Energy · c. 17,000 years ago

Oil lamp

Burning animal fat in a stone cup gives portable, controllable light.

Carved sandstone lamps that burned animal fat have been found at Lascaux, dating to roughly 17,000 to 15,000 years ago. Lamps extended working hours and let people work deep inside caves. Fuel later shifted to olive oil, whale oil and finally kerosene.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

Control of fire 1M years ago

What it led to 1

Kerosene 1846

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Efficacy of selected lighting devices Latest: 303 lumens per watt (2014) Source: Nordhaus 1996, Do Real-Output and Real-Wage Measures Capture Reality? The History of Lighting Suggests Not, Table 1.3; Semiconductor Today, 26 Mar 2014: Cree breaks 300 lm/W

Price of light in the UK Latest: 2.15 £ (2000) per million lumen-hours (2023) Source: Our World in Data