The early Babylonian lamp consists of a rather high vase with a long protruding curved nozzle (Fig. 170). It is often represented in this form on the ancient _kudurru_, for it is the emblem of the god Nusku. In the later forms the vase is flatter and the nozzle shorter. In both forms the vase is made on the wheel and the nozzle is fashioned by hand. The earlier higher form is only found unglazed. Some of the later form are glazed, and some of them, with their blistered surface, resemble the ancient enamel. Contemporary with these there are always some poor examples which were entirely made by hand, as is the case with other forms of pottery. But even in the most ancient ruins, the deepest levels of Fara or Surgul, we have never penetrated to depths where the potter’s wheel was unknown. Occasional instances of hand-made pottery can always be identified as direct copies of contemporary ware made on the wheel, so that it would appear that in Babylonia pottery and the potter’s wheel were invented at the same time. [Illustration: FIG. 170.—Lamps. ] The older higher form of lamp which, like the bowls, has often owner’s marks punctured in groups of dots, is not intended to stand, and the base is always rounded while the later lower form has a small flattened base. Handles first make their appearance on the shallow glazed lamps, often in the form of a separate piece added on. On these lamps also the usual ornamentation of rows of dots and beads first appears. In this and in the development of shape, the influence of the Greek lamp that came in about this period is not to be ignored. This was a shallow pottery lamp with a short semi-cylindrical nozzle, always well glazed and of the finest clay, and combined an elegance of appearance with a high level of practical utility such as had not been approached in Babylonia during the course of thousands of years. In the later Parthian forms the nozzle became less and less distinct from the body of the lamp, which was then moulded in two separate pieces, an upper and a lower half. They were rarely unornamented and were invariably glazed. Green glazed polylychnae were also produced in Greek fashion with several nozzles on one side, or with many all round them. All of these are apparently oil lamps. In yet later Sassanide times a lamp was in use which consisted of a small saucer in which the nozzle was formed by pinching it together with the fingers into the shape of a trefoil; this was intended to contain solid fat, and has generally a separate foot worked on to it. It was always glazed blue or green with a black edge. Of a period at present undetermined, and of unknown origin, is a boat-shaped lamp of black stone. The wick passed through a hole in the solid prow, and in the other rounded end there was also a solid piece left, in which a vertical hole was bored to contain the stick that formed the handle.