steps towards where we are today – but recognized by few as the most authentic of antique lamps!! Lighting has progressed through various stages throughout history to come to where it is now, with a huge range of lighting options in hundreds of categories and types, and also at different levels of artistic value. Where did it all start, and how did the journey get us here?

The use of fire for light would have been so important in our evolution – imagine the winter months, before artificial light was created. There wouldn’t have been much you could do except sleep at the times when the moon had waned and the sun went down – and without either reverse-cycle heater and airconditioners, or fire, even sleeping would have been quite cold and uncomfy! Fire provided a huge opportunity to extend the day’s activities past daylight hours, without doing too much waste-of-time sleeping! At the Cradle of Humankind, evidence for the existence of fire from up to 1.8 million years ago exists. One of the other activities we first used fire for was in landscape management – before the advent of gorgeous home furnishings, we just had to make do!

Candles were likely the next step in lighting’s evolutionary ladder. The light still comes directly from a flame, with no enhancements to its actual brightness or quality, except for the fact that it is now portable – so you can actually move your night-time activities around. Candles have an internal wick, coming up through a cylindrical, solid fuel source. The most commonly used fuel initially was beef tallow (or cow fat, without the euphemisms!), but now wax is the preferred material fro creating candles – much less smelly! The inventors of candles were innovative biochemists and physicists: a candle burns by the heat of the ignition vaporizing a small amount of the fuel, which lights the slow-burning wick and creates a flame. This wick stays hot, melting and vaporizing enough fuel to keep a flame going and keep the wick hot. When the top part of the fuel is melted, the liquid fuel moves up the wick via capillary action (sucks it up like through a straw), and the wick is wet enough to burn, but not too quickly. Genius!

A variation on the candle is the oil lamp, the use of which has been dated at around 10,000 years. The same principle applies, only the fuel is contained within a metal vessel, with the wick extending out the top of the lamp. The wick could be made out of linen, flax, papyrus or rush reeds. Think of the genie’s lamp in the Aladdin story – this was an oil lamp. These were prevalent until around the 1700s. These were the first light sources to be easily made in decorative, and most importantly lasting, forms. You can find some beautiful examples of handmade oil lamps with handles cast in various shapes, with bas relief pictures of Gods or humans created on them, and designs both clever and decorative.

The next rung up lighting’s ladder is the lantern – although actually, in some uses of the word, it was a step down the ladder! The case I am talking about is the Chinese lantern, which actually, either ingeniously or ignorantly, depending on your perspective, used fireflies captured in a paper construct to provide light. The more popular, and more recent version of the lantern is the kerosene lantern. This is popularly referred to as a hurricane lantern, and is still used in its basic form as a convenient light for camping. These lanterns create light from the combustion of kerosene fuel, and their main advantage over earlier forms of lanterns is mainly in the much more intricate design. With a kerosene lamp, the flame is enclosed in a glass vessel, which means both that you can’t accidentally burn your fingers on it, and that a pesky breeze can’t blow it out! Kerosene lanterns do have their problems though, one of them being that you need to be a good amateur mechanic to get them going occasionally!

Glow worms are a source of light which has existed for nearly as long as man has been able to control fire for light. They have not been extensively harvested or used for light production at any time in history, much to the author’s and the glow worm’s relief! They can produce light in varying colours, from yellow green to red, and the main purpose of it is for attracting mates. The angler fish is another creature which produces its own light – it lives in the lower leagues of the ocean, has a nodule hanging from a fishing rod-like apparatus attached to its head. Its purpose is attracting food, not a willing partner!

The source of light which we probably use most frequently nowadays is the incandescent light globe, which was developed by several people over the course of quite a few years. It began with early experiments at producing light by passing electrical currents through filaments of platinum, which were successful for a few minutes, until the filament burned out. And you thought that generic brand light globes were a waste of money! Thomas Edison was the inventor to create the light bulb basically in the form we have it today, a glass globe filled with non-reactive argon gas and a very long-lasting filament, but William David Coolidge was the first to patent the Tungsten filament which nearly all globes use today.

Fluorescent globes are the other popular choice in homes today, and should become increasingly popular as people look for light sources with more energy-efficiency. These use fluorone in their light producing reaction, and although they cost a little more than an incandescent bulb, they usually pay for themselves within about 500 hours of use, and have fittings which go into any incandescent globe socket, in any of your gorgeous antiques. This blend of old and new – the best of both worlds – will likely be the choice of the future.

Photo credits:
Camp fire - Peter Harris, Candles - Erica Joy, Oil lamp - Jasmine, Kerosene lantern - Susan Dunning Richard, Light bulb - Simon Flanagan

          

This entry was filed under Lighting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.