Aladdin’s 2,000 Year Old Lamp

The Real Story of this Oil Lamp

THE ALLADIN STORY-The story of Aladdin is of unknown origin.  It was later added to Arabian Nights by Antoine Galland in 1704.  But the story originates in about the late 1300s from a Christian (Maronite) Syrian Story Teller named Hanna Diyab, who was born in Ottoman Syria in 1608.  He told the tale to Antoine.  It was believed that the story may have originated from a Chinese family that migrated to the Middle East about 100 BC.  The basics of the story is that Aladdin (in some stories a lazy rich boy; in others a poor beggar boy in rags) finds a lamp.  At that time all lamps were either clay or for the wealthier people Bronze.  Aladdin rubs the lamp to clean it and a genie comes out that has been trapped inside for 10,000 years and grants Aladdin 3 wishes.

THE STORY OF THIS LAMP-This lamp was purchased by me in the mid 1980s from a man who was selling antiquities at the Detroit Gem and Mineral Show at the Armory on Eight Mile Road.  The seller stated that he was 104 (he looked that old and other vendors at the show that knew him said he was probably 100 years old-but who knows)and that his great grandfather had been an explorer and bought the lamp in the Middle East-he thought maybe Egypt.  That would have been some time after the American Revolution I would guess-maybe 1779-1799. His great grandfather was told that the lamp was about 2,000 years old.  The lamp is fairly heavy, weighing about 2 pounds, 11 ounces. It is approximately 13 inches long and about 6-1/2 inches tall at the fantail.  The lid features the face of what at times looks human and others like a lion.  The wire connecting the lid was probably a bronze pin that was lost long ago in the past.  Now it is secured with a heavy solid single strand copper wire that shows old patina.  

The only part of this history that is certain is when and where I bought it, from whom, and what he told me.  This is a very old bronze oil lamp artifact.  So far no genie has presented itself.

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