The Ojeda lamp

(Press Release) The Council of Jimena is asking that of San Roque to return the Lucerna de Ojeda that was donated to the Historical Museum of the Campo de Gibraltar in 1955. The oil lamp was found at an ancient burial ground in San Pablo (on Cerro de los Zarzales, also known as Cerro de Vargas) by Antonio Ojeda -thus its name- and is thought to be of Egyptian-Byzantine origin of the 6th or 7th Century AD. The small bronze lamp (about a hand in size) in the shape of a peacock is used as a symbol for San Pablo, which is where it will be exhibited at the Council offices. According to historian Carlos Gómez de Avellaneda at a conference within Jimena’s annual Historical and Archaeological Workshops, the peacock was used in the paleo-Christian and Muslim era as representative of the incorruptibility of the flesh and of resurrection and the Ojeda Lamp was probably used in religious ceremonies for a long time before being placed in the tomb in which it was found.