BY THE LIGHT OF A DARK LANTERN
Before flashlights came lanterns.
Long before flashlights. Lanterns date back to Ancient China, in the Han Dynasty, when people realized that they had a much better chance of keeping a flame lit by covering it, whether with paper, or pierced porcelain or metal.
So far, it sure sounds like a lamp, doesn’t it?
There is a difference, though, and it’s pretty simple: a lamp has a closed top and a lantern is open. The space allows for more air flow and makes the light brighter.
The basic idea of the lantern hasn’t really changed in the last few thousand years, but the look evolved in many different ways across cultures. Asian paper lanterns, Ancient Greek pottery, and Paul Revere’s lantern all have the same roots.
The Paul Revere style probably looks most familiar to Americans. It’s iconic because of the Colonial callback, but it was also something that many of our ancestors would have used every day.
It’s worth noting, though, that Revere’s piece was actually pretty high-tech for the time: it had glass panels. For much of the Colonial period, glass was expensive and rare. Before glass became more accessible, the panels might have been made of thin slices of horn – the same sort of translucent layer that covered the ABC’s in the famous “hornbook” primers.
The other possibility was more metal, pierced to let the light out, usually in some simple design. Pierced tin lanterns are almost – but not quite – as iconic as the Paul Revere variety, and many of them are prettier.
And then there’s the dark lantern.
It sounds mysterious, and indeed, it’s popped up in the titles of any number of projects to convey a gothic edge.
But it’s actually nothing more than the flashlight of its day.
A dark lantern has a panel of some kind over the light source. Sometimes it’s as simple and elegant as a metal plate that slides over the glass. Other dark lanterns, like the Victorian police lights, have a big round glass lens on the front, with the panel behind it.
In some really old designs, the whole front of the piece serves as the cover, and then swings away to reveal the candle. This one doesn’t seem to appear as often, which makes sense because it’s not really that efficient. There has to be some mechanism to secure the big panel, or you’re going to have a big chunk of metal just hanging out there. Not ideal.
Dark lanterns pop up all over Victorian literature, used by people trying to sneak around, or away, or catch a bad guy who’s up to something nefarious. That’s how Sherlock Holmes and his police pals used one in “The Red-Headed League,” hiding in a bank vault and waiting for the tunneling thieves.
While candle-powered lanterns are mostly just for decoration these days, kerosene and battery ones are still an important part of the emergency kit for many people. Some of these even have a dark option…though most of us probably won’t use them for catching criminals in the basement. We hope!
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the comments.
Long before flashlights. Lanterns date back to Ancient China, in the Han Dynasty, when people realized that they had a much better chance of keeping a flame lit by covering it, whether with paper, or pierced porcelain or metal.
So far, it sure sounds like a lamp, doesn’t it?
There is a difference, though, and it’s pretty simple: a lamp has a closed top and a lantern is open. The space allows for more air flow and makes the light brighter.
The basic idea of the lantern hasn’t really changed in the last few thousand years, but the look evolved in many different ways across cultures. Asian paper lanterns, Ancient Greek pottery, and Paul Revere’s lantern all have the same roots.
The Paul Revere style probably looks most familiar to Americans. It’s iconic because of the Colonial callback, but it was also something that many of our ancestors would have used every day.
It’s worth noting, though, that Revere’s piece was actually pretty high-tech for the time: it had glass panels. For much of the Colonial period, glass was expensive and rare. Before glass became more accessible, the panels might have been made of thin slices of horn – the same sort of translucent layer that covered the ABC’s in the famous “hornbook” primers.
The other possibility was more metal, pierced to let the light out, usually in some simple design. Pierced tin lanterns are almost – but not quite – as iconic as the Paul Revere variety, and many of them are prettier.
And then there’s the dark lantern.
It sounds mysterious, and indeed, it’s popped up in the titles of any number of projects to convey a gothic edge.
But it’s actually nothing more than the flashlight of its day.
A dark lantern has a panel of some kind over the light source. Sometimes it’s as simple and elegant as a metal plate that slides over the glass. Other dark lanterns, like the Victorian police lights, have a big round glass lens on the front, with the panel behind it.
In some really old designs, the whole front of the piece serves as the cover, and then swings away to reveal the candle. This one doesn’t seem to appear as often, which makes sense because it’s not really that efficient. There has to be some mechanism to secure the big panel, or you’re going to have a big chunk of metal just hanging out there. Not ideal.
Dark lanterns pop up all over Victorian literature, used by people trying to sneak around, or away, or catch a bad guy who’s up to something nefarious. That’s how Sherlock Holmes and his police pals used one in “The Red-Headed League,” hiding in a bank vault and waiting for the tunneling thieves.
While candle-powered lanterns are mostly just for decoration these days, kerosene and battery ones are still an important part of the emergency kit for many people. Some of these even have a dark option…though most of us probably won’t use them for catching criminals in the basement. We hope!
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the comments.
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