A traditional oil lamp

Traditional oil lamp with a Christian symbol

An oil lamp is a lamp used for lighting by burning oil. Usually, it produces a flame by burning olive oil, or another vegetable oil, or whale oil during the 1700s and 1800s. They burned cleaner, with less smoke, than candles and other sources of light before electricity.

The lamps were usually made of pottery or metal or glass. An old story in the 1001 Nights has Aladdin cleaning (rubbing the lamp) and making a Genie appear.