Evolution Of Lamps

Evolved from beans
A small, pockmarked ceramic bowl with a handle at the bottom is supported by a simple shape and rough craftsmanship. In the eyes of ordinary people, it is a worthless pottery with no artistic value. But in the eyes of Qing Liejun, the owner of the "Wanjia Lantern House", this is a treasure.
"This is the 'bean' of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, which is considered the predecessor of the oil lamp." Qing Liejun explained as he played.
In the Stone Age, humans learned to use fire, heat, cook, and defend animals, including lighting. According to the unearthed oracle bone inscriptions, people used turpentine torches for lighting as early as the Shang Dynasty. In the Zhou Dynasty, the extensive use of bronze and pottery created conditions for the emergence of lamps. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, lamps and lanterns for lighting began to appear. Beans were the tools for lighting at that time. They were made according to the shape of beans, the food utensils at that time.
At that time, people used bean fat as fuel. They put bean fat in a small ceramic bowl, put a wick on it, and lit it. From the "lamp" in the ancient Chinese characters, we can see that the lamp evolved from beans. It is recorded in the ancient books that the lamp originates from the bean, and the tile bean is called Deng. In many ancient TV dramas nowadays, the lighting tool used is beans. "It should be a bean with bronze, but I haven't seen it yet."
Bronze was a symbol of status at that time. Lao Qing studied and believed that using bronze as a lighting tool at that time should have been a right enjoyed by nobles, and rough pottery beans were probably used by ordinary people.