477
478
479
480
481
This type is derived from Deneauve’s African type VIII B with a heart-shaped nozzle, a form quite popular in the third century. Like the following types, Ennabli 15 and 16, type 14 is specific to central Tunisia; it is recorded in the literature only in La nécropole romaine de Raqqada (Ennabli, Salomonson, and Mahjoubi 1973, pls. 27–28) and by one example in Lampes de Carthage (Deneauve 1969, no. 1135, pl. 102). Its major characteristic is a ridge surrounding both the discus and the nozzle top, leaving a short narrow “strangled” channel between them. By canal étranglé Bussière means a short straight channel that opens up to the wick-hole area by right-angle turns of its ridges. The flat shoulder is decorated with simple geometric patterns: striations, dentils, ovolos, or globules. The shape of the base varies: either a flat base marked off by one groove (cat. 477), or a raised base-ring marked off by two grooves (cat. 480), or a base-ring with one inner ring (cat. 479).
Some discuses are plain, others show animals, amphitheater, circus scenes, or geometric motifs such as rosettes.
Ennabli does not give individual dates for any of the sixteen types he distinguishes in Raqqada. We will have to make do with his overall attribution to the second half of third century A.D.